there was also the sneaker net, it was faster to grab a cart of mag tape and/or punchcards and take a walk down the hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
>> Similarly, as of 2019 the highest capacity backup tape format available is LTO-8, with a capacity of 12 TB. If a tape of this capacity were sent by overnight mail and were to arrive around 20 hours after it was sent, the effective data rate would be 1328 Mbit/s. With networking technology, this magnitude of speed over this distance would be very difficult to attain without a costly dedicated connection as one would likely need to use several hops and have a connection that is not oversubscribed. <<