How many petabytes does it take to screw in a light bulb?

For a workshop that I'm supposed to lead in a few weeks, I am trying to pin down some interesting factoids that I heard a few months ago at a talk given by a high-level exec at a technology company based here in the Seattle area (I'm sure none of you have heard of it so I won't bother with names).

Basically, the speaker made the following interesting point: "It is estimated that all digitizable information could fit on XX blurbabytes of storage space, and the entire Library of Congress could fit on X burbabytes. It's also estimated that we are really close to seeing a bingobyte hard drive, which means you could store [some fraction or multiple] of the Library of Congress on your computer. In other words, very soon the critical limitations will not be in the physical technology, but in the human mind, and we will need radically new ways to organize, sift and manage all this information."

Now, at the time, I found the talk very interesting but didn't think I'd need the details of the factoids, so I didn't really write them down. I thought to myself, "This is interesting. If I need this later, I'm sure I can find it on the Web. This is exactly the kind of thing available on the Web! No need to be writing this down, nope nope."

Well, I have now spent the entire afternoon following bunny trails around the Internet trying to confirm or deny these statements in some form, and it's like chasing shadows. Somebody claimed somewhere that all potential human speech could be contained in 5 exabytes* of storage space, but that turns out to be one of those things oft-quoted (including by the NY Times) with no demonstrable source. I have found estimates that the Library of Congress would take up anywhere from 5 to 136 terabytes of space (in part depending on whether you include just the text, or the formatting and images - but still).

And as to when the amazing terabyte, petabyte, or exabyte storage device might show up? Well, all the estimates I've found were basically just assumptions based on Moore's Law, stating that the capacity of certain kinds of technology (originally computer processors) doubles every 18 months to 2 years. Thus, the petabyte hard drive must be on the horizon, by 2007 or 2010 or something like that. But can I find anyone who will confess to actually making one? Hell no.

Hey all you technogeeks out there - I know one of you knows about the petabyte hard drives! I know you do! Come out and show yourselves with some proof, you cowards!

Oh the irony, that the Web, with its estimated 170 terabytes of material, should fail me in this matter. It turns out the Internet is decidely NOT TIDY.

Sorry. This whole thing isn't even central to my presentation, actually. I just thought it would make me look cool. And I'm sure I just don't know how to search properly. If any of my five readers happen to be librarians, perhaps you could take pity on poor Cousin Flora.

* Don't know what a terabyte, petabye, or exabyte are? Well THAT, at least, is pretty easy to find.