Think your computer is fast? World Record trampled for data sorting: 1 Terabyte conqured in 1 minute.

Think you’re computer is fast? How much do you think it would sort in any given minute: 1GB, 10GB? 100GB? Scientists at University of California, San Diego have managed to conquer the old world record for data sorting by reaching rummaging through a full Terabyte in a mere 60 seconds. Remember, 1TB is a 1,000GB. That’s a huge amount of 1′s and 0′s!

Besides competitions such as the 2010 Sort Benchmark Competition — The so called “World Cup of data sorting. — it may seem rather frivolous to have such power. But when you’re dealing with multiple petabytes of data (1 petabyte = 1,000 terabytes), even 1TB/minute isn’t exactly “fast”, as it would take roughly 3-4 days to work through 1PB of data. Companies who make their livelihood on the data pool provided by consumers (Think: Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Google, etc.) surely can’t get enough speed.

How soon until our own computers on our desks, (and even our smartphones) have the power sort 1TB/minute?

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Author: Mike Norris

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Gadget lover, smartphone collector, and beer connoisseur. I've been writing about gadgets for three years now and loving every minute of it. Outside of the digital landscape, I enjoy being active outdoors. I'm always up for a good conversation, so feel free to drop me a line!