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Actually, no; "data" can be either plural or singular.

In this case, you can substitute "data" with "information", and "most information isn't big" definitely sounds grammatical.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data

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They may both be accepted, but as your link notes, the singular is avoided by most publications, and I think for good reason. The singular is not logical. In the case of "information", the word is already in singular form and describes a group, much like the word "flock" is a singular group of birds. On the other hand, "data" is a plural form of "datum". It follows that describing a group of data using a singular construction should require a different word or phrase, such as "data set".

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