{"id":5071,"date":"2014-03-18T11:05:25","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T18:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=5071"},"modified":"2025-12-11T11:29:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:29:35","slug":"100-petabytes-of-cloud-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/100-petabytes-of-cloud-data\/","title":{"rendered":"100 Petabytes of Cloud Data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/blog-100-petabytes.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-caWRiwFj\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5079\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/blog-100-petabytes.jpg\" alt=\"blog-100-petabytes\" width=\"560\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/blog-100-petabytes.jpg 560w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/blog-100-petabytes-300x176.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"bzdropcap\">Wow. Backblaze is now storing 100 petabytes of customer data in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/cloud-storage\">cloud storage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>100 petabytes is a hard number to wrap our heads around, so&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>How much data is 100 petabytes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>100 petabytes<br \/>\n100,000 terabytes<br \/>\n100,000,000 gigabytes<br \/>\n100,000,000,000 megabytes<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here are a few comparisons to help contextualize <a href=\"\/blog\/petabytes-on-a-budget-10-years-and-counting\/\">100 petabytes<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One quarter as much data as Facebook stores today for its over one billion users.<\/li>\n<li>11,415 years of HD video watched 24&#215;7 could be stored.<\/li>\n<li>$51,600,000 spent annually to store this much data on Amazon S3.<\/li>\n<li>3 billion songs stored, or all of the songs iTunes has 1,270 times over.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All of this data is stored on Backblaze&#8217;s custom built and open-sourced <a title=\"Storage Pods\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/180tb-of-good-vibrations-storage-pod-3-0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Storage Pods<\/a>, filled with approximately 30,000 <a href=\"\/blog\/life-and-times-of-a-backblaze-hard-drive\/\">hard drives<\/a> (many of which were &#8220;<a title=\"drive farming\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze_drive_farming\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">farmed<\/a>&#8221; and from which we analyzed &#8220;<a title=\"which hard drive should i buy?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">which hard drive you should buy<\/a>&#8220;), and all to provide unlimited <a title=\"online backup\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">online backup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s also crazy is that in January 2011, Backblaze had just <a title=\"10 petabytes\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/10-petabytes-visualized\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">10 petabytes<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>It took two and a half years to get from zero to <a href=\"\/blog\/10-petabytes-visualized\/\">10 petabytes<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>It took three and a half years to get from 10 petabytes to 100 petabytes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-caWRiwFj\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5119\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2.jpg\" alt=\"infographic-100-petabytes2\" width=\"560\" height=\"2300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2.jpg 560w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2-73x300.jpg 73w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2-249x1024.jpg 249w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2-374x1536.jpg 374w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/infographic-100-petabytes2-499x2048.jpg 499w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Wondering where these comparisons came from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>June 2013, Facebook <a title=\"Facebook 250 petabytes\" href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2013\/06\/06\/facebook-unveils-presto-engine-for-querying-250-pb-data-warehouse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a> it stored 250 petabytes of data and was adding 15 petabytes per month. 10 months have passed, so Facebook should be storing:<br \/>\n250 petabytes + (15 petabytes\/month * 10 months) = 400 petabytes.<\/li>\n<li>HD takes up about one gigabyte per video-hour:<br \/>\n100 petabytes is 100,000,000 gigabytes, or 100,000,000 hours = 11,415 years.<\/li>\n<li>In Northern California, Amazon S3 is <a title=\"Amazon S3 pricing\" href=\"http:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/s3\/pricing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">priced<\/a> at $0.094\/GB\/month to start:<br \/>\n100,000,000 gigabytes * $0.094\/GB\/month * 12 months = $112,800,000\/year.<br \/>\nHowever, as you store more data, S3 gets cheaper and other regions cost less. Picking the lowest cost region and the lowest cost tier of pricing, we get:<br \/>\n100,000,000 gigabytes * $0.043\/GB\/month * 12 = $51,600,000\/year.<\/li>\n<li>An average song takes up three megabytes, resulting in 33 billion songs fitting into 100 petabytes. iTunes has <a title=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ITunes_Store\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ITunes_Store\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">26 million songs available<\/a>, or:<br \/>\n1\/1270<sup>th<\/sup> of the number that can fit in Backblaze&#8217;s current cloud storage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wow. Backblaze is now storing 100 petabytes of customer data in our cloud storage. 100 petabytes is a hard number to wrap our heads around, so&#8230; How much data is 100 petabytes? 100 petabytes 100,000 terabytes 100,000,000 gigabytes 100,000,000,000 megabytes Here are a few comparisons to help contextualize 100 petabytes: One quarter as much data&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/100-petabytes-of-cloud-data\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">100 Petabytes of Cloud Data<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,23],"tags":[468],"class_list":["post-5071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-storage","category-storage-pod","tag-b2cloud","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What is a Terabyte? 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Gleb has served as a member of our board of directors since 2009 and as chairperson since January 2021. Prior to Backblaze, Gleb was the senior director of product management at SonicWall and the vice president of products at MailFrontier, which was acquired by SonicWall. Before that, he served in a senior position at Kendara, which was acquired by Excite@Home, and previously founded and successfully exited two other startup companies.","url":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/author\/gleb\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/blog-100-petabytes.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}