HOW BIG IS THE INTERNET?

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In the 1980s, one of the most common methods for storage of information was a floppy disk. Most popular variant had 1.44MB of Storage.
It was considered revolutionary at that point. As the internet grew the data creation and storage grew at mind bending rates.
To where the extent of internet is extremely hard to comprehend
Before moving on to the size of internet, first we need to understand the units of storage

The smallest unit of data storage is a bit, which is 0 or 1
8 bits constitute a byte
1024 bytes make up kilobyte
1024 kilobytes form up a megabyte
1024 megabytes make up a gigabyte
1024 gigabytes make up a terabytes

Most of us are well aware of what a megabyte or terabyte means
Now comes the interesting ones
1024 terabytes make up a petabyte
1024 petabytes make up an exabyte
And 1024 petabytes makes up a zettabyte
that’s 1,125,899,910,000,000 megabytes

So zettabyte is the unit we will talk about when discussing the size of internet
4.6 billion people or almost 2/3rd population of the world use the internet
In every single minute we have
4.2 million searches on google
480 000 tweets
200 Million emails and
4.7 million video views on YouTube
Now imagine how much data it generates every hour, every day, every month and every year

In 2017 there was about 2.7 zettabytes of data on the internet
4.4 zettabytes in 2019
And in 2020 we expect it to reach 44zettabytes
And by 2025 it will be 175 zettabytes

Ok, so the numbers look pretty big, but what does it exactly mean
If you store 175 zettabytes of data on a stack of DVDs, it can circle the earth 222 times
If you tried to download that much data on current average internet speed, it will take you 1.8 billion years
Even if every person on the planet joined you, it will still take 81 years to download that much information

So where does all this material rest, where are the photos you upload to Instagram go

Such large information requires massive data centres to store it.
Data centres are scattered all over the world
A data centre is a quite intriguing place
It comprises numerous servers, which are like your computer, but more powerful
These servers contain hard drives that stores the information, they are connected by a web of networking equipments.
Data centres require massive power to operate and they need to be connected to back up generators and uninterruptible power supplies to ensure that they are available 24/7
They also need power for cooling systems, as you might imagine that these centres generate a lot of heat and need air conditioning to function properly

And the whole data centre is enclosed in a secure building which should not only shield it from terrible weather, but likewise ensure the data security
and that’s why very few people are allowed to enter the building

While using internet and browsing through your feed, it’s really hard to imagine the gigantic size of the web and the intricate mechanism that makes the whole thing work
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