At its re:Invent 2024 conference Sunday evening in Las Vegas, Amazon announced a somewhat unusual new service for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers: Data Transfer Terminal, a set of physical locations where customers can plug in their storage devices to upload data to the AWS cloud.
So how’s it work, exactly? From the AWS management console, customers can reserve a time slot, optionally assign process and data transfer specialists from their organization, and visit a Data Transfer Terminal location to upload their data.
“On your reserved date and time, [you’ll] visit the location and confirm access with the building reception,” AWS principal advocate Channy Yun explained in a blog post. “[You’ll then be] escorted by building staff to the floor and your reserved room of the Data Transfer Terminal location … Don’t be surprised if there are no AWS signs in the building or room. This is for security reasons to keep your work location as secret as possible.”
The first Data Transfer Terminal locations are in New York City and Los Angeles, with more to come in the future. Each location is equipped with a patch panel, fiber optic cable, and a PC for monitoring data transfer jobs.
Now, why would someone want to lug all their hard drives to a building and sit around and wait for the upload to finish? Well, Amazon claims that Data Transfer Terminal delivers fast upload speeds (up to 400Gbps) via a secure, “high throughput” connection.
You’ll have to pay for the privilege, though. Amazon charges “per port hour” for usage of ports in Data Transfer Terminal locations during a reservation — even when no data is being transferred.
“At a minimum, you’ll be charged per port hour for the number of hours reserved,” reads an Amazon support page. “You’ll be charged for port hours for each port you use and/or request as part of your reservation.”
Per-port charges are $300 for “U.S. to U.S.” data transfers (i.e. uploads from a Data Transfer Terminal location to a U.S.-based AWS data center) and $500 for “U.S. to EU” transfers (uploads to an EU AWS data center). Amazon doesn’t list the price for transfers from the U.S. to the rest of the world.