Business Bytes
Renee Oricchio

This Just In: FedEx Still Relevant

 

When we left off on Friday, I was blathering on about terabytes. It's Monday and I'm going to blather some more. I ran across this little posting over the weekend that I just had to share with the class. It's a great little wakeup call about transferring data over the internet. At what point are the files so big, you're better off putting them on disc and sending them out overnight?

Keep in mind, the average pipe to the internet is about 100 megabits. That translates to about 45 gigs a hour. It would take 24 hours to send one terabyte of information.

Back in March, Google took the challenge of moving 120 terabytes of information from the Space Telescope Science Institute (aka the Hubble telescope folks). The 120 TBs were basically the entire database of the Hubble Telescope, including all the pictures. How did they do it? FedEx. That standard 100 megabit connection would have taken four months.

Data storage is cheap. Moving it, less so. Remember time is money before you hit the upload or attach button. You may want to rethink your options, first. Sometimes, technology doesn't have all the answers.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio