Google’s Sneakernet
What’s the cheapest and fastest way to transfer terrabytes of information across the world? Google has the answer - it’s Sneakernet (aka FedExNet).
In this world of broadband, fibre optics and satellite communications some might be suprised to think that scientists at leading research institutions have no better way of transferring large amounts of data than to put it in the post.
Google sends out a hard drive array to the scientists who then transfer across their data. The drive is then sent back to google who transfer the information across to their own system.
Google now has a copy of the data and can transfer it onto additional hard disk and post them out to whoever needs the data.
Source: Wired
