To Keep Track of World's Data, You'll Need More Than a Yottabyte (wsj.com) 81
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 10 or 15 years, Dr. Brown, who is head of metrology at the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K., anticipates the amount of computerized data worldwide will exceed 1 yottabyte in size, and without expanding the list of prefixes, there will be no way to talk about the next great chunk of numbers. Even worse, dilettantes could fill the void by popularizing glib prefixes such as bronto or hella -- terms that have already won fans. Without professional intervention, Dr. Brown fears, the next numerical prefix could become the Boaty McBoatface of weights and measures.
[...] For the record, there is an argument to be made for adopting a prefix like bronto: giga and tera are based on the Greek words for "giant" and "monstrous." Why not make bronto, named for the brontosaurus, official, perhaps along with tyranno, stego, colosso or even yeti? Dr. Brown is sympathetic to the argument but unconvinced. Instead, he proposes four prefixes that adhere to recent naming conventions [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source was not available.]: ronna and quecca for octillion (27 zeros) and nonillion (30 zeros), along with ronto and quecto for their fractional counterparts, octillionth and nonillionth. Like the latest sanctioned prefixes, Dr. Brown's proposals are loosely related to Latin and Greek words for numbers (in this case, nine and 10). And like most of the prefixes, his suggestions end in "a" or "o." But the process of expanding, or even amending, the official measurements is lengthy.
[...] For the record, there is an argument to be made for adopting a prefix like bronto: giga and tera are based on the Greek words for "giant" and "monstrous." Why not make bronto, named for the brontosaurus, official, perhaps along with tyranno, stego, colosso or even yeti? Dr. Brown is sympathetic to the argument but unconvinced. Instead, he proposes four prefixes that adhere to recent naming conventions [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source was not available.]: ronna and quecca for octillion (27 zeros) and nonillion (30 zeros), along with ronto and quecto for their fractional counterparts, octillionth and nonillionth. Like the latest sanctioned prefixes, Dr. Brown's proposals are loosely related to Latin and Greek words for numbers (in this case, nine and 10). And like most of the prefixes, his suggestions end in "a" or "o." But the process of expanding, or even amending, the official measurements is lengthy.
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A Future, Back To The, reference this is, no?
- Yotta
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I'm a wingless being, you insensitive clod!
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Gobble gobble [youtube.com]
Somewhat arbitrary what we call data (Score:3)
Re:Somewhat arbitrary what we call data (Score:5, Funny)
It has always seemed a bit arbitrary to label something as "the world's data".
A yottabyte is 1e24. That is more than 100 terabytes per human.
You could always add the history of every cache on every processor on the planet to your definition of "data" and have a much larger number.
640 yottabytes ought to be enough for anyone.
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I know, right? I've been backing up /dev/random for years now, and I'm not sure when I'll be done. I think part of the problem is running the checksum, but I'm not sure.
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Whats than in terms of (Score:2)
Yottabyte? (Score:1)
Yottabyte? That's a lotta byte!
Fake need? (Score:3)
Why make a new prefix for each power of ten unless (and until) it really is used often? Just make a generic term, such as "24th order of magnitude". In fact, I believe that's already used. We can even have a shorthand: "24 oom bytes". To remember it, think of a cow mooing in reverse.
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Here ya go... [telegraph.co.uk]
Well, no heat, but wait until summer.
Re:Fake need? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not.
they're making new prefixes for every third power of 10.
If a consensus isn't reached relatively soon, the whole "billion" thing will happen again. it's been defined as both 10 to the 9th power and 12th power.
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Wrong wrong wrong.
A yottabyte is 2^80 bytes. It's always every 10th power of 2. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.
1000^8 is only 0.827 YB.
Here's my list (Score:2)
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StuffShirtBytes (Score:1)
What's wrong with that? The rejection of "Boaty McBoatface" was a stuffed-shirt reaction. Going with that name could have helped increase funding even via increased awareness.
BoatyBytes, McFaceBytes, sounds fine with me. The existing names are already silly, or at least magnets for jokes.
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Or "Trilo": TriloBytes.
Re:Horseshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, other than using powers of 1,024 (or powers of 1,000 for the pedantic types who are unfamiliar with base 2.)
I'm familiar with base 2. So I know that hard drives typically allocate blocks of size 2^9 or 2^12, and I know that there is nothing else in a hard drive related to powers of two.
