Philip Russom, writing for *TDWI*, likes the three Vs of big data, and takes a look at Volume:

>It’s pretty obvious that data volume is the primary attribute of big data. With that in mind, some people have asked me for a definitive number quantifying the volume, a common question being: “Exactly how many terabytes constitute big data?” In some user interviews I’ve conducted lately, users have said that big data used to start at 3 terabytes, but now the bottom threshold is more like 10 terabytes. In a 2010 TDWI Technology Survey, a third of users surveyed said they will have 10 terabytes within three years. So 3 to 10 terabytes seems an accurate baseline – for now.

Gartner and SAND have been talking about the three Vs for a while now, and Mike Pilcher has discussed [Big Volume at length on his blog](https://www.sandtechnology.com/extreme-data-volume/). It’s great to see the topic gaining wider traction in the industry.

[[TDWI](http://tdwi.org/blogs/philip-russom/2011/06/three-vs-of-big-data-analytics-1-data-volume.aspx)]