Largest Unit

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Largest Unit

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Herb Overstreet-363572

Posted Thursday, April 03, 2008 8:36 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Largest Unit

Post #479665

Yogeesh

Posted Thursday, April 03, 2008 11:32 PM

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The referenced article also looked greek and latin to me Unsure

Post #479687

Randolph West

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 1:30 AM

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Ok, so maybe I'm just being a nuisance here, but I know 1024^8 and 2^80 were the same, and very similar to the others, and didn't realise that there were checkboxes instead of radio buttons, so now what? I'm old-school - bytes work in multiples of 2.

*grumble*

Post #479724

Craig@Work

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 1:42 AM

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This has what to do with SQL ... ?
... and the question isn't exactly clear.

I think this is one that could have done with wider 'review' (as with yesterday's question) prior to being posted :)

Post #479728

majorbloodnock

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 1:46 AM

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He, he. I liked this question.

However, I'm intrigued about that last comment - about a yobibyte theoretically being big enough to contain all the information in the universe. More particularly, given the universe is far larger than we as a race have even managed to visit, let alone research, we can't know everything in the universe, so can't know how much information is left to be discovered. If that's the case, how can we know a yobibyte will be enough to contain it all? I don't say it's impossible, but I'd love to know more about a theory that can calculate what's seemingly incalculable.

A bit deep for a Friday morning, but what the heck.

Semper in excretia, sumus solum profundum variat

Post #479732

Shaun McGuile

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 2:11 AM

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Total Bull!

1024^8 != 10^24
1000^8 != 2^80

Store everything in the universe? Doubting Dog says - 'I doubt it!':P

Hey I've invented the 'ShaunyByte' its 2^(80 + an number incrementing as required) and actually can store data about everything in the multiverse (multiple universes). :D

The unit's symbol wil be 'BS'

so you'll be able to same my system's got a 10 BS memory etc.

I gonna take out a patent on this, so everyone will have to pay me royalties. Cool

So there! ;)

Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work Crazy

Post #479740

cjones-525131

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 2:33 AM

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This is wrong.

1024^8 = 1208925819614629174706176
2^80 = 1208925819614629174706176

1208925819614629174706176 = 1 yobibyte

10^24 = 1000000000000000000000000
1000^8 = 1000000000000000000000000

1000000000000000000000000 = 1 Yottabyte

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte

The IEC standards all now refer to Kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes etc. being 1000^x. 1024^x is now refered to as a kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte etc.

Post #479750

Hugo Kornelis

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 3:42 AM

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Okay, I've got two comments this time.

One - the answer key appears to be wrong again. The article referenced is kind enough to explain that both 1000^8 and 10^24 are equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, and that both 1024^8 and 2^80 are equal to 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes. I won't try to check that (I'm good at doing calculations in my head, but not that good). I can't imagina that anyone here will not agree that 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes is more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes - so clearly, only two out of the four answers have to be checked, not all four. I'm quite sure that Steve will correct this as soon as night is over in his part of the world.

The more fundamental comment is about the question itself. It lacks context. "Largest unit of information defined" - by whom? for what purpose? when? (for I'm sure that one day, we'll need names for 1,000 YB and 1,024 YiB). But the whom and for what purpose questions are what I really miss in this question. A quick google search for "largest unit of information" learned me that the largest unit of information is actually:
* A module or chapter (http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/implementation/archives/documentation-design-document-blocking-16698) - in the content of documentation design
* A bit (http://web.njit.edu/~walsh/powers/bits.vs.bytes.html) - in the content of units of information a computer can handle
* A "word" (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~piccard/mis300/pcintro.htm) - in the context of what can be transferred between memory and CPU in a single step

Going back to SQL Server, I didn't even need to use Gooogle to come up with
* 2 GB - in the context of what can be stored in a single column
* 8,000 bytes - in the context of what can be stored in a single page
* 32 KB - in the context of disk I/O (extent size)
* Collection - in the context of the XML data type

In short todays QotD was
* Poorly worded (as it fails to give enough context to the question),
* Not related to SQL Server at all
* Not related to database design and theory at all

As a fix, I'd suggest Steve to change the question to "How much data can a YB store (check all that apply, for any definition of YB that is in use, recommended or not)". With this wording, the question is clear (though still not quite relevant for SQL Server or for databases in general for the foreseeable future), and the current answer key becomes correct.

On a final note, as someone else already mentioned up-thread, the remark in the referenced article that "Yottabyte can, in theory, store everything in the entire universe", is of course plain nonsense. I learned at school that 1 gram of hydrogen contains approximately 6 * 10^23 atoms (Avogadro Constant - though Wikipedia just tells me that this has since been redefined as 6 grams (grammes?) of pure carbon). Anywway, if I want to store just 2 bytes of state information for each of those atoms, I'd already need 2 YB. And I think that the entire universe holds just a tad more than a single gram of hydrogen or 6 grams of carbon...

Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP
Visit my SQL Server blog: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis

Post #479788

Shaun McGuile

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 3:48 AM

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Hugo:

That is exactly why I've invented the ShaunyByte!:D

A single BS is all you need, no matter how much data you have.

the expanding BS is given an order to denote how much it has been inflated by.

e.g. BS10 is (2^90)

--Shaun

Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work Crazy

Post #479793

majorbloodnock

Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 4:49 AM

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Shaun McGuile (4/4/2008)

...and that's a helluva lot of BS :D

Semper in excretia, sumus solum profundum variat

Post #479812

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