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Installing, powering and cabling "a few hundred" of anything in a datacenter is a big deal. You probably don't have room. You may not have power. You have to deal with hundreds of boxes, cardboard isn't allowed on the datacenter floor (ideally), and just mucking around on the loading dock wrangling stupid stuff like shipping labels is going to suck up a ton of time.

[I'm a C++ dev who likes to help design and build datacenters. It's fun.]

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But isn't that the same problem with the truck? You also need to get that connected to the datacenter for a week? I guess as that connection has to leave the building, it should be even harder?

Just run a conduit of fiber out to the parking lot temporarily.

The Snowball ships bare, without packing materials. You receive it, plug it in, transfer data / run code, and ship it.

Still, you're right that there's a logistic issue of physically locating, networking, and powering these devices.

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