7.5 Tiny Bytes: From Bits to Petabytes: Understanding Computer Storage

We explore the fundamentals of digital storage and how it powers precision agriculture, covering basic bytes to the massive petabyte servers at GK Technology that store agricultural imagery and data.• A byte equals eight binary bits and typically represents a single character or piece of data in computer language• Digital storage units progress from kilobytes (thousand) to megabytes (million) to gigabytes (billion) to terabytes (trillion) to petabytes (thousand terabytes)• GK Technology's Halstead office maintains a petabyte of storage containing agricultural data for most of the United States and three Canadian provinces• Storage includes shapefile formats, NAIP imagery, Lidar data, and two satellite libraries: Landsat (30m resolution back to 1984) and Sentinel (10m resolution from 2016)• Precision ag software users access this massive data repository when creating drainage maps or automated management zones• Higher resolution imagery like drone photos requires significantly more storage space, creating challenges for agricultural data managementhttps://gktechinc.com/https://gktechinc.com/