According to Sandvine, the vast majority of internet traffic from 2013 (chosen to coincide with the Forbes storage estimates) was video such as Netflix and Youtube[1] and remains so today[2]. Assuming NSA is aware of industry standard techniques such as data de-duplication and compression, Forbe's estimate of 3 - 12 exabytes in 2013 would have been sufficient to store the entire year's world internet traffic in full.
In 2025 The Internet Archive holds approximately 100 exabytes[3] and contains data dating back to 1995[4]. Adjusting the 2013 Forbes numbers for the Utah Data Center for 2025 storage density (4Tb drives in 2013, 36Tb drives in 2025) yields 27 - 108 exabytes. Which demonstrates clearly that a datacenter on the scale of the Utah Data Center is capable of storing and retaining a versioned history of a significant fraction of the world's internet over a significant period of time.
Assuming they prioritize metadata and unique traffic further extends the horizon on how much can be stored and for how long.
