How big is the internet, in files you understand?
The internet’s numbers are meaningless until they are divided by something you own. Here is the division.
4.2% of English Wikipedia text
1 GB is bigger than 0 of the 6 references on this page.
Reference figures are measurements and are rounded; the unit conversion behind them is exact.
| Reference | Size | Yours ÷ theirs | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Wikipedia text | 24 GB | 1/24 | |
| a laptop SSD | 1,000 GB | 1/1,000 | |
| the Library of Congress, digitised text | 15,000 GB | 1/15,000 | A widely quoted estimate |
| Netflix’s entire catalogue | 1,000,000 GB | 1/1,000,000 | Roughly, at streaming bitrates |
| daily global internet traffic | 5,000,000,000 GB | 1/5,000,000,000 | |
| yearly global data created | 150,000,000,000,000 GB | 1/150,000,000,000,000 | About 150 zettabytes |
Worth knowing
- The world now creates roughly 150 zettabytes of data a year. A zettabyte is a billion terabytes.
- Almost none of it is stored: most is transient sensor and video data that is analysed and discarded.
Frequently asked
How big is the internet?
There is no single answer. Stored data is estimated in the low hundreds of zettabytes; the indexed web is a few hundred petabytes of text, which is a rounding error next to video.
What comes after a terabyte?
Petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte, and since 2022 ronnabyte and quettabyte — each a thousand times the last.