[BioRuby] SRA downloader

[Michael Paulini]

On 18/02/2011 11:14, Raoul Bonnal wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> On 15/feb/2011, at 15.57, Chris Fields wrote:
>
>> On Feb 15, 2011, at 7:45 AM, Raoul Bonnal wrote:
>>
>>> If more providers will switch to Aspera, there is a developer kit SDK http://www.asperasoft.com/en/products/fasp_SDK_9/fasp_SDK_9 that could be interesting to support.
>>>
>>> Today I tested the download speed and it performs very well compared to normal ftp.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ra
>> A bit confused on this last part. If we're talking about a simple ftp-like resource to pull data from then I would suggest biotorrents, which is specifically developed for handling large datasets.
> My point was, NCBI and EBI use Aspera, which has a proprietary way to transfer file, you need their client for a fast download... but don't care about that I don't like that approach.
>
> Why are they not using torrents ? Which is the sense of biotorrent ? Just share "personal" data or replicate/mirroring other databases ?
>
> I must admit that I need just some SRA file for testing tools. I don't think I will download many sra data in the near future, I can wait 50mins using regular ftp.
>
> It was more, which is your feeling with sra and your experience.
>
> --
> Ra
>
Hi Ra,

from personal experience the word 'bittorrent' does not fly too high 
with management ... even if used to distributed 20GB+ VM images.
After long-winded fights (making sure we were allowed to distribute 
every single file, by attaching the respective OSS license to them, and 
getting agreements form our sister sites to seed), we went back to 
mirror them across a handful FTP sites instead, as it was "decided" that 
we can't possible use 'File-Sharing Programs'.

M

/rant_end


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