Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data
CowboyRobot writes "Who would ever, in this time of the greatest interconnectivity in human history, go back to shipping bytes around via snail mail as a preferred means of data transfer? Jim Gray would do it, that's who. And we're not just talking about Zip disks, no sir. We're talking about shipping entire hard drives, or even complete computer systems, packed full of disks.
David Patterson (one of the developers of both RISC and RAID) interviews ACM Turing Award winner Jim Gray." Back in school we always had a saying, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes." Seems like that still holds true.
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes."
"Hurtling station wagon", "8-track tapes".
Darn you people! How the heck am I supposed to get a proper astrophysical mental image if you consistently refuse to put things in terms of multiples of VW bugs (the old ones, not the faux ones).
-theGreater
"If you're driving a station wagon around you ain't doin' too well with the ladies"
Of course playing Quake would be out of the question I would think
I wear pants.
PING privaria.org (64.33.49.48) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from privaria.org (64.33.49.48): icmp_seq=2 ttl=242 time=2 days, 7 hrs, 37 min
64 bytes from privaria.org (64.33.49.48): icmp_seq=1 ttl=242 time=2 days, 17 hrs, 14 min
64 bytes from privaria.org (64.33.49.48): icmp_seq=3 ttl=242 time=3 days, 2 hrs, 41 min
Of course, we could put the Library of Congress holdings on it or 10,000 movies
10,000 movies? The MPAA would like to have a word with him..
Trolling is a art,
The ping on a station wagon sucks and don't even get me started on the routes...
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Well now that they have that new fast TCP, that might change.
This week: You can make a trade-off between latency and throughput!
Next week: Cars that can haul less can be more fuel-effiecent!
The week after: Algorithms that use more memory, but are faster to execute!
Wonders never cease!
Can anyone imagine the bandwidth that AOL is "sending out" with all their worthless CDs. I mean I'm getting about 600megs a day from them. Deliver a batch to Office Depot with a good 1000 CDs and that's some really massive bandwidth.
What about giving each car a portion of the data each, and having each of them carry parity information in case one of the cars fails?
Yeah, but the latency will kill you!
Speaking as a person on a 28.8kbps connection with well over 3TB of local storage, I could only *wish* that wasn't the case.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Actually the ping will never traverse the same network. The data will go over the postal network and a single ACK will come back over the telephone network. Data loss will occur at unacceptable rates due to the medium (postal service) and ACK loss will be high too (Telco)
New proposed RFC 5433 for postal ACK format:
"Yup, I received your package"
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
You may find RFC 1149 useful:
"A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers}
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
yeah, but the ping sucks...
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
mmmmm.... alien pr0n...
"I can't believe we sucked each others jagons!"
traceroute privaria.org
1 privaria.org-package.ready 50000ms
2 Picked-up-USPS 900000ms
3 Transfer-to-USPS-depot 300000000ms
4 (unknown)
5 (unknown)
6 (unknown)
Packet Loss 100%
Blockwars: multiplayer and it's free.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
What... is that like a 241920000ms ping latency? That's worse than DirecWay, but just barely.
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
Not for very much longer. The RIAA's lawyers have just discovered that the U.S. Postal Service is in fact a p2p network. (Not to mention the highway system.)
First of all, how could you drive into a garage at 60 miles an hour, stop, unload, and get back out before the next truck, only four inches behind you comes in? In your system the trucks would crash into eachother, and you'd get no effective bandwidth.
In actuality, you need to figure how long it takes to unload all the tapes from the truck at least. Assuming about 10 seconds a tape (ones in the back take longer) on average and that's 1.16gb/second.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Is that why you posted the exact same joke as someone else 4 minutes late?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No, it is SUV full of DVDs.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Just try to play Quake3 that way. Actually it starts to help. Play for a while and you start getting kills from rockets you fired 3 maps earlier.
How about a truckload of RFID strips? Then you wouldn't even need to unload them. Just drive the truck through the reader, then take the strips to a landfill and dump them there.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
"Today disk-capacity growth continues at this blistering rate, maybe a little slower."
What is a bit slower than a blistering rate? A skin-reddening, sensitizing-to-the-touch rate?
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Cruise Control, baby, Cruise Control.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I wonder what the Packet Loss is like when you have a station wagon loaded with tapes... "Whoops, spilled my coffee on one.."
That's about the most pointless thing I've read all week.
Ok, so if I put 1000 80 gig tapes in a large box and Delta-dash them from Atlanta to LA it'll get there quicker than sending the information over an Internet connection.
How could someone not know that? It's the most basic common sense. I guess I deserve a good modding down on this one. It's just so obvious of a thing that I can't NOT say something.
"Assume the trucks drive bumper-to-bumper, at 60 MPH"
Where do you live, so that I can avoid the area?