Start a Blockchain powered cloud storage platform
Running a dropbox like cloud storage platform is now possible with the power of blockchain at the fraction of the cost.
Did you know? The advantage of running a blockchain powered file storage is that it is decentralized and you could also incentivize people for sharing unused space on their hard drives.
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Distributed cloud storage is shared by a community of independent users and is not governed by any central authority. Therefore the content you store can be accessed and maintained by only you and is unavailable to other users in the network. The data you upload is partitioned, encrypted and is spread over the network similar to a blockchain. The approach of divide and distribute improves the speed at which the data is retrieved and maintained and this guarantees better performance and increased TPS (transactions per second). It is also less expensive when compared to the centralized cloud-storage services widely available in the market today. This type of cloud-storage is cheap, secure and is scalable to a larger capacity. Also, it is possible to rent that unused extra space in your storage and this way you can earn on the go.
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[item title=”Why should you start a Blockchain based cloud storage platform?“]
Speed
The key factor which decides data storage’s performance is its speed at which the data is delivered to the users. In the old yet prevailing system, this speed is completely dependent on the server location. The servers chose to hold the data and the distance at which it is located, all decides on how fast the retrieving can be done. This gives blockchain-based cloud storages a major advantage as the data is shredded, encrypted and distributed across the network which makes it location-independent.
Maintenance
Huge data servers open doors to a huge set of challenges, because not only is its operations expensive but also its maintenance comes at a huge cost. It also has to temperature controlled, updated, refreshed/ replaced periodically etc. Blockchain removes the need for such giant server farms by proposing an idea to store data on hard drives of every connected node in the network. As per Cisco, by 2020 the number of devices connected to this internet will be about 50 billion and this conveys that more and more information can be stored.
Privacy
It is a necessity to trust the third parties to help store and secure our very important and private data over the normal cloud. This data we surrender to be overseen by another party is mostly saved in an unencrypted format. