2/15/2006: Data transfer via snail

[Undertoad]

As we used to say in the olden days, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes." Now that both station wagons and magtapes have gone the way of the dinosaurs, here is a new way to demonstrate high-bandwidth, high-latency data communications.

axlrosen suggests this item, which was Boing Boing'd. The idea was conceived and built at an Israeli internet camp to demonstrate this new data transport mechanism, called SNAP (SNAil-based data transfer Protocol).

The actual data is on the two DVDs which make up the wheels. Each DVD holds 4.7 GB of data.

Once it was proven that the data could be moved this way, they did the math to compare it to other data transfer methods:

V.34 modem: 28.8 kbps
ISDN: 128 kbps
ADSL: 1,500 kbps
Pigeons: 2,270 kbps
SNAP: 37,000 kbps

Once the Cellar is moved on Friday, it should be on a 10,000 kbps connection but you know, SNAP seems like a better way.