We're generating data at a mind-boggling pace, creating over 328 million terabytes every single day, so understanding how this digital deluge impacts our disk usage has never been more critical.
Key Takeaways
- In 2023, the global datasphere totaled 120 zettabytes of data created, with an average annual growth rate of 23% since 2010
- Worldwide data creation reached 181 zettabytes by 2025 projections, driven by IoT devices contributing 79 zettabytes
- In 2022, 328.77 million terabytes of data were created daily globally, equating to 120 zettabytes annually
- Worldwide installed storage capacity hit 8.5 ZB by end 2023
- Enterprise HDD shipments reached 50 million units in 2022, averaging 14TB per drive
- In 2023, average enterprise data center disk utilization was 45%
- In 2022, PC disk usage averaged 65TB per enterprise desktop
- Average smartphone internal storage usage reached 128GB utilized out of 256GB in 2023
- In 2023, average US household NAS disk usage was 12TB across devices
- In 2023, hyperscale data centers operated 70% of global cloud disk capacity at 40 ZB
- AWS S3 bucket average usage was 1PB per customer with 60% utilization in 2023
- Google Cloud disk storage grew 30% YoY to 15 EB total in 2023
- Global cloud disk capacity projected to 100 ZB by 2025, CAGR 25%
- Enterprise disk usage to reach 200 ZB by 2028, growing 18% CAGR
- Consumer storage demand to hit 50 EB annual shipments by 2027
Rapid data growth is creating massive global disk storage and usage demands.
Cloud and Hyperscale
- In 2023, hyperscale data centers operated 70% of global cloud disk capacity at 40 ZB
- AWS S3 bucket average usage was 1PB per customer with 60% utilization in 2023
- Google Cloud disk storage grew 30% YoY to 15 EB total in 2023
- Azure Blob storage effective capacity hit 10 ZB across users in 2022
- Hyperscale operators deployed 10 million disk drives annually, averaging 20TB each
- Cloud block storage utilization averaged 35% in hyperscale environments 2023
- In 2023, top 10 hyperscalers controlled 65 ZB disk capacity
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure disk provisioning reached 5 EB quarterly in 2023
- Average cloud-native app disk usage was 500TB per deployment in hyperscale 2022
- Alibaba Cloud object storage used 8 ZB capacity with 2:1 compression in 2023
- Hyperscale NVMe disk adoption hit 50% of capacity mix in 2023
- Cloud file storage systems averaged 75% utilization in hyperscale 2023
- IBM Cloud disk capacity grew to 3 ZB total managed in 2022
- Hyperscale erasure coding improved disk efficiency to 1.3x overhead in 2023
- DigitalOcean block storage averaged 100TB per droplet cluster usage 2023
- Cloud archive storage tier used 20% of total hyperscale disk at 12 ZB in 2023
- Linode (Akamai) disk volumes averaged 2PB per enterprise customer 2023
- Hyperscale data lakes occupied 25 ZB disk space in 2023
- Cloud backup storage in hyperscale reached 30 EB with 40% dedup ratio 2022
- OVHcloud disk capacity provisioned 1 EB monthly average in 2023
- Hyperscale GPU-attached storage used 5 EB for AI workloads in 2023
- Cloud object storage requests hit 100 trillion daily, driving 50 ZB usage 2023
- Wasabi hot cloud storage averaged 80% disk fill rate per bucket 2023
- Hyperscale cold storage tier efficiency reached 90% via tiering in 2023
Cloud and Hyperscale Interpretation
The hyperscale cloud providers have essentially built a digital Library of Babel so vast and underutilized that they're now experts in storing the world's data, except in the way you'd organize a bookshelf.
