"If all digital data were stored on punch cards, how big would Google's data warehouse be?"
[div class=excerpt style=background:#AFEEEE]Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards
If all digital data were stored on punch cards, how big would Google's data warehouse be?
-James Zetlen
Google almost certainly has more data storage capacity than any other organization on Earth.
Google is very secretive about its operations, so it's hard to say for sure. There are only a handful of organizations who might plausibly have more storage capacity or a larger server infrastructure. Here's my short list of the top contenders:
NSA
NRO
NGIP
CIA
Schlumberger
Tencent
Chevron
Honorable mentions:
Amazon (They're huge, but probably not as big as Google.)
Facebook (They're on the right scale and growing fast, but still playing catch-up.)
Microsoft (They have a million servers,[1] although no one seems sure why.)
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However, the best trick for locating secret Google facilities might be the one revealed by ex-Googler talentlessclown on reddit:[18]
The easiest way to find manned Google data centres is to ask taxi drivers and pizza delivery people.
There's something pleasing about that. Google has created what might be the most sophisticated information-gathering apparatus in the history of the Earth ... and the only people with information about them are the pizza delivery drivers.
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http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/
The answer is about 202,000 cubic miles.
That's 69.4 times the volume of Lake Superior.