Return of the sneakernets

August 26, 2008 —

Technology is like Irish weather sometimes - but on a slightly longer time-scale. Just wait a while and the Irish weather is guaranteed to change. Just wait a while longer and the original weather will come back again. Similarly, just wait a while and technology is sure to change. Just wait a while longer and the original technology just might come right back at ya.

Case in point. We used to have sneakernets. We fabricated them from 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. Need to send information from A to B? No problem : copy it first to a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk, have a "frisbee moment" to some other destination, then copy it off the 5 1/4 inch floppy. I have done this across continents. I have done it across a crowded room. I have done this between two machine sharing the same table.

It has been a while since I last wielded a 5 1/4 floppy. The same goes for its successor in the sneakernet stakes - the mighty 3 1/2 inch floppy. That floppy subsequently given way (in order) to the CD-R sneakernet, the DVD-R* sneakernet and now the USB key sneakernet.

I cannot remember when it happened but I remember thinking that a combination of USB and the Internet had effectively killed the sneakernet for good. Why would you export on a data key when you an easily send it over a wire: USB-to-USB or USB-Internet? It hasn't panned out that way for me. I don't know about you, but I find myself sneaker-netting a lot more these days than I would have envisaged a few years ago.

A lot of my sneaker-netting has to do with the way storage is popping up everywhere from cellphones to digital cameras to picture frames. My digital camera for example, has a USB cable and a CD-ROM of software, but it stores all its data on an SD card. I can read the SD directly using the SD card reader in my latop. Now. Which is more convenient - make a "real" network by running the USB cable provided or use a sneakernet and just use the SD card?

More often than not, I just go with the SD card and skip the USB cable and driver software. I don't think I am alone. I know for sure I am not alone when I say that I have fought frustrating battles with the device drivers that lurk behind most USB cables. If I can avoid device driver hell, I will. If, in doing that, I forsake some cool features, so be it.

Welcome back sneakernets. Nothing much has changed since you were last here except that volume has gone through the roof. Oh, and discs are no longer round...