How much data is on the internet?

A gigabyte, a terabyte, and a petabyte walk into a bar...

Asked by: Kushil Ganatra, Middlesex

One way to answer this question is to consider the sum total of data held by all the big online storage and service companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook.

Estimates are that the big four store at least 1,200 petabytes between them. That is 1.2 million terabytes (one terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes). And that figure excludes other big providers like Dropbox, Barracuda and SugarSync, to say nothing of massive servers in industry and academia.

Read more:

Subscribe to BBC Focus magazine for fascinating new Q&As every month and follow @sciencefocusQA on Twitter for your daily dose of fun science facts.