Welcome to the Zettabyte Era

2016 has been declared "The Year Of The Zettabyte" based on the fact that by the close of the year annual global IP traffic will pass the zettabyte threshold - it will reach about 1.3 ZB, actually.

But what is a zettabyte? A zettabyte is ten to the 21st power, which can be written as a one followed by twenty-one zeros: 

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

So, what does that mean in terms of data?

Perhaps the infographic by Cisco below, taken from this 2011 article explains it better than words can:

Streaming the entire Netflix catalog 3,177 times. Wow!

So one thing is clear: a zettabyte represents a lot of data usage, and even more amazingly, this usage is predicted to double by 2019.

So why am I telling you this? The rise of the zettabyte reminds us that with such a huge amount of Internet traffic comes the challenge to turn unstructured data into meaningful information. It is imperative that citizens of the world be able to recognise and select credible material, master effective research skills, and know how to cite sources. These skills will help you after you leave school, long after the zettabyte becomes the yottabyte, and beyond. 

Here are some helpful guides on the Library pages:

Research Guide 

Senior Sceondary - Essay Writing

Citation Tools

Or drop by the library and speak to a real, live Librarian. We may be still trying to get our heads around the zettabyte, but we can help in the here and now!