Sending data over the web can be incredibly time-consuming past a certain file size, which often represents an obstacle in cloud migration projects. Now, for companies that use Google Inc.’s infrastructure as a service platform, there’s an alternative.

The technology giant today unveiled a system called the Transfer Appliance that’s intended for physically shipping information from an on-premises data center to its cloud facilities. Two models are available at launch, one with 100 terabytes of raw storage space and another that packs 480 terabytes’ worth. According to Google, their effective capacity can be increased by about twofold if a company compresses its data efficiently enough.

Shipment is fairly straightforward. An organization can order a Transfer Appliance for either $300 or $1,800 depending on the model, and Google will send the system to its selected data center location. The resident technical staff then have up to 25 days to load information from their hardware onto the machine before overtime charges kick in. Once all is said and done, the Transfer Appliance can be sent back to the technology giant via FedEx or UPS.

Importantly, information is encrypted for the duration of the journey. The Transfer Appliance scrambles data upon capture and gives companies the power to enable access only when it has reached Google.

The main target market for the system are traditional enterprises that have large volumes of data sitting in their data centers and wish to speed up their migration to the cloud. It’s the same market that Amazon.com Inc. courts with the Amazon Web Services Snowball data transfer appliance, which was launched back in 2015. It comes in two models with 50 and 80 terabytes of raw storage space, respectively.

But although the 480-terabyte configuration of the Transfer Appliance may be bigger, Google will need to do much more if it wants to up the against Amazon’s data shipping operation. For cases when Snowball doesn’t cut it, Jeff Bezos’ firm will send out what it calls a Snowmobile, a 45-foot-long shipping container mounted onto a truck that holds enough storage equipment to accommodate 100 petabytes of data.

Image: Google