A "sponsored post" at Forbes from Praveen Asthana of Dell on "Big Data" and "Little Data". Ask the question: how exactly is big data different from "normal" sized data?
"Big Data refers to huge amounts of data, hundreds of terabytes, even petabytes (1,000 terabytes) of information. It usually comes in the form of unstructured data and consists of data sets that may be unrelated to each other, such as bits from a variety of independent streams like social media, CRM, surveys, demographics, defects and so on. This is different from traditional data sets, which are often relational. Another key aspect of big data analytics is analytic velocity, or rapid, almost real-time analysis."
More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dell/2011/10/31/big-data-and-little-data/