 - A terabyte (TB) is a measure of computer storage capacity that is 2 to the 40th power or approximately a trillion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes). The prefix tera is derived from the Greek word for monster.
Hitachi began selling 1-terabyte hard drives to consumers in 2007. (Today, consumers can purchase a 2-terabyte external hard drive for around $180.) A one terabyte drive can hold:
- 472 hours of broadcast quality video.
- 150 hours of hi-definition recording.
- Enough words that it would take every adult in America speaking at the same time five minutes to say them all.
According to futurist Raymond Kurzwell is "The Singularity is Near," the capacity of a human being's functional memory is estimated to be 1.25 terabytes.
Also see byte, gigabyte, teraflop, and petabyte.
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Learn more about Disk arrays |
| No-maintenance disk array aims to eliminate hard drive swapping: SAID (Sealed Array of Identical Disks) array from startup Atrato bridges the performance-capacity gap. It can in theory run for the term of a 5-year lease with zero maintenance. |
| Fail-in-place systems: Avoiding hard disk drive failures: Fail-in-place storage systems, such Atrato's V1000 and Xiotech's Emprise 5000 or ISE, can virtually eliminate hard disk drive replacement service calls. |
| Multiprotocol storage arrays gain interest, adoption: Multiprotocol storage arrays, or unified storage, combine block and file storage access protocols. Interest due to cost savings, advances in technology and simpler management. |
| Enterprise disk array consolidation product specifications: Knowing the purchasing criteria for enterprise-class disk arrays, as well as product specs for the leading arrays, can help storage managers make savvy buying decisions. |
| What is a terabyte? What is bigger than a terabyte?: What is a terabyte? What are terabytes? What are terabyte drives? What comes after a terabyte? What's bigger than a terabyte? Please don't just say that 2 terabytes is bigger than one terabyte. |
| Storwize claims good data compression rates, no performance degradation on STN-6000 appliance: Storwize's STN-6000 inline appliance acts on primary storage using real-time compression. |
| NetApp: Post-process deduplication limits performance hit in primary storage data deduplication: NetApp's approach to primary storage data deduplication limits the performance penalty to about 20% percent. |
| Best practices for solid-state drive storage technology: SSD best practices center on identifying I/O-intensive applications so that data storage technology can provide the greatest benefit to IT organizations. |
| Storage arrays quiz: Take our quiz and become a scholar on storage arrays, including array-based memory, RAID, and storage consolidation. |
| Podcast: Solid-state drives entering enterprise storage environments: Jeff Janukowicz, research manager at IDC for solid-state drives and hard drive components, discusses the impact SSDs are expected to have at the enterprise level. |
| CONTRIBUTORS: |
Jack Duffie |
| LAST UPDATED: |
26 May 2009
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