Which means that insisting on using powers of 1024 notation is like demanding that we count everything related to the NBA in base 5, since basketball teams have 5 members.
(Actually, power-of-1024 notation is even worse than that, since it uses a *mixture* of various mutually incompatible 1024 powers combined with decimal fractions, all of which makes Roman Numerals look practical by comparison.)
Idiotic obsession with... (Score:1, Insightful)
... ancient languages.
When we define the words and terms that are yet undefined, we can start fresh. We don't need to be chained to the past. And why not have numbers that sound cool to say that we can associate with things people know about it? This cult of ancient and dead languages is pretty disturbing. Since the naming convention is based on latin words for numbers is arbitrary in and of itself.
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May I suggest... (Score:2)
In honour of the great profit... Eric Cartman.
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> In honour of the great profit...
You loose!
Unless I did it just to mess with people.
Weighing a planet, one milligram at a time. (Score:2)
There's a reason we created terms like "ton" to describe considerable weight. Childrens electronic toys can hold multiple Libraries of Congress these days, so let's stop pretending that "mega-ultra-giga-bazillion" is going to impress anyone.
Hell, if we're gonna get stupid about this, then why not measure each individual bit? I'm sure Mathy McMathface can get piss drunk on new number names with an 8x power factor.
Yes, there's a lot of data in the world. We get it. Now perhaps we can grow up and create a
SI unit? (Score:2)
Byte my shiny metal exponents (Score:4, Interesting)
The names must apply to all forms of measures and metrics.
But, if the Bureau of Geeks and Nerds has its say, the names will be:
whata-byte
abigga-byte
onthisa-byte
myassa-byte
heybitchdont-byte
On the serious side, the current system requires us to remember three names or prefixes for each triad (each 10^3).
For example:
one-million or one-millionth, versus one mega-meter versus one micro-meter. Million-mega-micro-.
one-thousand or one-thousandth, versus one kilo-liter or one milli-liter. Thousand-kilo-milli-.
For Europeans and others speaking Latin or Romance languages, the cardinal number names may be closer to the multiplier-divider prefixes, but it is still a cumbersome system.
For the higher order new numbers, why not make them with a uniform naming convention.
For instance, the common root name, then tillo- and tetto-.
Examples:
10^27 = one octillion trees, one octillo-meter, one octetto-meter.
10^30 = one nonillion beans, one nonillo-newton, one nonetto-joule.
10^39 = one dodecillion electrons, one dodecillo-farad, one dodecetto-ohm.
Instead of having unique initials as abbreviations, such MB, mm, cm, km, Gb, etc., try this, using "D" for "decade":
My new computer has 4 of 10^27 byte chips = 4-D27B of memory.
The distance to so and so galaxy is one nonillion meters away, or D30m away.
Or, something like that.
It just seems too cumbersome to remember too many contrived names and disparate prefixes for ever bigger numbers that no one can really comprehend or has the time to recall in the middle of a sentence that is meant to be fluent.
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My new computer has 4 of 10^27 byte chips = 4-D27B of memory.
Computer memory is always powers of 2 though. Everything is built around that, such as the way the MMU works, and changing to powers of 10 would create huge complexity in the circuits for no benefit.
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2^10 = 1KiB
2^20 = 1MiB
2^30 = 1GiB
2^40 = 1TiB
2^50 = 1PiB
2^60 = 1EiB
2^70 = 1ZiB
2^80 = 1YiB
now we add...
2^90 = 1NiB (ninobyte)
2^100 = 1DiB (decabyte)
2^110 = 1LiB (levenbyte)
2^120 = 1WiB (tWelvebyte)
2^130 = 1BiB (because B looks like 13 in the right font/print)
or just stop using prefixes and go full maths on it. e.g. "there are 3.250 x 2^98 bytes of storage"
Doctor Brown? Doctor EMMET Brown? (Score:1)
1.21 jiggawatts, at 88 mph.
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Great Scott! This is heavy. :P
But, he USES existing prefixes! (Score:2)
What's wrong with Octilabyte and Nonilabyte?
Besides nothing.
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They make sense. That's what's wrong. If we don't over complicate the hell out of it then people might be able to understand it.
Sad, but true.
Should have spelled it (Score:2)
I vote for ... (Score:2)
kaijubytes ... because they do!