From bites to bytes - Last year, manufacturers shipped 5.1 exabytes of storage devices. An exabyte is a quintillion bytes, or a thousand trillion. Below are some more interesting tidbits about exabytes and the internet.
* In 2004, global monthly Internet traffic passed 1 exabyte for the first time and six years later, it is estimated at 21 exabytes per month, or 252 exabytes per year.
* Mobile data traffic is growing faster than non-mobile traffic, has tripled each year for the past three years, and is projected to rise another 26-fold to about 75 exabytes per year by 2015. (The top 1 percent of mobile data subscribers generate over 20 percent of mobile data traffic,)
* Non-mobile internet traffic has averaged 151% growth each year since 1997.
* By 2013, annual global internet traffic will reach two-thirds of a zettabyte or 667 exabytes.
* Global mobile data traffic will reach over two exabytes per month by 2013.
* It is estimated that there was 988 exabytes of data created last year, 2010. That is over 18 million times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written.