Bigger than a breadbox, for sure

[xoxoxoBruce]

This article tells how big is "So Big" OK, not really but it does tell how big the digital info pile is.

Add it all up and IDC determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes -- 161 exabytes -- of digital information last year.
That's like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the sun. Or you might think of it as 3 million times the information in all the books ever written, according to IDC. You'd need more than 2 billion of the most capacious iPods on the market to get 161 exabytes.
The previous best estimate came from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who totaled the globe's information production at 5 exabytes in 2003. One of the sponsors of that report, data-storage company EMC Corp., commissioned IDC's new look.

Holy cow, think of how big it would be if I saved all my cyber sex rejections.

Considering that Berkeley's 2003 figure of 5 exabytes already was enormous -- it was said at the time to be 37,000 Libraries of Congress -- why does it matter how much more enormous the number is now?
For one thing, said IDC analyst John Gantz, it's important to understand the factors behind the information explosion.
Some of it is everyday stuff in this YouTube age -- IDC estimates that by 2010, about 70 percent of the world's digital data will be created by individuals. For corporations, information is inflating from such disparate causes as surveillance cameras and data-retention regulations.
Perhaps most noteworthy is that the supply of data technically outstrips the supply of places to put it.
IDC estimates that the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes (closing in on 1 zettabyte) in 2010.

Zettabyte? Aw, c'mon....you're just making these names up, right?

That's because not everything gets warehoused. Not only do e-mails get deleted, but some digital signals are not made to linger, like the contents of phone calls. (Although, who's to say those conversations don't get catalogued someplace, perhaps the National Security Agency? The IDC researchers assumed the answer was no. "I don't want men in black coming to look for me," Gantz joked.)

At least he thought he was joking.
I guess this explains where Google is heading... and why.