PC Data Output Rapidly Exceeds Storage Ability

The exponential growth of data volume stored in computers has rang alarm bells to individuals, companies and governments, with the volume of newly generated data growing faster than the collective capacity of new storage devices.

IT industry sources said Sunday that the volume of digital data humanity has accumulated through this year is projected to exceed 1 zetta byte, or equal to one trillion gigabytes. One zetta is one multiplied by 21 digits.

The volume of data in Korea has also snowballed. The global IT company EMC said the country had 1,994 peta byte (peta byte equals 1 million giga bite) worth of data in 2005, but 6,586 PB in 2008, and 15,791 PB this year, an eight-fold jump in just five years.

The collective production of newly manufactured storage devices, including computer hard drives, USBs and portable hard drives, have failed to store all new data since 2008. Companies and individuals delete outdated information in a storage shortage, but the growth pace of digital data volume has exceeded that of the production volume of storage devices.

EMC general manager Heo Joo said, “We live in an era when both companies and individuals need to trim data volume to be able to manage data.”

sublime@donga.com