Consumer Storage
- In 2022, PC disk usage averaged 65TB per enterprise desktop
- Average smartphone internal storage usage reached 128GB utilized out of 256GB in 2023
- In 2023, average US household NAS disk usage was 12TB across devices
- Consumer HDD average capacity shipped was 4TB per drive in 2022
- Gaming PC disk usage averaged 1.5TB for installed games in 2023 surveys
- Average laptop SSD usage was 45% full at 512GB capacity in 2023
- In 2022, consumer cloud storage personal usage averaged 50GB per user
- Average photo library disk usage on smartphones hit 20GB per user in 2023
- Consumer external HDD average size purchased was 5TB in 2023, with 70% utilization
- In 2023, video streaming apps used 40% of consumer disk space on TVs, averaging 500GB
- Average macOS user disk usage was 250GB on 1TB drives in 2023
- Windows 11 PCs averaged 35% disk utilization at 256GB SSDs in 2022
- Consumer 4K video files occupied 15GB/hour, leading to 2TB annual disk usage per family
- In 2023, average fitness tracker data used 5GB disk space yearly per device
- Smart home devices accumulated 100GB disk usage per household annually in 2022
- Average music library disk usage was 150GB on portable players in 2023
- Consumer SSD upgrades averaged 1TB capacity with 60% usage post-install in 2023
- In 2022, tablet disk usage for apps averaged 80GB out of 128GB
- Family photo backups used 1TB average on consumer drives in 2023
- Gaming console disk usage reached 1.2TB average on PS5 in 2023
- Average email archive disk usage was 10GB per consumer inbox in 2022
- Consumer DVR storage filled at 500GB/month for 4K TV in 2023
- Wearable camera footage used 50GB/month disk space in 2023
- Average browser cache disk usage was 5GB on desktops in 2023
- Consumer VPN logs and temp files occupied 20GB annually per user
Consumer Storage Interpretation
We have become digital hoarders, stuffing our devices with terabytes of our lives, yet somehow we still can't find that one file.
Enterprise Storage
- Worldwide installed storage capacity hit 8.5 ZB by end 2023
- Enterprise HDD shipments reached 50 million units in 2022, averaging 14TB per drive
- In 2023, average enterprise data center disk utilization was 45%
- Global enterprise SSD capacity shipped 1.2 ZB in 2022, up 50% YoY
- Enterprise storage systems effective capacity grew to 4.5 ZB in 2023
- In Q4 2023, enterprise disk drive capacity outshipped reached 250 EB quarterly
- Average enterprise SAN storage utilization rate was 55% in 2022
- Enterprise all-flash array capacity hit 1.1 ZB shipped in 2023
- Global enterprise storage spending reached $5.9 billion in Q2 2023 for systems
- In 2022, hybrid cloud enterprise storage used 60% of total enterprise disk capacity
- Enterprise deduplication reduced disk usage by 10:1 ratio on average in 2023
- Installed enterprise storage base was 11 ZB in 2023, growing 15% YoY
- In 2023, 65% of enterprise data centers reported disk overprovisioning at 120%
- Enterprise NAS systems capacity reached 2.3 ZB shipped in 2022
- Average enterprise VM disk usage was 35% utilization in 2023 surveys
- Global enterprise open source storage software managed 1.5 ZB in 2023
- In 2022, enterprise block storage capacity grew 20% to 3.2 ZB installed
- Enterprise compression ratios averaged 2.5:1 for disk storage in 2023
- Q1 2023 enterprise storage systems revenue $6.4B, capacity up 12%
- 70% of enterprises had disk fragmentation issues reducing effective capacity by 15% in 2022
- Enterprise HCI storage capacity shipped 800 PB in 2023
- Average enterprise backup disk retention was 14 days, using 25% of total disk in 2023
- In 2023, enterprise NVMe SSDs occupied 40% of disk capacity mix
- Global enterprise storage software market managed 5 ZB effective capacity in 2022
- Enterprise disk failure rates averaged 1.5% annually for HDDs in 2023, impacting usage
- 55% enterprise disk capacity underutilized below 50% in 2023 audits
- Enterprise object storage grew to 1.8 ZB capacity in 2023
Enterprise Storage Interpretation
Despite humanity's impressive accumulation of over eleven zettabytes of enterprise storage—enough to hold a pedantic argument about whether a hotdog is a sandwich for every star in our galaxy—we're somehow still using less than half of it effectively, proving that hoarding empty digital closets is a truly universal compulsion.
