1 petabyte
1 PBData · definition
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000. KiB, MiB and GiB use powers of 1,024. The content of a file depends on encoding and compression.
Data & storage
Just how much data is 1 petabyte?
Archives
1 PB
BYTES OF DATA
1 petabyte
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000.
1 PBData
0
A petabyte archive
A petabyte archive is a digital storage system designed to retain very large collections of data for long-term access.
1 PBData
0
Bar length represents bytes. The physical sizes of devices are schematic; encoding and compression affect file sizes.
A little perspective
1 petabyte is approximately equal to the data size of a petabyte archive.
Measurements, assumptions & sources +
1 petabyte
Data: 1 PB; definition.
Decimal kB, MB and GB use powers of 1,000. KiB, MiB and GiB use powers of 1,024. The content of a file depends on encoding and compression.
A petabyte archive
Data: 1 PB; example.
A defined 1 PB archive before replication or redundancy overhead.
Defined examples — our methodology
The marked data is calibrated. Unmeasured illustration details are representative.
Measurement details
Why these numbers?
Compare 1 petabyte with the data size of a petabyte archive. The notes below explain how each value was chosen.
A petabyte archive
1 PBData · example
A defined 1 PB archive before replication or redundancy overhead.
- Comparing
- Data ↔ Data
- Relative size
- 1 petabyte is approximately equal to the data size of a petabyte archive.
How to read the visual
The diagram uses the recorded measurements. Details outside the marked spans do not set the scale.
- The data size of a petabyte archive: This is an illustrative comparison value, not a claim that every example is the same.
Data size depends on encoding and compression; decimal GB and binary GiB are different units.
1 × 10¹⁵ Bbytes
1,000,000 GBgigabytes
931,320 GiBgibibytes
1,000 TBterabytes
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