Hi Gilles,
Fae brought this up: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67477
Clearly, mailing the hard drive would be the most efficient way of transferring the data. If the hard drive can make it to close enough to our data center's network, anyway, which might have security implications. Is there any precedence to doing something like this?
Yes, this has happened in the past. I recall André Costa from Sweden (cc-ed) did that for the LSH GLAM donation [1] but I believe there was others.
Maybe Rob or Roan could tell you more on this.
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Batch_uploading/LSH
Related links: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-August/067359.html https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Server-side_upload