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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?"

17 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 troutinator · · Score: 5, Informative

      According the Library of Congress' website they have approximately 32 million books. A bit of googling turned up that an average book weight about 12 ounces. So, 32 million * 12 ounces = 10,886,216.9 kilograms

    2. Re:library of congress by SoupGuru · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
    3. Re:library of congress by camperdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A year is two AU wide, about 300 million km.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    4. 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=

    5. 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
  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. MicroSD by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...weighs something like 300mg/card. That's 48GB/gram, or a bit over 20g/TB, or 20Kg/PB.

  4. 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?)

  5. About 2 Kilos by BBCWatcher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nobody knows exactly how much data the average human brain can hold, but one estimate is 500 to 1000 TB. If the average adult human brain weighs about 1.3 or 1.4 Kilos, then "about 2 Kilos" would hold 1 Petabyte.

  6. Re:It depends.. by IHawkMike · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's an interesting discussion on the topic ;)

  7. Re:Cloud computing-Clouds in Elephant Units by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Informative

    Clouds are as light as air!

    A common misconception, and just saying it on Slashdot doesn't make it true. Clouds weigh more than elephants - much more. In fact, you can learn the weight of clouds in elephant units here.

    Not only that, but clouds are usually darker than the air around them.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  8. Already answered by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This subject has already been discussed.

  9. Try using Micro SD cards instead by kroyd · · Score: 5, Insightful
    With 32gb cards weighting 0.5 grams one terabyte should require 32 cards, or 16 grams. 1024 terabytes should then weight 16384 grams, or a bit more than 16kg.

    I don't think there is a storage media with higher density available commercially right now - and probably not until the 64GB microsd cards becomes available.

  10. Re:Minimum mass of a Petabyte by monopole · · Score: 5, Informative

    That was my dissertation topic, conventional systems require ~kT per bit (k is the Boltzmann constant = 1.3806503 Ã-- 10-23 m2 kg s-2 K-1 and T is the temperature of the gate in Kelvin) for each read. Quantum systems can access well below that by various trickery (single photon optical computers can reduce this by a thousandfold). In theory a individual photon can hold huge amounts of data in it's state vector before collapse. The trick is making a measurement on enough of these photons to extract the info you need while overcoming shot noise.

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

    and all of this sits upon a tortoise? Amazing!

  12. 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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