# How big would my hard drive have to be to store everything now on the Net? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 27, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841 "2002-08-27T22:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/1 "2002-08-27T22:42:02Z")
Well, the rate hard drive sizes have been increasing, you never know. But there’s a serious question there, just what is the size (approx) of everything on the Internet? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2002, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/2 "2002-08-27T22:57:44Z")
> [@](#): > > If we take into account all web-accessible information, such as web-connected databases, dynamic pages, intranet sites, etc., collectively known as “deep” Web, there are 550 billion web-connected documents, with an average page size of 14 kbytes, and 95% of this information is publicly accessible [2]. If we were to store this information in one place, we would need 7,500 terabytes of storage, which is 150 times more storage than we would need for the entire “surface” Web, even taking the highest estimate of 50 terabytes. 56% of this information is the actual content [HTML excluded], which gives us an estimate of 4,200 terabytes of high-quality data. [http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/internet.html](http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/internet.html) terabyte=1000 gigabytes there bouts. ---
**Author:** ![AmbushBug](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ambushbug/32/4600_2.png) [@AmbushBug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmbushBug)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/3 "2002-08-28T04:01:03Z")
Since the “Web” is only a small part of the “Net”, one could assume that all the data on every computer which is “hackable” is thus “on the 'Net”. So, add up the capacities of all the hard drives on all the computers on the Internet, and there you have it. 😃 One wonders why you ask - did your boss (visions of pointy-haired Dilbert boss) ask you to make him a local cached copy so he could surf faster? AmbushBug ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/4 "2002-08-28T04:14:17Z")
I think this is what Google is trying to do (Man, they must _go_ through some HDD storage). ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/5 "2002-08-28T04:24:47Z")
Only 7.5 exabytes? Sweet! Lessee, I’d need 46,875 120-gig hard drives to hold that all. At $133 apiece, that means… I can store the entire Internet locally for less than $6.3 million! Sweet! ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/6 "2002-08-28T04:26:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\* > [http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/internet.html](http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/internet.html) > > terabyte=1000 gigabytes there bouts. \*\* The information in that link is circa 1999 and is now three years out of date and given that the web has been growing by approximtley 100% + annually and given the amount of audio/video stuff currently available on the web I think the stated 14k per page average estimate is an absurdly small figure and that the 7500 terabytes projection to contain the current world wide web is off by at least an order of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/7 "2002-08-28T05:36:45Z")
[This](http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/) website gives a great history of the internet. All the way down the page, they give a few nice graphs on the growth of the internet. Every 1-2 years it’s been growing 1000%. Right now I’d estimate there to be at 40 million websites, 160 million hosts, and, well, a lot of internet. How much? I dunno. There are a lot of people on this site. Maybe we could all divide it all up into portions and each take a share to DL onto our computer. If it fits, we have an answer. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/8 "2002-08-28T15:12:53Z")
The “net” or the “web”? if you mean the “net” that means everything on Kazaa, FTP, HTTP, public access databases, telnet etc. I know that quite a few multi terabyte databases exist in corners of the web, stuff like climate reasarch with 30MB pictures and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/9 "2002-08-28T16:49:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shalmanese \* > \*\*The “net” or the “web”? > > \*\* I’m not sure I could explain the difference. I use the terms synonymously (probably in error). What _is_ the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/10 "2002-08-28T17:14:58Z")
The “web” means every document publicly accessible using HTTP. The “net” includes every computer physically connected to the internet, whether or not it is running a web server. For example, AIM and IRC are part of the net, but not part of the web (even though they are somewhat integrated) ---
**Author:** ![Wearia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Wearia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wearia)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/11 "2002-08-28T17:39:39Z")
Slight hijack, where are these 7,500 terabytes of info stored? If there a big supercomputer or something? If not where is it? If its nowhere then how are we storing information on it? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/12 "2002-08-28T18:41:44Z")
It’s not nowhere. It’s everywhere. My webpage, for instance, is stored on a web server down the hall, under the physics department sysadmin’s desk. This message board is stored on a server somewhere in the Chicago Reader’s offices in Chicago. Some things are stored on huge supercomputers, at NASA or the Department of Defense, or the National Weather Service, or any other place that has big computers. Some of it is stored at the offices of various regional ISPs. ---
**Author:** ![nth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nth)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-would-my-hard-drive-have-to-be-to-store-everything-now-on-the-net/125841/13 "2002-08-28T19:34:40Z")
hrm… technically, it is impossible to store all the bits of traffic on the net. You can get to 99% or better but not 100%. reason is that to retrieve the data to store it on your system will cause more data to be created and a never ending cycle. this is not really a problem when working in small networks, but not when it is so big. am I right?