The Planet Blog

We’ve been talking about terabytes (TB) a lot – specifically with regard to our newest special, offering 10 terabytes of bandwidth at no additional cost. In fact, today through Aug. 31, we’re offering a deluxe version of the promo: 10 TB of free bandwidth on top of our discounted server prices and FREE setup.

We talk about how great a deal the 10 TB bandwidth promotion is, but what does 10 terabytes of data look like, anyway? We all know it’s a lot… but I decided to figure out just how much it would be in terms of other measurements.

After a little Googling, I learned that 10 terabytes is equivalent to:

• 10,995,116,277,760 bytes
• 87,960,930,222,080 bits
• The data in 800,000 phone books
• 4 billion single-spaced, typewritten pages
• 16,000 audio CDs
• The memory capacity of eight human brains (we’re not saying whose)
• The entire Library of Congress

Those are interesting, but we wanted to come up with our own visual, so we enlisted our calculators: Picture a small craft bead (an 11 mm x 8 mm cylinder), and imagine that the bead represents one bit (1 b) of data. Eight beads would equal one byte (1 B); 8,192 beads would equal one kilobyte (1 KB); 8,388,608 beads would equal one megabyte (1 MB); etc.

To hold the equivalent of 10 terabytes worth of “bit beads,” you would need more than 1.75 billion 10-gallon tanks. If you piled the beads one foot deep, they would cover 84.7 square miles. If they were used to cover Houston’s 579.4 square miles, we’d have a bead carpet 1.75 inches deep within the city limits.

It’s incredible, right?

Let’s think of it in terms of servers: What is a real-world example of what you can do with 10 TB of bandwidth every month? I’m glad you asked.

You can make an MP3 of yourself singing to your dog and make the file available on your server. When it becomes the latest viral phenomenon, your 10 TB of bandwidth would cover about 3.5 million downloads. You’d be well on your way to your own reality show by the time you got your next month’s server bill … where your 10 TB promo server wasn’t charged a penny of bandwidth overages.

No matter how you measure it … 10 terabytes is a lot.

Help us think big: How would you visualize and explain 10 terabytes?

-John

Are you a shared or dedicated hosting reseller? If I told you about a reseller program with increasing monthly discounts, easy account management and a free month to start, would you be interested? If you’ve screamed “Yes!” at the top of your lungs in response to any of these questions, I’m excited to share the launch of The Planet’s brand new Reseller Program … and I’d also recommend speaking with someone about that whole “yelling while reading a blog post on the Internet” problem you’ve got.

If you know The Planet, you know that we’re the largest privately held dedicated server hosting company in the world. What you might not know is that more than half of our business is made up of Web hosting resellers of various shapes and sizes … from garage-based operations reselling a few servers to close friends to multi-million dollar companies seeking market share in the global shared hosting arena. We provide the back-end network, hardware infrastructure and support to keep those businesses online and thriving. To accommodate the unique needs of these customers, we reinvigorated our reseller program to feature a customized control portal, enhanced discount structure and a free month of service for our charter members on all new server orders.

What Participating Resellers Get

• Monthly discount on already competitive prices
• A dedicated sales team with extended hours
• A custom portal with reseller-specific functions
• Ability to order online with discounts 24×7
• The Planet’s enterprise-level data centers and network
• The freedom to focus on your core competencies without worrying about your infrastucture

How the Program Works

When you join the program, you are eligible for a free month of service on every new server order, and as you grow your business, you will be eligible for our three tiers of membership: Tier 1 ($500-$2,500 per month), Tier 2 ($2,501-$5,000) and Tier 3 ($5,001+) levels each entitle you to larger monthly discounts on your server orders. Every member of the program will have full access to The Planet’s marketing resources, frequently asked questions, and account management staff to be sure that you have all the information needed to help ensure your business can to grow quickly.

After you sign up (hint, hint), we’ll fill you in on all of the details. We are excited to offer you an enterprise-level program at small business prices!

-Todd