This is a race wherein the rules are carefully crafted to create a competitive race between a digital data transfer team and a short sprint race to find out which method might be faster. The running lengths, data transfer method and technology, baud rates, etc. can be tailored to keep the race close.

A dial-up modem with a 90's tech baud rate with all dial-in steps required, vs. a fast runner with a USB stick or a couple of floppy disks to transfer a 15 meg set of files to a 486 computer at the finish line.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 11 2021

Royal Navy Field Gun Race https://www.youtube...watch?v=6lhx6Q3WuvU
I'm kind of reminded of this where a team of trained technicians post an entire field gun through a letterbox under race conditions. [zen_tom, Jun 11 2021]

When - if ever - will the bandwidth of the Internet surpass that of FedEx? https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/
[bs0u0155, Jun 11 2021]

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."

It hurts me that without the possibility of real network cabling, a USB drive is still the quickest way to get data upstairs in my house. My lab moves data back and forth to Switzerland with 10TB drives in FedEx boxes.
-- bs0u0155, Jun 11 2021


Is the data actually used in Switzerland or is this just an extreme kind of off-site backup?
-- pocmloc, Jun 11 2021


//extreme kind of off-site backup?//

Ha! No, the data comes from a 3D electron microscope in Switzerland, then we take advantage of low US labor rates to do analysis. There's no off site backup. Research grants mandate you keep data for a certain number of years, but assign no budget to that. Institutionally, they don't want to touch dangerous non group policy machines, let alone fund anything. So, only RAID 5 stands between 15 years of research data and the abyss.
-- bs0u0155, Jun 11 2021


"Bugs kill RAID... dead."
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 11 2021


//It hurts me//

back in about 2007, I used to get database backups (and sometimes entire VMs) sent on CDs from the UK to Australia, essentially because of timeouts on ftp servers. I now know about other ways I could have got around this (filezilla would probably have done the trick), but I remember the sheer embarrassment that this was happening.
-- pertinax, Jun 12 2021


Baudy building?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 13 2021


Instead of a starter's pistol, the go! signal could be the part of the sound of an old dial-up modem where it goes "bi-dum bi-dum".
-- zen_tom, Jun 16 2021



random, halfbakery