From Bits to Yottabytes: Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Data Measurements

We’ve all heard of bytes, kilobytes, and megabytes for decades. The last couple of decades has put “gigabytes” into our vocabulary, while “terabytes” are become more commonly used lately.

What about a petabyte? Zettabyte? It seems that as our understanding of data and our ability to quantify it grows, so too do the weird names that refer to them. If you ever need to remember a Yottabyte, just think “lots of bytes.”

This Infographic by our friends at Focus puts all of the (currently) useless knowledge of super-data-measurements into perspective. We say “currently” because while we may not be able to imagine needing an exabyte hard drive now, the same could have been said about the gigabyte just a decade ago.

Click to enlarge.