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Big data goes mainstream

A new group of data mining technologies promises to forever change the way we sift through our vast stores of data

We've all heard the predictions: By 2020, the quantity of electronically stored data will reach 35 trillion gigabytes, a forty-four-fold increase from 2009. We had already reached 1.2 million petabytes, or 1.2 zettabytes, by the end of 2010, according to IDC. That's enough data to fill a stack of DVDs reaching from the Earth to the moon and back -- about 240,000 miles each way.

For alarmists, this is an ominous data storage doomsday forecast . For opportunists, it's an information gold mine whose riches will be increasingly easy to excavate as technology advances.

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