A zettabyte is a unit of measurement for digital information, equal to one sextillion (10^21) bytes. It is an extremely large number that can be difficult to comprehend. The zettabyte has become increasingly important as the world’s data storage needs continue to grow at an exponential rate due to advances in technology and increased usage of mobile devices and social media platforms.

The first use of the term “zettabyte” was by IBM researcher Dr. Winfried Wilcke in June 1998 when discussing how much data could be stored on a single disk drive using new compression techniques he had developed for video applications such as DVDs or HDTV broadcasts.

Since then, it has been adopted by many organizations including the International System Of Units (SI), which defines it as 10^21 bytes or 1000 exabytes—the equivalent of 1 trillion gigabytes or 1 billion terabytes! This makes it easy for people working with very large amounts of data—such as those involved in Big Data projects—to quickly estimate their capacity requirements without having too much trouble doing complicated calculations every time they need an answer.

The increasing demand for larger amounts of storage space means that companies are constantly looking into ways they can increase their capacity while keeping costs down; this includes investing more money into research and development related to creating better compression algorithms so that more information can fit onto smaller drives, utilizing cloud-based services like Amazon Web Services which allow users access vast networks from anywhere around the globe without needing physical hardware, etc…

As we move forward into what some have deemed “the age of big data” understanding concepts like Zettabytes will become increasingly important if businesses want to keep up with competitors who may already have adopted these strategies successfully!