In the rigid environment that you describe, I'd believe that.
Wish my job was a little less freewheeling at times. We just had a client add "a little" to their data set. "How much is a little?", I replied, wincing already.
"Oh, maybe 20 or 30 Terabytes. Certainly not more than 50TB, but we really won't know until it all gets received, now will we?"
Everytime I deal with this specific problem (it happens all too frequently), I get the mental image of me sitting on top of an overstuffed suitcase, with things hanging out the sides, bouncing up and down, trying to get it to shut.
And maybe they'll even be nice enough to provide accurate layouts for all the feeds? And have it sanitized a bit first?
Naaaah...