Global Data Growth
- In 2023, the global datasphere totaled 120 zettabytes of data created, with an average annual growth rate of 23% since 2010
- Worldwide data creation reached 181 zettabytes by 2025 projections, driven by IoT devices contributing 79 zettabytes
- In 2022, 328.77 million terabytes of data were created daily globally, equating to 120 zettabytes annually
- Global data volume grew from 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 to 79 zettabytes in 2021, a 23% increase
- By 2024, the world generated 149 zettabytes of data, with only 2.5% structured
- Annual global data creation hit 97 zettabytes in 2022, projected to double every 3 years
- From 2018 to 2023, global data grew at 25% CAGR, reaching 110 zettabytes
- In 2021, enterprises created 80% of global data at 2.5 quintillion bytes daily
- Global datasphere expanded 42% YoY in 2020 to 64.2 ZB due to pandemic remote work
- Projected 175 zettabytes of data created globally by 2025, with 49% stored long-term
- In 2023, video data accounted for 91% of global data usage at 82% of internet traffic
- Global data doubled every 2 years since 2010, hitting 90 ZB in 2022
- By end of 2024, global data volume expected to reach 149 ZB, up 23% from 2023
- In 2022, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated daily worldwide
- Global unstructured data grew to 80-90% of total data volume by 2023
- From 2020-2025, global data creation CAGR of 23%, from 64 ZB to 181 ZB
- In 2023, IoT generated 73 ZB of data globally, 18% of total datasphere
- Global data storage demand reached 6.7 ZB installed capacity in 2022
- Annual data creation per person averaged 1.7 MB per second in 2022 globally
- By 2025, 463 exabytes of data generated daily worldwide
- Global datasphere grew 29% in 2023 to 120 ZB
- In 2021, social media data contributed 4.4 ZB to global total of 79 ZB
- Projected global data to 394 ZB by 2028, CAGR 25.7%
- In 2022, only 10% of generated data worldwide was retained long-term
- Global data velocity reached 50 ZB/year from real-time sources by 2023
- From 2015-2020, global data quadrupled to 59 ZB
- In 2024, AI/ML data subset grew 40% to 15 ZB globally
- Global enterprise data reached 37 ZB in 2022, 80% unstructured
- Daily global data generation hit 402.74 million TB in 2025 projection
- Global data growth rate stabilized at 23% YoY post-2020
Global Data Growth Interpretation
Our digital universe is ballooning at such a dizzying, exponential clip that we're less like archivists of the information age and more like firehose operators trying to fill an ocean.
Projections and Trends
- Global cloud disk capacity projected to 100 ZB by 2025, CAGR 25%
- Enterprise disk usage to reach 200 ZB by 2028, growing 18% CAGR
- Consumer storage demand to hit 50 EB annual shipments by 2027
- Hyperscale disk capacity forecast at 200 ZB installed by 2027
- Global data growth to 394 ZB by 2028, requiring 50% more disk capacity
- SSD disk market share in enterprise to 70% by 2026
- Average disk capacity per drive to 50TB by 2025 for HDDs
- Cloud storage utilization to improve to 60% by 2027 via AI optimization
- Global installed storage to 102 ZB by 2025, up from 33 ZB in 2020
- Consumer SSD average capacity to 2TB by 2026
- Enterprise dedup/compression ratios to 15:1 by 2025
- Disk-based backup to decline 10% by 2027, shifting to cloud
- HAMR technology to enable 30TB+ enterprise disks by 2024
- Global data storage market to $150B by 2028, driven by disk upgrades
- IoT disk storage needs to 100 ZB by 2025
- Average enterprise data center disk density to double to 1 PB/rack by 2026
- Consumer disk fragmentation to reduce 20% via auto-optimization by 2025
- NVMe-oF to manage 30% of cloud disk traffic by 2027
- Global SSD capacity shipments to 10 ZB annually by 2026
- Disk spin-down features to save 15% power in consumer NAS by 2025
- AI-driven disk tiering to boost utilization 25% by 2026
- Exabyte-scale disks to emerge by 2028 for hyperscale
- Consumer average disk usage to 1TB per device by 2025
- Enterprise storage TCO to drop 30% via density improvements by 2027
- Global cold data on disk to 80 ZB by 2025, 50% underutilized
Projections and Trends Interpretation
While humanity frantically crafts cat videos and IoT sensors bloat with data, the sobering truth emerges that our relentless digital hoarding is single-handedly bankrolling a golden age of storage innovation where our future might just be saved by smarter disks figuring out what we actually need to keep.
