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How Heavy Is a Petabyte?

Posted by timothy on from the but-electrons-don't-weigh-anything dept.

Jon Morgan writes "Whilst heaving around numerous data storage systems to sell (they weigh A LOT!), we got to wondering: How heavy is a Petabyte of data storage? Our best guess is 365KG, which is 6 million times lighter than in 1980! But is there a lighter way to store a Petabyte?"

21 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. library of congress by SoupGuru · · Score: 5, Funny

    How heavy is a Library of Congress?

    --
    What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
    1. Re:library of congress by weirdcrashingnoises · · Score: 3, Funny

      according to some website the LOC holds aprox. 10 terabytes worth of information.

      which means that 102.4 LOC's would equal 1 petabyte.

      10,886,216.9 * 102.4 = 1,114,748,610 kg

      or aprox 2,457,600,000 lbs.

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      sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
    2. Re:library of congress by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If we take a book to have approximately 7000 BTU per pound when incinerated (newsprint is about 7,500) then we get 437.5 BTU per ounce.

      So 1 LoC = 14,000,000,000 BTU or 14,770 gigajoules.

      Finally! A heat unit LoC equivalent!
      =Smidge=

    3. Re:library of congress by CarpetShark · · Score: 4, Funny

      See, this is why I love slashdot. Ask a silly question and more often than not you'll get an answer.

      And it's usually, "fuck off" ;)

    4. Re:library of congress by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Funny

      What if we want a silly answer?

      There's always dig.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    5. Re:library of congress by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Funny

      Which brings us right around to my solution for storing a petabyte. It only weighs a few pounds... on each end... of a very long distance. It involves three lasers with insanely precise tracking mirrors orbiting the sun at 0 degrees, 120 degrees, and 240 degrees around a circular orbit. This ensures that each laser can see both of the other lasers.

      Modulate the beam with the data. If we naively assume one bit per Hz, and approximate it at 10^17 bits per petabyte, and if we modulate the beam at 10 THz, the total distance around the triangle has to be about 2 * 10^9 miles, or a little over 20 AU, putting their orbit a bit inside the orbit of Jupiter. The problems of how to actually track an object so precisely and how to modulate a laser at 10 THz are left as exercises for the reader. :-D

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    6. Re:library of congress by rant64 · · Score: 3, Funny

      With that precise an answer, I think you might mean "exactly 32 million books" and an "average book weight of exactly 12 ounces". Personally, I think I'd just go with "11 million kilograms", unless you feel lucky. :-)

      No! No! No! We'll end up with horrific rounding errors when somebody else picks up the number and tries to convert it into a measurement of angular momentum.

      --
      MMO Vampire Role Playing
  2. Need conversion to units of Libraries of Congress by AcidPenguin9873 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What are these Petabytes of which you speak? America measures data in units of Libraries of Congress.

  3. Cloud computing by Sta7ic · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just stick the petabyte on the cloud! Clouds are as light as air!

    (why yes, I am from Marketing, why do you ask?)

  4. "But is there a lighter way to store a Petabyte?" by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sure. Store it in a WOM chip. They only weigh a few grams, hold literally unlimited data, and are really fast.

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    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  5. Re:Need conversion to units of Libraries of Congre by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 3, Funny

    And after you decompress it, you get 48 and a buttload of fragmented chains.

    --
    "Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
  6. Re:Work it out in your head by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Funny

    They probably want an error rate lower than 10%.

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    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  7. It depends.. by Qwell · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are you storing mostly 1s or mostly 0s? Everybody knows they don't weigh the same.

    --
    As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
    1. Re:It depends.. by IHawkMike · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here's an interesting discussion on the topic ;)

  8. Re:Theoretically quite close to zero ... by RajivSLK · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or you could just stick a mirror "out there". The light would quite conveniently come back at you. Or you could sneak around the other side of the universe and wait for the light...

  9. Re:How much does a "full" HDD weigh vs. an empty H by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, and BTW, when a person dies does the body weigh a tiny amount less after the sole leaves?

    Depends on the shoe they are wearing. On a boot, no, its a large amount, on sneakers, yes it might be a tiny amount.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  10. Already answered by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This subject has already been discussed.

  11. Re:Cloud computing-Clouds in Elephant Units by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 3, Funny

    In fact, every square meter of the world has 2 elephants of air on top of them.

    Tell that to my doctor the next time I stand on his scales.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  12. Re:Work it out in your head by nacturation · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, with the right RAID (Redundant Array of IDiots) scheme, the human brain could be harvested for perfect storage.

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  13. Re:Cloud computing-Clouds in Elephant Units by rjhubs · · Score: 5, Funny

    and all of this sits upon a tortoise? Amazing!

  14. Re:Cloud computing-Clouds in Elephant Units by cerberusss · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, not just one. It's tortoises all the way down, young man.

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    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?