ScienceAugust 18, 2026

petabyte

PAY-tuh-bite

Definition

A unit of digital information storage equal to one quadrillion bytes, or 1,024 terabytes.

Etymology

The word is a portmanteau of the Greek prefix 'peta-' (derived from 'pente,' meaning five, to represent 1000^5) and the English word 'byte,' a unit of digital information.

In the news

In the article, the term describes the massive scale of climate simulation datasets that DKRZ must manage and protect, highlighting the technical challenge of handling extremely large volumes of scientific data.

DKRZ Joins German Initiative to Protect At-Risk Earth Science Data

Read the full article ↗

HPCwire

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