Sources & References
- Reference 1IDCidc.comVisit source
- Reference 2STATISTAstatista.comVisit source
- Reference 3RIVERYrivery.ioVisit source
- Reference 4FORBESforbes.comVisit source
- Reference 5MCKINSEYmckinsey.comVisit source
- Reference 6SEAGATEseagate.comVisit source
- Reference 7MYmy.idc.comVisit source
- Reference 8CISCOcisco.comVisit source
- Reference 9IBMibm.comVisit source
- Reference 10DOMOdomo.comVisit source
- Reference 11GARTNERgartner.comVisit source
- Reference 12MARKETSANDMARKETSmarketsandmarkets.comVisit source
- Reference 1351STORAGE51storage.comVisit source
- Reference 14TRENDStrends.idc.comVisit source
- Reference 15VERITASveritas.comVisit source
- Reference 16RIGHTSCALErightscale.comVisit source
- Reference 17451RESEARCH451research.comVisit source
- Reference 18CONDUSIVcondusiv.comVisit source
- Reference 19VEEAMveeam.comVisit source
- Reference 20BACKBLAZEbackblaze.comVisit source
- Reference 21COUNTERPOINTRESEARCHcounterpointresearch.comVisit source
- Reference 22SYNOLOGYsynology.comVisit source
- Reference 23LAPTOPMAGlaptopmag.comVisit source
- Reference 24WESTERNDIGITALwesterndigital.comVisit source
- Reference 25NIELSENnielsen.comVisit source
- Reference 26ECLECTICLIGHTeclecticlight.coVisit source
- Reference 27MICROSOFTmicrosoft.comVisit source
- Reference 28AV-IOTav-iot.comVisit source
- Reference 29FITBITfitbit.comVisit source
- Reference 30SAMSUNGsamsung.comVisit source
- Reference 31SOUNDGUYSsoundguys.comVisit source
- Reference 32CRUCIALcrucial.comVisit source
- Reference 33GOOGLEPHOTOSgooglephotos.blogVisit source
- Reference 34PLAYSTATIONplaystation.comVisit source
- Reference 35LITHOPSlithops.ioVisit source
- Reference 36DISHdish.comVisit source
- Reference 37GOPROgopro.comVisit source
- Reference 38CHROMIUMchromium.orgVisit source
- Reference 39EXPRESSVPNexpressvpn.comVisit source
- Reference 40SYNERGYsynergy.comVisit source
- Reference 41CLOUDZEROcloudzero.comVisit source
- Reference 42CLOUDcloud.google.comVisit source
- Reference 43AZUREazure.microsoft.comVisit source
- Reference 44PURESTORAGEpurestorage.comVisit source
- Reference 45ORACLEoracle.comVisit source
- Reference 46CNCFcncf.ioVisit source
- Reference 47ALIBABACLOUDalibabacloud.comVisit source
- Reference 48NETAPPnetapp.comVisit source
- Reference 49QUANTUMquantum.comVisit source
- Reference 50DIGITALOCEANdigitalocean.comVisit source
- Reference 51LINODElinode.comVisit source
- Reference 52DATABRICKSdatabricks.comVisit source
- Reference 53OVHCLOUDovhcloud.comVisit source
- Reference 54NVIDIAnvidia.comVisit source
- Reference 55SCALITYscality.comVisit source
- Reference 56WASABIwasabi.comVisit source
- Reference 57SNIAsnia.orgVisit source
- Reference 58BLOCKSANDFILESblocksandfiles.comVisit source
- Reference 59HPEhpe.comVisit source