What is on Your Mind?

This is a brief overview of where computing performance is heading. The exponential rise in CPU performance as predicted by Moore's law is apparently also true for individual components, at least when looking at historical data.

RAM / working memory
The following is an overview of the year in which the first computer came to the mass market with the given amount of working memory. The numbers are extrapolated to reflect that there is a thousandfold increase every 17 years.

Code:

Year	Name 	Symbol	Exponent
1971	kilo- 	k	3
1988	mega- 	M	6
2005	giga- 	G	9
2022	tera- 	T	12
2039	peta- 	P	15
2056	exa- 	E	18
2073	zetta- 	Z	21
2090	yotta- 	Y	24
2107	xona- 	X	27
2124	weka- 	W	30
2141	vunda- 	V	33
2158	uda- 	U	36
2175	treda- 	TD	39
2192	sorta- 	S	42
2209	rinta- 	R	45
2226	quexa- 	Q	48
2243	pepta- 	PP	51
2260	ocha- 	O	54
2277	nena- 	N	57
2294	minga- 	MI	60
2311	luma- 	L	63

The years may be one year off and the exponential growth has only been achieved for 3 generations, so the extrapolation may start to deviate substantially after another 5 generations or so. Hence, this should only serve as an idea as to when you will be able to buy your first exa-computer, roughly.
Also note that a luma-computer would require the same amount of atoms as the earth is built up of.

HDD / mechanical storage
There appears to be a 17 year cycle for storage devices too. The list below contains the years in which the first storage device came to the mass market with given amount of capacity:

Code:

1957	3	K
1974	6	M
1991	9	G
2008	12	T
2025	15	P
2042	18	E

Perhaps grid storage or cloud storage will replace the majority of local storage in the next 10 years, even for home computers. By 2042 there may be no HDD needed for any computer as mechanical devices for storage will have been replaced by other means of storage, making these numbers meaningless.

FLOPS
The following article assumes an 11-year cycle in thousandfold increases in computing power:
All hail Roadrunner's petaflop record; now, what about the exaflop? - Computerworld

Code:

1986	9	G
1997	12	T
2008	15	P
2019	18	E
2030	21	Z
2041	24	Y
2052	27	X
2063	30	W

There'll have to be a whole new communications revolution before traffic over the internet becomes as fast as traffic over a local bus. Though I'm sure Gates will love the licensing opportunities and sheer control of remote Windows booting. Que? What else will it be measured in?

The requirement in electrical power for running all the server of the world has become greater than the human electrical used for just living.