# I need to back up the internet **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079 "2006-02-05T05:36:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/1 "2006-02-05T05:36:57Z")
I’ve got a new job, and my employer has assigned me to back up the internet. Just the parts that are publically accessible. I have 1gb backup media. How many media will I need? ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/2 "2006-02-05T05:40:19Z")
A warehouse full of media. And eleventeen lifetimes in which to perform your duties. Have fun. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/3 "2006-02-05T05:41:40Z")
Did you possibly mean Intranet or is your boss a mental case? ---
**Author:** ![Amp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Amp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amp)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/4 "2006-02-05T05:48:30Z")
Are they letting you back-up porn too? That is such a sweet job. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Doubt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@Stan\_Doubt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Doubt)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/5 "2006-02-05T06:12:32Z")
you might like to check out [this site](http://www.archive.org/web/web.php) . ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/6 "2006-02-05T06:17:39Z")
After you’re done backing up the Internet, you can [safely shut it down here](http://www.turnofftheinternet.com/) By the way, this is [the end of the internet](http://www.weirdity.com/internet/eoti.html) ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/7 "2006-02-05T06:25:28Z")
Tell your boss you have to to download the newest version of the internet first. Ok, ok. I’m thinking this is **Squeegee** ’s way of asking how many gigabytes the publicly accessible portions of the internet are. Any estimates? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/8 "2006-02-05T06:30:57Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > Tell your boss you have to to download the newest version of the internet first. > > Ok, ok. I’m thinking this is **Squeegee** ’s way of asking how many gigabytes the publicly accessible portions of the internet are. Any estimates? Did you ever watch Cosmos on PBS, I think Carl Sagan’s Catch Phrase of “Billions and Billions” is about right to describe the size. 😉 Jim ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/9 "2006-02-05T06:41:25Z")
Gigabytes??? All of the publicly available internet hypermedia? More like Terabytes, many thousands of terabytes. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/10 "2006-02-05T06:50:16Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > Gigabytes??? > > All of the publicly available internet hypermedia? > > More like Terabytes, many thousands of terabytes. Terabytes? More like petabytes. Or exabytes. Not sure if it reaches zettabytes, much less yottabytes yet, tho. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/11 "2006-02-05T06:54:14Z")
I guess you work at google, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/12 "2006-02-05T06:57:43Z")
Some (slightly outdated) information [here](http://www.sims.berkeley.edu:8000/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/internet.htm) and [here](http://www.sims.berkeley.edu:8000/research/projects/how-much-info/internet.html). > [@](#): > > The “surface” Web consists of approximately 2.5 billion documents [1 and 5], up from 1 billion pages at the beginning of the year [3], with a rate of growth of 7.3 million pages per day [1]. Estimates of the average “surface” page size vary in the range from 10 kbytes [1] per page to 20 kbytes per page [4]. So, the total amount of information on the “surface” Web varies somewhere from 25 to 50 terabytes of information [HTML-included basis]. If we want to obtain a figure for textual information, we would use a factor of 0.4 [4], which leads to an estimate of 10 to 20 terabytes of textual content. At 7.3 million new pages added every day, the rate of growth is [taking an average estimate] 0.1 terabytes of new information [HTML-included] per day. > > 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. Two of the largest “deep” web sites - National Climatic Data Center and NASA databases - contain 585 terabytes of information, which is 7.8% of the “deep” web. And 60 of the largest web sites contain 750 terabytes of information, which is 10% of the “deep” web. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/13 "2006-02-05T07:02:05Z")
When your done, can I get a copy? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/14 "2006-02-05T07:57:10Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > When your done, can I get a copy? 😃 Yeah burn me a CD too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/15 "2006-02-05T09:45:29Z")
Probably all the OP is referring to is backing up the company’s publicly accessible web site. In this case, I’d suggest getting an FTP client, logging on the server and dragging the folders from the server to your desktop PC. How much media you’ll need depends on how extensive the internet presence is, of course. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/16 "2006-02-05T14:38:57Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > Ok, ok. I’m thinking this is **Squeegee** ’s way of asking how many gigabytes the publicly accessible portions of the internet are. Precisely. Sorry if I confused anyone. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/17 "2006-02-05T14:52:49Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > Some (slightly outdated) information…“If we were to store this information in one place, we would need 7,500 terabytes of storage” OK, so I’d need 7500 of my media. Or 938 double-sided DVDs. Or perhaps considerably less, since HTML would compress quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/18 "2006-02-05T15:06:03Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > OK, so I’d need 7500 of my media. Or 938 double-sided DVDs. Or perhaps considerably less, since HTML would compress quite well. Better make a hardcopy just in case. ---
**Author:** ![Just](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4af34b/32.png) [@Just](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/19 "2006-02-05T15:13:40Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > OK, so I’d need 7500 of my media. Shouldn’t that be 7,500,000 of your media? ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079/20 "2006-02-05T15:22:12Z")
> [@Just](#): > > Shouldn’t that be 7,500,000 of your media? Damn, you’re right. a Terabyte is a 1000 gigabytes, so I’d need 7.5mil media to back up 7500 terabytes. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-back-up-the-internet/343079.md?page=2)