AWS opens physical locations for customers to upload their data

At its re:Invent 2024 conference Sunday evening in Las Vegas, Amazon announced a somewhat unusual new service for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers: a data transfer station, a set of physical locations where customers can connect their storage devices to upload data to AWS cloud.

So how does it work exactly? From the AWS Management Console, customers can reserve a time slot, optionally assign operations and data migration specialists from their organization, and visit a data migration station location to upload their data.

“On your reserved date and time, (you will) visit the site and confirm arrival through the front desk in the building,” AWS lead attorney Chani Yuen explained in Blog post. “(You will then be) escorted by building staff to the floor and room reserved for the data transfer station location… Do not be surprised if there is no AWS signage in the building or room. This is for security reasons to keep your work location as secret as possible.

The first data transfer station locations are in New York City and Los Angeles, with more to come. Each site is equipped with a patch panel, fiber optic cable, and a computer to monitor data transfer tasks.

Now, why would someone want to move all their hard drives into the building and sit and wait for it to finish loading? Well, Amazon claims that the data transfer station delivers fast download speeds (up to 400 Gbps) over a secure, “high-throughput” connection.

You will have to pay for this privilege, though. Amazon charges a “per port hour” fee for using ports at data transfer station locations during a reservation – even when no data is being transferred.

“At a minimum, you will be charged per port hour for the number of hours booked,” He reads Amazon support page. “You will be charged port hours for each port you use and/or request as part of your booking.”

The per-port fee is $300 for “US to US” data transfers (i.e. uploads from a data transfer station location to an AWS data center in the US) and $500 for “US to EU” data transfers ( Uploads to an AWS data center in the EU). Amazon does not list the price for transfers from the US to the rest of the world.