The explosion of data being generated and transported across the world’s networks is a topic that often consumes a great deal of time in the storage and enterprise community. I often find myself engaged in discussions on data transport using terms such as gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes and even zettabytes. However, there are times when these words are thrown around with alarming casualness and this was reinforced today when I came across the graphic below.

I was amazed by some of the figures.

According to Wikibon, in 2010, the digital universe is estimated to reach 1.2 zettabytes. This represents a 62% increase over 2008. Apparently, 70% of this data is user-generated and frequently shared on sites such Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. What’s concerning, however, is that Wikibon suggests that around 35% more digital information exists today than the capacity exists to store it. A figure that will leap to 60% over the course of the next several years.

Currently, there appears to be no slowing in the users’ desire to create and share rich multi-media content, a desire encouraged by the consumer electronics industry. One need only look at the iPhone 4 and its video sharing capabilities to see why this data is exploding.

Over the next few months I’ll be attending a number of enterprise-focused shows and it will be interesting to see what some of the latest developments are to tackling this data explosion and what the long-term outlook is.

In the meantime, maybe I should be wary about uploading those 50 holiday images to Facebook tonight.