No offense, but I think that’s not a very good idea. One chance hit from an asteroid (or man-made satellite) and it would all be wiped out. Not terribly safe.

No, it’s *better* that data storage is decentralized as it is now. Having multiple copies distributed across multiple servers around the world helps to ensure that data is never lost by fire, flood, earthquake, or other such disasters, because somewhere on earth, there’s always a spare.

That said, I also like to have at least one copy of my data *physically* close by, on a hard drive or flash drive that I personally own, so I know that no one can ever limit my access to my data, and I needn’t worry if my internet connection goes down (although I do still have to worry about the electricity staying on, but that goes off for me far less frequently than my internet).

I think humanity’s current system of data storage, as I described it, is quite good, and it will continue to be good well into the conceivable future.

I do agree with Baldwin; using alternative terminology certainly would be more efficient! I don’t believe we would ever be past having to register at times bits & bytes, however. As for the limit being “yotta-”, I’m fairly certain there’s a chance that as we approach zettabytes at least another number beyond that will be denoted.

Now-a-Days $95 =]

But I don’t think that the current system will be in use for that much longer. The physical limitations of actually reading all that data quick enough are far too unwieldy.

I’m expecting that in the next 20 years or so most standard hdd’s will be along the 100 terabyte market but made out of much smaller hdd’s striped together like standard raid set-ups today but on a much smaller and much more integral level. Therefore the limitations on spindle-speed as stated above would be shared equally.

And in 50 years time I expect to see (hopefully) the complete removal of any need for storage data whatsoever….just think what that means….would there be a central mainframe where all data is stored and accessible from anywhere and any place? Would the main storage be in outer space?

All I know is that whatever the direction this industry is going in, there is fundamental change on the way…they have already started hitting walls with graphics and gpu capabilities…

Gotta wonder about that. The way future development tends to come at us faster and larger than we expect, if we can see Zettabytes becoming reachable in the near future, even larger numbers can’t be far behind. And SI prefixes only go up to yotta (1000 zetta).

But then, we are still measuring data based on bits and bytes. That’s essentially like measuring the universe in Angstroms when we need the equivalent of a lightyear or parsec. I know of an old term, “ana”, which means a collection of works. Stretching that to equate with “library”, maybe we ought to adopt it as a new unit. Say, 1 Ana = 1 Terabyte of data. Something like that ought to be less wieldy than the current system.

Yo, whoever runs the SI system — get on it! ;)

Nice Article :)

OK, I’ll try to narrow the question a bit.

What records should expecting parents-to-be plan to keep on
their child’s HD diary?
– Apgar score? height,weight, 3d MRI? other birth records?
– all formal assessments
* physical, cognitive, etc?
– all performances?
(recall the broadcast clips of Sammy Davis Jr, Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, from before age 10)
– all publications? (i.e. school work)

Then, presuming there’s sufficient value to justify creating such a digital scrapbook … HOW could such a scrapbook best be used?
– to scan the totality of one’s own writings for usage patterns? (like Amazon’s “key phrases”)
– to score ones own work for “sophistication”, using something like MS-Word’s “Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level” … to track that score over time … to give feedback on educational efforts

… and no, I would not be comfortable leaving that much on a Google server.