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Monday, 31 December 2012

The fastest way to send data

Everyone thinks of super-fast optical fibres as being the best way to transfer data from one location to another.  Big organisations generate a lot of data, and in the case of one that I know, 1 terabyte is gathered every day.  It was expensive to gather that data and it is important that it is not lost, so a backup copy is kept on another site 10km away.

How is the data sent? 

By motorbike courier on a backup tape!

Who would have thought that the fastest way to transfer data would be by motorbike?

Small note:  OK, it probably takes a long time to write the data onto the tape, and that should be taken into consideration, but that spoils the story a bit!

2 comments:

  1. The only thing which surprises me is their choice of backup media.

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  2. What would you recommend John? It isn't my field of expertise, but I'm just interested.

    ReplyDelete