BitTorrent sees Sync users share over 1PB of data less than two weeks after opening up alpha to the public

BitTorrent on Monday announced an impressive milestone for its file synchronization tool Sync: users have synced over 1PB of data. The company says over 70 terabytes are synced via the tool every day.

BitTorrent first announced its Sync software back in January and released a private alpha. Between then and April 23, when the company release a public alpha, users synced over 200TB worth of data.

In other words, over the past 13 days users have synced over 800TB of data. At this rate, the service will pass 10PB before even hitting a stable release.

For those who don’t know, Sync uses peer-to-peer technology to synchronize personal files across multiple computers and devices; it’s based on the BitTorrent protocol, meaning there are no third-party servers involved when syncing your files. All traffic between devices is encrypted with AES cypher and a 256-bit key created based off a “secret” – a random string (20 bytes or more) unique for every folder.

BitTorrent emphasizes that Sync is different from other file syncing services:

BitTorrent Sync was designed to solve for what we see as real, fundamental challenges to data synchronization: limitations on speed, size, and space; limitations on file security and dependency on cloud infrastructure. Because BitTorrent Sync is based on distributed technology, you can sync as many big files as you want. Transfers are encrypted, and information isn’t stored on any server, or in the cloud. Your content belongs to you, and stays on devices of your choice. That’s the way syncing should work.

To put things into further perspective, BitTorrent noted that the Internet Archive houses 10 petabytes of data. Sync is already 10 percent of the way there:

Again, BitTorrent isn’t storing all this data: it’s merely facilitating the sharing between users. Nevertheless, the growth is quite impressive.

See also – BitTorrent’s browser extension Surf hits beta with new recommendation engine, Firefox support, and more and BitTorrent and uTorrent mobile apps on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone pass 20 million downloads

Top Image Credit: fDhooghe