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Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the data-access-versus-data-excess dept.

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.

4 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. The telecom industry is to blame. by jdehnert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Chips have gotten faster. Ram is bigger faster and less expensive. Disk space is dirt cheap.

    But the telecom industry is just crawling in comparison. I use the same phone line for dial up now as I did 10 years ago, and things like ISDN, DSL, and Cable Modems get you better performance, but nothing stellar. I don't think a T-1 has really changed in cost for a very long time.

    Funny, when the bubble was expanding all the talk was about the bandwidth we were suppored to have access to, but it never made it to my house.

    Eschew Obfuscation

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    Eschew Obfuscation
  2. Re:Well, depends on what way you look at it. by captain_craptacular · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lets see, local cable modem is $39.95 for 5 gigs and $10 a gig past that. So if you can ship 3 160GB HDD's for $30 thats:

    160GBX3 = 480GB / $30 = 16 GB/Dollar

    Cable modem = 1GB/$10 = 1/10 GB/Dollar

    So the mail is cheaper. And probably faster if you consider how long it would take to DL 480GB @ 32KB/sec compared to next day or 2nd day air.

    --
    They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
  3. The bandwith is there, you just can't have it. by twitter · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Netflix has made a business out of shipping data via snail mail, since the bandwidth isn't really there yet to do it over the internet.

    What a great example you picked! Cable TV companies are pumping dozens of digital movies accross their system at once, live. Yet they crimp your upload speed to DSL rates or lower, 30KB/s, because they are afraid of people "stealing" movies. This is not a technological problem, it a social one. Big publishers and telcos are afraid of competition and are doing everything in their power to keep you from enjoying technology that's already in place. It's the same old fight Ma Bell used to wage back when they would not alow you to so much as plug a modem into your phoneline.

    How long are people here in the US going to put up with this monkey business?

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  4. Re:Tapes too... by pclminion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That figure is per tape, the actual shipment has 1,139 tapes, I think. 10.175GB * 1,139 = ~11.6TB. That *is* impressive bandwith.

    Well in theory, that's not really "bandwidth," it's just a number of bytes. The bandwidth would be the maximum sustained throughput. Essentially, how much data could be delivered per second, if there were a constant stream of trucks pulling in, each carrying 11.6TB. Assume the trucks drive bumper-to-bumper, at 60 MPH. Assume each truck is what, 25' long. At 60 MPH it takes about 0.28 second to travel one truck-length. Therefore, the actual bandwidth is 11.8/0.28 = 42.1 TB per second.