petabyte

American  

[pet-uh-bahyt] / ˈpɛt əˌbaɪt /

noun

1. 2 50 bytes, or 1,024 terabytes.

2. (loosely) 10 15 or a million billion bytes. PB

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petabyte British  

/ ˈpɛtəˌbaɪt /

noun

1. computing 10 ¹⁵ or 2 ⁵⁰ bytes

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petabyte Scientific  

/ pĕt′ə-bīt /

1. A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 terabytes (2 ⁵⁰ bytes).

2. One quadrillion bytes.

3. See Note at megabyte

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Etymology

Origin of petabyte

peta- + byte

Example Sentences

Together, these archives now hold about 100 petabytes of information -- roughly equivalent to the total amount of text found across the entire internet, with a single petabyte equaling one million gigabytes.

From Science Daily • Oct. 28, 2025

Every time one tiny subatomic particle smashes into another during experiments at the LHC, the impact generates staggering volumes of data – about one petabyte per second.

From BBC • Jul. 1, 2024

A petabyte, by the way, is 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 25, 2022

The work will also help launch so-called petabyte genomics—the analyses of previously unfathomable quantities of DNA and RNA data.

From Science Magazine • Jan. 26, 2022

One petabyte is equivalent to one million gigabytes.

From New York Times • Mar. 2, 2010