Windows 8 Consumer Preview downloaded one million times in first 24 hours

Windows 8 Metro-style interface

After releasing Windows 8 Consumer Preview yesterday, Microsoft has today confirmed that the build has been downloaded one million times in its first 24 hours – quite impressive.

Microsoft’s Building Windows 8 team tweeted a few hours ago saying,

One day later…one million downloads of the consumer preview

— Building Windows 8 (@BuildWindows8) March 1, 2012

At one million downloads in 24 hours, that’s 11.5 every second. Each download is 1.5GB or 1.9GB in size depending on which version you require, 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64), meaning Microsoft served up between 1.4 and 1.8 petabytes.

With figures like these, Microsoft has certainly created a new level of excitement around their forthcoming operating system, expected to be released prior to year’s end.