How Much Information?

TitleHow Much Information?
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2000
AuthorsLyman, P., & Varian H. R.
JournalJournal of Electronic Publishing
Volume6
Issue2
Date Published2000///
Keywordsjy_data_universe
Abstract

The world produces between one and two exabytes of unique information per year, which is roughly 250 megabytes for every man, woman, and child on earth. An exabyte is a billion gigabytes, or 1018 bytes. Printed documents of all kinds comprise only .003% of the total. Magnetic storage is by far the largest medium for storing information and is the most rapidly growing with shipped hard drive capacity doubling every year. Magnetic storage is rapidly becoming the universal medium for information storage.

Gap Area Study Type:

High-level Gap Areas:

Measurement Gap Areas:

Metrics Gap Areas:

Purpose: 
Investigated amount of new information created each year in the US and world in 1999
Method: 
Estimated size based on research into the production of data stored on four storage media: print, film, magnetic, optical