The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/116777
Back then, hard drives were measured in megabytes. Next came gigabytes, and now computers can come with terabyte hard drives. For external hard drives, one to two terabytes are usually the standard. USB flash drives that are 32GB and 64GB are still common for everyday use, but a 32MB USB flash drive used to be reserved for big data storage. Storage devices and capacities are trying to keep up with the astounding growth rate of digital information, and these increases will only continue. Practically everything we do now generates some type of data. Even our cars and homes have tiny sensors and touch screens that you can communicate with using a digital device. Voicemail is a great example of several sources for the same data. We can check our IP voicemail messages by listening to them on our phones, by reading them in the email messages we receive telling us we missed a call and by listening when we click links to the voicemail messages in the email messages. If you have a digital device, chances are you can post a Facebook message, watch YouTube videos, send an email message or Tweet something. Almost anywhere in the world you travel, everywhere you look, someone is typing, talking, texting or surfing the Internet. Every technology-related action is creating more data. THE PAST, PRESENT AND PREDICTED FUTURE OF DATA GROWTH According to Pew Research Center and "A Comprehensive List of Big Data Statistics" on Wikibon, business data alone doubles worldwide every 1.2 years. There are many reasons for this explosion in data growth, but some common ones are: • Data protection, such as backups, mirroring and disaster recovery • Business acquisitions and the growth of new businesses • New and advancing technologies, such as social networking and mobile computing Even documents are now multimedia-capable and support user interaction, which means the creation of more data. When you get a good grasp on the amount of data created by tools we use every day, it makes you take a step back and reassess the amount of data being created within your own organization. Consider the following facts (also provided by Pew and Wikibon): • In 2008, Google was processing 20,000 terabytes of data each day. SOURCE: WIKIBON • Wal-Mart handles over one million customer transactions every hour, which get imported into databases estimated to contain more than 2.5 petabytes of data. • Over 550 new websites are created every minute. • Almost 100 terabytes of data are uploaded to Facebook each day. • YouTube users upload an average of 48 hours of new video every minute. Peer to Peer 47