Even though this thing won't be winning any beauty pageants, it will be able to handle massive amounts of data.

There's nothing more terrifying than losing data, namely footage of a film you painstakingly shot. (I'm a survivor myself -- I lost half of a film once.) This is why we take protective measures to ensure this doesn't happen to us. However, the process of backing up your data to the cloud is a long one, and if you're trying to move a lot of it in a short amount of time, Amazon might have something that can help.

It's called Snowball, and it quickly, inexpensively, and securely transfers large amounts of data into and out of AWS. It's big, rugged, and ugly as hell, but it's tamper and weather-resistant, stores up to 50TB, and can withstand a 6 G jolt.

Here's what Amazon had to say about their storage device on their blog:

The new Snowball appliance is purpose-built for efficient data storage and transfer. It is rugged enough to withstand a 6 G jolt, and (at 50 lbs) light enough for one person to carry. It is entirely self-contained, with 110 Volt power and a 10 GB network connection on the back and an E Ink display/control panel on the front. It is weather-resistant and serves as its own shipping container; it can go from your mail room to your data center and back again with no packing or unpacking hassle to slow things down. In addition to being physically rugged and tamper-resistant, AWS Snowball detects tampering attempts.

So, how does this thing work? Basically, you rent a Snowball from Amazon for $200 (they don't make them available to purchase), load it up with your data, then send it back to them to be ingested. (All that back and forth -- now you understand why Amazon chose functionality over aesthetics.) The Snowball is even its own shipping container -- no need for packaging. In fact, you can literally just hand it over to whichever shipping service you're using. The ingestion takes no more than a day. (Yeah -- a day.)

Professionals from all types of industries will find this thing useful, but filmmakers will especially appreciate being able to back up -- essentially their entire film -- in a single day. And for a reasonable price.