Obama's Records to be Measured in Petabytes

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

It's taking nearly a year longer than planned to install all the Bush records into National Archive computers, largely because the digital file is historically big—100 terabytes. But archivists are already bracing for the even more high-tech Obama records, especially if the prez serves two terms. Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas reveals that the Clinton total was just two terabytes and the agency expects the jump from W to Obama to be akin to that of Bubba to Bush. But when asked what that number would be, she deferred to staff, who said Obama's totals would be measured in "petabytes." For the record, one petabyte equals 1 quadrillion bytes.

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