What the World's Largest Malware Banks Look Like Stacked as Hard Drives
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What the World’s Largest Malware Banks Look Like Stacked as Hard Drives

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3 Min Read

The malware research group vx-underground claims to have the largest repository of malware source code, with an archive totaling about 30 terabytes, according to a post on X.

In a response from Bernardo Quintero, founder of VirusTotal, it was mentioned that his service has accumulated about 31 petabytes of malware samples from user submissions. (A petabyte is approximately 1,000 times the size of a terabyte.)

Both figures represent substantial amounts of data. For context, such repositories are crucial for cybersecurity entities, AI researchers, and threat intelligence companies for training and understanding attack patterns. It led us to ponder: What would these voluminous datasets resemble if stacked as hard drives, vertically and side by side? How do they compare in height to the Eiffel Tower?

An AI chatbot was consulted for this question, but it provided highly inaccurate information.

We instead performed some rough calculations to determine the height of these data stacks. Given that both vx-underground and VirusTotal possess “about” this much data, this approximation suffices for our purposes. 

Assuming the use of 1-terabyte capacity internal hard drives, all typically designed to fit inside a computer, these standard 3.5-inch drives are 1 inch tall, which is relevant for vertical stacking.

For simplicity, we assume each hard drive is exactly 1 terabyte, given that the actual usable space is generally slightly less. 

Using an online conversion tool, vx-underground’s 30 terabytes of data would require 30 stacked hard drives, reaching a height of 30 inches, or roughly 2.5 feet.

In comparison, this reporter stands 6 feet tall. (See the accompanying visual, acknowledging poor opsec.)

Employing the same principle, VirusTotal’s 31 petabytes would need 31,744 hard drives, stacked to a height of approximately 2,645 feet.

The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, stands a bit taller at 2,722 feet.

The Eiffel Tower is 1,083 feet high, meaning VirusTotal’s data is equivalent to about two and a half Eiffel Towers in height.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2001" height="7148" src="https://allyoucantech.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/what-the-worlds-largest-malware-banks-look-like-stacked-as-hard-drives.jpg" alt="a screenshot featuring a stack of hard drives from left-to-right in descending order, starting with: Burj Khalifa (2,722 feet); VirusTotal (2,645 feet); One World Trade Center (1,792 feet); the Eiffel Tower (1,083 feet); Zack Whittaker, who is 6 feet tall; and vx-underground's malware repository is about 2.5 feet worth of hard drives." class="wp-image-3122210" srcset="https://allyoucantech.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/what-the-worlds-largest-malware-banks-look-like-stacked-as-hard-drives.jpg 2001w, https://allyoucantech.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/what-the-worlds-largest-malware-banks-look-like-stacked-as-hard-drives.jpg?resize=42

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