《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第89期:聯邦快遞VS互聯網(1)

FEDEX BANDWIDTH

聯邦快遞VS互聯網

Q. When–if ever–will thebandwidth of the Internet surpass that of FedEx?

Q．什麼時候——如果真的可能的話——互聯網的傳輸帶寬能夠超過聯邦快遞（FedEx）的帶寬？

Johan Öbrink

——約翰•奧布林克

Never underestimate the bandwidth of astation wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

永遠不要低估一輛裝滿磁帶在高速公路上飛馳的小貨車的傳輸帶寬。

–Andrew Tanenbaum, 1981

——安德魯•塔能鮑姆，1981

A. IF YOU WANT TO transfer a few hundredgigabytes of data, it's generally faster to FedEx a hard drive than to send thefiles over the Internet. This isn't a new idea-it's often dubbed“SneakerNet”-and it's even how Google transfers large amounts of data internally.

A．如果你想傳輸幾百GB的數據，那麼一般來說用聯邦快遞把硬盤直接快遞過去要比你通過互聯網傳輸更快。這個想法並不新鮮——它經常被冠以“步行網”（SneakerNet）的名稱——這也是谷歌內部傳輸大量數據的方法。

But will it always be faster?

但它一直能快下去嗎？

Cisco estimates that total Internet trafficcurrently averages 167 terabits per second. FedEx has a fleet of 654 aircraftwith a lift capacity of 26.5 million pounds daily. A solid-state laptop driveweighs about 78 grams and can hold up to a terabyte.

思科估計目前互聯網的總流量約相當於每秒167TB。聯邦快遞擁有654架飛機組成的機隊，每天能夠運輸1.2噸的貨物，而筆記本電腦固態硬盤的重量一般是78克，容量最高可達1TB。

That means FedEx is capable of transferring150 exabytes of data per day, or 14 petabits per second-almost a hundred timesthe current throughput of the Internet.

這意味着聯邦快遞每天可以傳輸150EB的數據，換言之它每秒可以傳輸14PB——幾乎是現在互聯網總流量的100倍。

If you don't care about cost, this10-kilogram shoebox can hold a lot of Internet.

如果你不在乎花多少錢，一個10千克的鞋盒就能裝下許多互聯網上的內容。

We can improve the data density evenfurther by using microSD cards:

選用MicroSD卡還可進一步提高數據的存儲密度。

Those thumbnail-sized flakes have a storagedensity of up to 160 terabytes per kilogram, which means a FedEx fleet loadedwith microSD cards could transfer about 177 petabits per second, or 2zettabytes per day-a thousand times the Internet's current traffic level. (Theinfrastructure would be interesting-Google would need to build huge warehousesto hold a massive card-processing operation.)

這些指甲蓋大小的小薄片的存儲密度達每千克160TB，也就是說滿載MicroSD卡的聯邦快遞機隊每秒可以運送177PB（或每天運輸2ZB）的數據——這可是目前互聯網流量的1000倍。（不過所需的基礎設施也相當可觀——谷歌需要建一個巨大的廠房來容納這些處理SD卡的機器。）