Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data

Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data 581

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:27PM 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.

Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data

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Andy Tannenbaum (Score:5, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:29PM (#6411329)

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes."

"Hurtling station wagon", "8-track tapes".

Wrong Standard! (Score:5, Funny)

by theGreater ( 596196 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:29PM (#6411331) Homepage

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

We had a saying back in school too... (Score:5, Funny)

by Capital_Z ( 682911 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:31PM (#6411349)

We had a saying back in school too --
"If you're driving a station wagon around you ain't doin' too well with the ladies"

OOoooh high ping (Score:5, Funny)

by Ribo99 ( 71160 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:32PM (#6411354) Homepage Journal

Of course playing Quake would be out of the question I would think

Yeah, but the latency's pretty bad... (Score:5, Funny)

by privaria ( 583781 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:32PM (#6411357) Homepage

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

From the interview (Score:5, Funny)

by grub ( 11606 ) writes: <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:32PM (#6411358) Homepage Journal

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..

Ping (Score:5, Funny)

by felonious ( 636719 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:32PM (#6411360) Journal

The ping on a station wagon sucks and don't even get me started on the routes...

Re:Andy Tannenbaum (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:33PM (#6411365)

If it's hurtling, does it count as multiple station wagons under RIAA logic?

Re:OOoooh high ping (Score:2, Funny)

by felonious ( 636719 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:34PM (#6411378) Journal

This gives HPW new meaning
Is a sports car considered a LPB now?

Re:Netflix (Score:1, Funny)

by tarius8105 ( 683929 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:35PM (#6411381)

Well now that they have that new fast TCP, that might change.

Next on /. (Score:5, Funny)

by Wrexen ( 151642 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:35PM (#6411382) Homepage

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!

Lag (Score:2, Funny)

by arevos ( 659374 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:36PM (#6411391) Homepage

A truck full of harddrives may have some astronomical bandwidth, but the lag on that thing is murder. I tried a few experimental pings:

PING www.google.com (216.239.37.99) from 192.168.0.7 : 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 216.239.37.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=87303012 ms 64 bytes from 216.239.37.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=130256230 ms 64 bytes from 216.239.37.99: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=110821205 ms 64 bytes from 216.239.37.99: icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=990602128 ms

AOL's Mailing Bandwidth (Score:2, Funny)

by Katamai ( 632113 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:40PM (#6411414)

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.

Re:OOoooh high ping (Score:2, Funny)

by tarius8105 ( 683929 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:41PM (#6411422)

Of course playing Quake would be out of the question I would think

Damn and I used to think having a 400ms ping was bad.

RAIC - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Cars (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:46PM (#6411448)

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?

Re:Wrong Standard! (Score:5, Funny)

by I Like Swords!!! ( 668399 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:46PM (#6411451)

Sorry, that must be in the metric system or something...

Latency? (Score:2, Funny)

by kafer ( 21812 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:47PM (#6411456)

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes."
Yeah, but the latency will kill you!

Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Funny)

by slaker ( 53818 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:49PM (#6411467)

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.

Re:Latency? (Score:3, Funny)

by servoled ( 174239 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:54PM (#6411504)

Latency?
I'd be much more worried about the braking distance required to stop.

New RFC! (Score:3, Funny)

by twoslice ( 457793 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:57PM (#6411523)

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"

RFC 1149 (Score:3, Funny)

by SharpFang ( 651121 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:01PM (#6411545) Homepage Journal

You may find RFC 1149 [faqs.org] useful:
"A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers}

Re:Ping (Score:3, Funny)

by psp ( 7269 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:02PM (#6411546)

..and if you're the driver, you definately want to avoid collisions!

Re:Tapes too... (Score:3, Funny)

by SuperCal ( 549671 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:02PM (#6411550) Homepage

yeah, but the ping sucks...

Re:Tapes too... (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:10PM (#6411591)

mmmmm.... alien pr0n...

"I can't believe we sucked each others jagons!"

Suddenly Packet Loss Becomes a Serious Issue (Score:5, Funny)

by Myriad ( 89793 ) writes: <myriad@the[ ]d.com ['bso' in gap]> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:13PM (#6411602) Homepage

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
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 [blockwars.com]: multiplayer and it's free.

Re:Tapes too... (Score:4, Funny)

by Talking Goat ( 645295 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:22PM (#6411651)

What... is that like a 241920000ms ping latency? That's worse than DirecWay, but just barely.

