Liam ProvenAug 5, 2023

Get a sense of scale for computer storage...

Byte of data: a grain of rice
Kilobyte: a cup of rice
Megabyte: 8 bags of rice
Gigabyte: 3 container lorries
Terabyte: 2 container ships
Petabyte: covers Manhattan
Exabyte: covers the UK (3 times)
Zettabyte: fills the Pacific Ocean

Original source of the comparison, for the record: https://www.slideshare.net/dwellman/what-is-big-data-24401517

What is big data?

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Show threadIan StuartAug 5, 2023
@lproven Sorry but I did some math on the byte to kilobyte comparison. 1000 grains of rice is nowhere near enough for a cup. I’m assuming we aren’t talking cooked rice (but even then…). Perhaps if instead a bit is a grain of rice then a kilobyte could be a cup of rice.
Show threadSean Blakey

@IanStuart @lproven Given the other Britishisms, I suspect the original presenter isn't using "cup" as a well-defined unit of volumetric measure, but just as in "a small cup you might have in a kitchen".

But even so, that's a tiny cup.

Aug 5, 2023 at 5:42pmWeb
Show threadJdeBPAug 5, 2023

@lproven @romaindurand @bytebro

Apparently (https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/34250/3698) one should be skeptical of this.

Is this measurement of data to grains of rice accurate?

This image purports that you can measure data in grains of rice - one byte being one grain of rice and one gigabyte then being three container lorries. Byte of data : one grain of rice Kilobyt...

Skeptics Stack Exchange
Show threadnytpu the wyvernAug 5, 2023
@JdeBP @lproven @romaindurand @bytebro There's no possible way that something can be not precisely accurate but still be a useful analogy for relative sizes
Show threadJionel Lospin Aug 6, 2023
@nytpu @JdeBP @lproven @bytebro actually there is 🤓☝️