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Amazon To Offer Sneakernet Services: Data Upload By Mail

Posted by timothy on from the those-are-some-big-sneakers dept.

blueshift_1 writes: If you have 50TB of data that you'd like to put on the S3 cloud, Amazon is releasing Snowball. It's basically a large grey box full of hard drives that Amazon will mail to you. Simply upload your files and mail it back — they will upload it for you. For $200 + shipping, it's at a pretty reasonable price point if you're tired of hosting your data and want to try and push that to AWS. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -Tanenbaum, Andrew S.)

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Theft waiting to happen by hawguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The boxes in which these hard drives ship will be obvious that they're from Amazon. It's an invitation to thieves to steal the boxes and the data on the hard drives. I can't understand why ANYONE would ship data of any value in this manner.

    The data is encrypted by the tool that copies data to the device. It doesn't seem like it would take too many thefts before UPS/FedEx roots out their thieving employees.

  2. A perfect example of why tech is cyclical.... by Drakonblayde · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the beginning, networking was developed so that folks wouldn't have to shuttle data back and forth via locomotion.

    Now, we have so much data and fast bandwidth is so expensive, that transferring data to another site physically is actually a consideration.

    1. Re:A perfect example of why tech is cyclical.... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      At the opposite end of the scale, I have been unable to persuade any of my pigeons to take off with an LTO tape attached to their legs.

      Has anyone else succeeded with this?

      Try disguising it as a coconut. Works better with swallows, however.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:Theft waiting to happen by CSMoran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't understand [...]

    And that should be your cue not to post, and think for a moment. If you have sensitive data, you use encryption.

    --
    Every end has half a stick.
  4. Re:Theft waiting to happen by Rainbow+Nerds · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Amazon supports the Snowball Client for Ubuntu 12+ and RHEL 6+, but no doubt it can run on other systems. https://aws.amazon.com/importexport/tools/

    Also, as per this link, they're working on chain-of-custody tracking using GPS. Amazon has already considered the possibility of theft and it doesn't seem likely to be an issue.

    --
    M-I-Z
    kU still sucks!
  5. Not gonna happen by garryknight · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you have 50TB of data that you'd like to put on the S3 cloud, Amazon is releasing Snowball.

    I don't, therefore it isn't.

    --
    Garry Knight