History
Segmented downloads probably have an origin with NASA and the magnetic tape based file systems used on Deep Space Network craft such as those in the Voyager Program. However from the 1960s to the 1980s there was a lot of experimentation with uploading, downloading (and synchronizing) data over bandwidth restricted telecommunications links by most many mainframe computer users. So the early origins of segmented downloading are not historically clear.
It is understood that some NASA missions use some kind of segmented downloading technique (for either file formats or data streams) :
- Mars Rovers (for ICER image files)
- New Horizons (for Jupiter flyby data)
- Voyager Program (historical)
Swarmcast was the first significant peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery system that implemented a kind of segmented downloading technology. The program and protocol was invented and developed in 1999 by Justin Chapweske and sold to Opencola, which released the software under a GPL license.
A lot of the terms used in segmented downloading technology have their origin with Swarmcast, with BitTorrent being the only other significant contributor to the terms in use.
Read more about this topic: Segmented File Transfer
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