I requested some military records from the UK National Archives. Paid £30 or so, which was fine. I waited 11 months to receive them. The digital file was 26 scanned pages with a 10 MB filesize. They only keep the file online for _three days_ before they delete it, so if you miss it, it's gone.

I did an equivalent request to the US National Archives and Records Administration. They made me send a paper form from London to St Louis, Missouri. Even so, the whole process was completed in under a month.