Zettabyte
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| Quantities of bytes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI prefixes | Binary prefixes | |||
| Name (Symbol) | Standard SI | Alternate Use | Name (Symbol) | Value |
| kilobyte (kB) | 103 | 210 | kibibyte (KiB) | 210 |
| megabyte (MB) | 106 | 220 | mebibyte (MiB) | 220 |
| gigabyte (GB) | 109 | 230 | gibibyte (GiB) | 230 |
| terabyte (TB) | 1012 | 240 | tebibyte (TiB) | 240 |
| petabyte (PB) | 1015 | 250 | pebibyte (PiB) | 250 |
| exabyte (EB) | 1018 | 260 | exbibyte (EiB) | 260 |
| zettabyte (ZB) | 1021 | 270 | zebibyte (ZiB) | 270 |
| yottabyte (YB) | 1024 | 280 | yobibyte (YiB) | 280 |
A zettabyte (derived from the SI prefix zetta-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one sextillion (one long scale trilliard) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated ZB. At this time, no computer has one zettabyte of storage. Because of a traditional inconsistency, "zettabytes" are often intended to mean zebibytes in common speech. This usage is not recommended as it creates confusion (see below) and has been facing increasing opposition by many technical standards and legal entities in the past few years.
[edit] Size
Because of irregularities in the definition and usage of terms for byte multiples, the exact number can be either one of the following:
- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes — 10007, or 1021.
- 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes — 10247, or 270.
Because of these irregularities, the term "zebibyte" has been proposed as an unambiguous reference to the latter value. (See binary prefixes.)
The Z in Sun's ZFS file system originally stood for zettabyte.
