Sam the OctopusSep 15, 2018

- a microSD card weighs somewhere around 0.4g
- the highest capacity microSD that's easily available is 256GB
- a trebuchet can throw a 90kg projectile over 300m

90kg worth of microSD cards is 225,000 of them

Therefore a trebuchet can throw 57.6PB of data over 300m

This would have the highest throughput of any telecommunications network ever created

Show threadthe Hearth 

@troubleMoney but wait.

A microSD card occupies a volume of 0.165 mL.

A 45' hi-cube intermodal container has an internal volume of 86020 L. This means that you can fit 521 million microSD cards in one such intermodal container.

This means you can fit 133.5 EB of data on the back of a large truck, substantially more than you could launch with a trebuchet.

Sep 15, 2018 at 12:22amWeb
Show threadbhtooefrSep 15, 2018

@Felthry @troubleMoney But the internet isn't a big truck, it's a series of tubes.

So, a residential water supply line is typically 3/4" or 1" in the US, apparently, with 40-45 PSI being typical. Let's go with 1" - broadband! - and 45 PSI, and I think that comes out to about 40 gallons per minute.

At 15 x 11 x 1 mm (0.165 cc) per card, 40 gallons of SD cards is about 917,676 SD cards.

At 256 GiB per card, you're looking at 29.87 pebibits per second.

Show threadcodesectionsSep 15, 2018

@bhtooefr @Felthry @troubleMoney

This thread started off great, but then kept getting better and better. Congrats all!

Show thread@hSep 15, 2018
@bhtooefr @Felthry @troubleMoney
Hahaha So what's the total bandwidh of a cargo ship like the CSCL Globe capable of transporting 19100 twenty-foot containers (at 39k litres each)?
I suppose you would have to factor in distance from China to England for example, throughtput wouldn't be the same when shipping to Sydney.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSCL_Globe
CSCL Globe - Wikipedia

Show thread@hSep 15, 2018
@bhtooefr @Felthry @troubleMoney All this makes evident that a new unit is needed to measure bytes per gallon per mile (or bytes per litre per kilometer)
Show threadthe Hearth Sep 15, 2018
@haitch @bhtooefr @troubleMoney I think the most relevant unit would be byte-meters per second
Show threadDavidSep 15, 2018
@bhtooefr @Felthry @troubleMoney Are these calculations assuming that the SD cards fit together with zero space between them?
Show threadbhtooefrSep 15, 2018
@ratamacue @Felthry @troubleMoney Zero space between SD cards, spherical cows, non-flying bumblebees, etc., etc.
Show threadthe Hearth Sep 15, 2018
@bhtooefr @[email protected] @troubleMoney Due to the irregular shape of microSD cards, I believe you could manage slightly more than the numbers I cited, possibly even 130% or 150% as much.
Show threadChris is.Sep 15, 2018
@Felthry @troubleMoney I'm fascinated by this; I wonder how efficient you could get the write and load process.
Show threadpenguin42Sep 15, 2018
@Felthry @troubleMoney The amazon Snowmobile is a similar idea; albeit a bit less dense (I guess it's using standard hard drives and has all the power and controllers); it says it holds 100PB per truck: https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/
Massive Data Transfer, Exabyte Data Storage - AWS Snowmobile - AWS

AWS Snowmobile is an exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move large amounts of data to AWS.

Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Show threadberkes 🐝 🚐 🏄 🌱Apr 11, 2022

@Felthry @troubleMoney This actually is a thing. The AWS snowmobile.

https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/

> When your Snowmobile is on site, AWS personnel will work with your team to connect a removable, high-speed network switch from Snowmobile to your local network and you can begin your high-speed data transfer from any number of sources within your data center to the Snowmobile. After your data is loaded, Snowmobile is driven back to AWS where your data is imported into Amazon S3.

Massive Data Transfer, Exabyte Data Storage - AWS Snowmobile - AWS

AWS Snowmobile is an exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move large amounts of data to AWS.

Amazon Web Services, Inc.