Yottabyte
A yottabyte (YB) is a unit of digital information storage equal to one septillion bytes. A yottabyte is a theoretical measure, as there is currently no practical method to store or handle data on this scale.
Yottabyte vs. yobibyte Depending on the context, a yottabyte can refer to one of two different values:
Decimal (SI): One yottabyte is exactly \(10^{24}\) bytes, which is 1,000 zettabytes.
Binary (IEC): One yottabyte is approximately \(1.2089\times 10^{24}\) bytes, specifically \(2^{80}\) bytes. To avoid confusion, this measure is more accurately called a yobibyte (YiB), which equals 1,024 zebibytes.
Contextualizing the size of a yottabyte
A yottabyte represents an almost incomprehensibly large amount of data. To put its size into perspective:
Global data: As of 2020, the entire digital universe was estimated to be 44 zettabytes, a fraction of a single yottabyte.
Transfer speed: It would take billions of years to transfer a single yottabyte using a standard home internet connection.
Storage infrastructure: According to one estimate, storing a yottabyte of data would require a million data centers.
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