Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Can Google Maps show the world?

Michal Guerquin attempts to estimate the storage capacity of Google Maps in How big is the world?, and extrapolates for the capacity needed to show the whole world.

He concludes:

Assuming a modest 1 byte/6 pixels compression ratio for LZW-encoded GIF format tiles, the storage required would be 50-70 trillion pixels * (1 byte/6 pixels) = 8 to 11 TB.

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