How to download 694 MB in less than 10 seconds!

Ever wanted to download a full Ubuntu ISO in less than 10 seconds? We'll show you how you can setup a test environment to achieve the same performance shown in the video for less than $15!

Step 1. Get a free Amazon AWS account and start an EC2 instance. We used the biggest and baddest High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Base (AMI Id: ami-ee926087) in the US-WEST region. Cost: $2.76 per hour

Step 2. Even the High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance's disk performance is still not enough to handle the 70 MB/s download speed. So you'll need to setup a RAM disk to receive the download. We used the excellent VSuite Ramdisk Server Edition. A free trial version can be downloaded here.

Step 3. Download BinTube Usenet Reader Pro and set it up with your BinTube username and password. If you don't have an account you can get one here. Then set the connection settings to 20 connections, No SSL and point it to the closest servers. If your EC2 instance is in US-WEST that would be us.bintube.com. Finally set your download and temp folders to two separate folders on the RAM disk you created in step 2. Cost: $10.99 per month

That's all there is to it. You should now be able to see download speeds of 500+ Mbps. Just keep in mind that AWS charges $0.10 per GB for data transfer in and $0.15 per GB for data transfer out.

Total cost for the test as performed in the video $10.99 + $2.76 + $.10 = $13.85. All mentioned prices are valid as of 05/03/2011.