Re:Netflix (Score:5, Funny)

by appcoal ( 688275 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:25PM (#6411659)

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.)

No, not even close (Score:5, Funny)

by autopr0n ( 534291 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:47PM (#6411742) Homepage Journal

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.

Oh? (Score:5, Funny)

by autopr0n ( 534291 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:56PM (#6411804) Homepage Journal

Is that why you posted the exact same joke as someone else 4 minutes late?

Re:No, not even close (Score:5, Funny)

by pclminion ( 145572 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:57PM (#6411810)

Well, I was assuming the trucks would drive into one of about 50 million different parallel unloading docks, but you know, I was just estimating...

Re:No, not even close (Score:2, Funny)

by Morologous ( 201459 ) * writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:22PM (#6411938)

And, thus, with the trucks crashing into each other, you achieve collision.

Re:Andy Tannenbaum (Score:4, Funny)

by PtM2300 ( 546277 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:45PM (#6412056)

Bandwidth? More like Van-width!

Re:Stationwagon Quote (Score:3, Funny)

by corsec67 ( 627446 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:31PM (#6412260) Homepage Journal

No, it is SUV full of DVDs.

Re:Tapes too... (Score:5, Funny)

by MyHair ( 589485 ) writes: on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:53PM (#6412378) Journal

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.

Re:Offload them to where? (Score:5, Funny)

by anon*127.0.0.1 ( 637224 ) writes: <slashdot@@@baudkarma...com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:59PM (#6412413) Journal

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.

How fast is fast? (Score:4, Funny)

by beaverfever ( 584714 ) writes: on Friday July 11, 2003 @12:17AM (#6412513) Homepage

"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?

Re:Does a station wagon drive itself? (Score:3, Funny)

by sharkey ( 16670 ) writes: on Friday July 11, 2003 @01:11AM (#6412688)

Cruise Control, baby, Cruise Control.

Re:Tapes too... (Score:2, Funny)

by a1cypher ( 619776 ) writes: on Friday July 11, 2003 @01:56AM (#6412821) Homepage

I wonder what the Packet Loss is like when you have a station wagon loaded with tapes... "Whoops, spilled my coffee on one.."

A little common sense here. (Score:2, Funny)

by VPN3000 ( 561717 ) writes: on Friday July 11, 2003 @03:04AM (#6413026)

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.

Re:Tapes too... (Score:3, Funny)

by blibbleblobble ( 526872 ) writes: on Friday July 11, 2003 @09:18AM (#6414126)

"Assume the trucks drive bumper-to-bumper, at 60 MPH"

Where do you live, so that I can avoid the area?

There may be more comments in this discussion. Without JavaScript enabled, you might want to turn on Classic Discussion System in your preferences instead.

Andy Tannenbaum (Score:5, Funny)

Wrong Standard! (Score:5, Funny)

We had a saying back in school too... (Score:5, Funny)

OOoooh high ping (Score:5, Funny)

Yeah, but the latency's pretty bad... (Score:5, Funny)

From the interview (Score:5, Funny)

Ping (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Andy Tannenbaum (Score:2, Funny)

Re:OOoooh high ping (Score:2, Funny)

Re:Netflix (Score:1, Funny)

Next on /. (Score:5, Funny)

Lag (Score:2, Funny)

AOL's Mailing Bandwidth (Score:2, Funny)

Re:OOoooh high ping (Score:2, Funny)

RAIC - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Cars (Score:2, Funny)

Re:Wrong Standard! (Score:5, Funny)

Latency? (Score:2, Funny)

Re:Why is this a surprise? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Latency? (Score:3, Funny)

New RFC! (Score:3, Funny)

RFC 1149 (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Ping (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:2, Funny)

Suddenly Packet Loss Becomes a Serious Issue (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Netflix (Score:5, Funny)

No, not even close (Score:5, Funny)

Oh? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:No, not even close (Score:5, Funny)

Re:No, not even close (Score:2, Funny)

Re:Andy Tannenbaum (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Stationwagon Quote (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Offload them to where? (Score:5, Funny)

How fast is fast? (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Does a station wagon drive itself? (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:2, Funny)

A little common sense here. (Score:2, Funny)

Re:Tapes too... (Score:3, Funny)

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