What Comes After Exabyte: A Guide to the Next Data Storage Units

When you see headlines like “global data will hit 200 ZB by 2025,” it’s easy to feel lost in a sea of zeros. Most of us know terabytes and petabytes, but once you hit exabytes, the names—and the scale—become almost mythical. As organizations grapple with ever‑growing datasets, misunderstanding these units can lead to under‑provisioned infrastructure, budget overruns, or missed opportunities in data‑driven projects. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what comes after Exabyte, how these colossal units map to real‑world scenarios, and why understanding them matters for planning the next generation of storage and compute.

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Understanding the Exabyte

An Exabyte (EB) represents 10¹⁸ bytes (one quintillion bytes), or 1,000 petabytes. To put it in perspective:

• Streaming 4K video for one hour uses about 7 GB of data.

• You would need 143 million hours of 4K streaming to consume 1 EB.

Enterprises like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider generate petabytes of data annually; exabyte‑scale storage is already critical in genomics, climate modeling, and global social‑media archives.

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What Comes After Exabyte?

1. Zettabyte (ZB)

• Definition: 10²¹ bytes (1,000 exabytes)

• Real‑World Lens: In 2016, global IP traffic officially surpassed 1.2 ZB, marking the start of the “Zettabyte Era” for networked data Wikipedia.

• Use Case: Cloud providers plan infrastructure growth around zettabyte projections—AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud each store tens of zettabytes across regions.

2. Yottabyte (YB)

• Definition: 10²⁴ bytes (1,000 zettabytes)

• Perspective: Still theoretical for most, but scientific archives (e.g., square‑kilometer array radio telescopes) could amass yottabytes over decades.

3. Brontobyte (BB) (Unofficial)

• Definition: 10²⁷ bytes (1,000 yottabytes)

• Origin: Coined by data‑community forums to name the next logical scale. While not recognized by ISO/IEC standards, it helps conceptualize astronomical storage demands in genomics and physics.

4. Geopbyte (GPB) (Unofficial)

• Definition: 10³⁰ bytes (1,000 brontobytes)

• Why It Matters: In a future dominated by hyper‑AI and planetary‑scale simulations, geopbytes could describe aggregate data across entire industries or digital twins of Earth.

Beyond Geopbyte: Some enthusiasts propose even larger names (e.g., Saganbyte for 10³⁶), but these remain playful conjectures for now.

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Why Naming Matters: Implications for Tech and Strategy

1. Procurement & Budgeting: CIOs need clear terms when negotiating exabyte‑ or zettabyte‑level SLAs.

2. Capacity Planning: Data‑center engineers must forecast growth—projected to exceed 200 ZB by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.

3. Standards & Interoperability: Consistent naming aligns hardware vendors, cloud platforms, and software tools, reducing misconfigurations in multi‑cloud deployments.

4. Communication Clarity: When you tell stakeholders “we need a zettabyte backup solution,” you avoid the hand‑wringing that comes with “a lot of storage.”

Forecasting the Storage Landscape

• By 2025: Total global storage demand is set to top 200 ZB, driven by AI training, IoT, and video streaming.

• Energy & Sustainability: Zettabyte‑era data centers already consume a significant portion of global power. Future geopbyte infrastructures will hinge on breakthroughs in energy‑efficient storage and renewable‑powered facilities.

• Regulatory Impact: As data scales explode, jurisdictions worldwide will tighten rules on data localization, privacy, and cross‑border transfer—requiring zettabyte‑aware governance frameworks.

Case Study: Big Science, Big Numbers

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, slated to come online in the late 2020s, is expected to generate exabytes per day of raw sensor data. Without zettabyte‑class archives and geopbyte‑scale analytics platforms, processing such volumes will stall one of humanity’s most ambitious scientific endeavors.

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Key Takeaways

• Zettabyte (ZB) follows exabyte, defined as 1,000 EB. Cisco Blogs

• Yottabyte (YB) caps the current official scale (10²⁴ bytes).

• Brontobyte & Geopbyte are community‑coined terms for 10²⁷ and 10³⁰ bytes.

• 200 ZB by 2025: Global storage demand is skyrocketing, with AI and IoT as main drivers. Cybercrime Magazine

• Strategic Planning: Understanding these scales is vital for budgeting, capacity planning, and compliance.

FAQs

1. What are the official data units recognized by standards bodies?
ISO/IEC recognizes up to Yottabyte (10²⁴ bytes). Units beyond that (Brontobyte, Geopbyte) are informal but help bridge conceptual gaps for extreme scales.

2. How many exabytes equal one zettabyte?
1 Zettabyte = 1,000 Exabytes.

3. Will we ever need geopbyte‑scale storage?
As AI, IoT, and scientific instruments generate ever‑more detailed datasets, geopbyte‑scale capacities may become practical by the 2030s—especially in digital‑twin and Earth‑system modeling workflows.

4. How can organizations prepare for zettabyte‑era data?
Start by auditing current storage growth rates, consolidating unused datasets, and investing in scalable, energy‑efficient architectures that can grow seamlessly into the zettabyte realm.

A petabyte is already mind-bogglingly large—so what lies beyond it? In short, after petabyte comes exabyte, followed by zettabyte, yottabyte, and then the newly ratified ronnabyte and quettabyte, with informal names like brontobyte and geopbyte floating around. You’ll learn exact definitions, real-world analogies, practical use cases, and growth forecasts for each unit. We’ll also answer sub-questions like “What is 1000 TB called?” and “How much is a brontobyte?” to equip you with a crystal-clear understanding of today’s and tomorrow’s data scale.

Conclusion

Grasping what comes after Exabyte isn’t just an exercise in big‑number trivia—it’s a practical necessity for anyone designing tomorrow’s data ecosystems. From corporate archives to interstellar telescopes, knowing your ZBs from your YBs (and beyond) ensures you can plan infrastructure, budgets, and governance with confidence. Explore more on SmashingApps.com—whether you’re architecting a zettabyte backup solution or simply curious how data scales will shape our digital future.

Ready to tackle exabyte‑scale challenges? Check out our Guide to Big Data Management and subscribe for updates on the next frontier of storage.