Whole lot of data goin’ on

IDC confirmed this week what anyone who’s ever explored the Internet knew already: there’s a big butt-load of data out there and it’s getting bigger every hour. According to an IDC study this week our digital universe equals approximately three million times the information in all the books ever written – or the equivalent of 12 stacks of books, each extending more than 93 million miles from the earth to the sun. According to IDC, the amount of information created and copied in 2010 will surge more than six fold to 988 exabytes, a compound annual growth rate of 57%. Add it all up and IDC determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes – 161 exabytes – of digital information last year, IDC says. The report, The Expanding Digital Universe: A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010, sponsored by EMC notes that the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. The report goes on to say while nearly 70% of the digital universe will be generated by individuals by 2010, organizations will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85% of the information. The IDC numbers dwarf a UC Berkley study in 2003 that estimated all original content created to be 5 exabytes, which even included space for analog sources from office memos to radio broadcasts, if put into a digital format.