With the widespread use of Internet technology application technology, the amount of data in all industries has grown exponentially, and data storage technology needs to be updated. Distributed storage is a data storage technology that spreads files, block storage, or object storage across multiple physical servers for high availability, data backup, and disaster recovery purposes. Scalable storage services and huge data pools in data centers. Distributed storage relies on users and broadband, and no longer depends on a small number of servers. It can ensure the efficiency, reliability and security of data storage, and effectively prevent a single point of system failure.
Blockchain storage is a decentralized storage system, which is built with blockchain incentives, effectively combining blockchain and storage systems, and is a huge global unified and shared storage pool. A distributed storage system is an infrastructure that splits data across multiple physical servers, often across multiple data centers. It usually takes the form of a cluster of storage units, with data synchronization and coordination mechanisms among cluster nodes.
Architecture diagram of distributed storage network
What is blockchain storage?
Blockchain storage is a way of keeping data in a decentralized network, utilizing unused hard drive space of users around the world to store files. Decentralized infrastructure is an alternative to centralized cloud storage and can solve many of the problems that exist in centralized systems.
How Blockchain Storage Works
Blockchain storage is based on distributed storage, which is the basis for massively scalable cloud storage systems and local distributed storage systems. Blockchain relies on distributed ledger technology (DLT). DLT acts as a decentralized database of information about transactions between parties. Operations populate DLT in chronological order and are stored in the ledger as a series of blocks. Between blocks An interconnected chain is formed, with each block referencing the block before it, creating a blockchain.
In blockchain storage, files are first broken up in a process called sharding, and each shard is copied to prevent data loss if an error occurs during transmission. These files are also encrypted with a private key so that they cannot be accessed by the network View other nodes. Replicated shards are distributed among decentralized nodes around the world, and interactions are recorded in the blockchain ledger, allowing the system to confirm and synchronize transactions between nodes in the blockchain. Blockchain storage is designed to preserve these interactions forever, and the data can never be changed.
Data types stored in distributed storage systems
Distributed file system: process sub-structured data and store unstructured data as objects in the form of files. Distributed file systems allow devices to mount virtual drives while the actual files are distributed across multiple machines.
Block storage: Block storage systems store data in volumes called blocks, which are an alternative to file-based structures that provide higher performance. A common distributed block storage system is a storage area network (SAN).
Object: The distributed object storage system packs data into objects, which are identified by unique IDs or hash values.
Advantages of Distributed Storage Systems
Scalability: The main motivation for distributed storage is horizontal scaling, adding more storage space by adding more storage nodes to the cluster.
Redundancy: Distributed storage systems can store multiple copies of the same data for high availability, backup and disaster recovery purposes.
Cost: Distributed storage makes it possible to store large amounts of data at low cost using cheaper commodity hardware.
Performance: Distributed storage can provide better performance than a single server in some cases, for example, it can store data closer to consumers, or support massively parallel access to large files.
Blockchain storage and cloud storage
Blockchain storage could be a cheaper, safer and more reliable alternative to centralized cloud storage, where centralized cloud storage providers prevent data loss by replicating data and storing it in different data centers. The large amount of data copied in the process creates too much residual information. In addition, cloud storage data centers require enterprise-grade hardware. These factors can make centralized data storage significantly more expensive than blockchain storage.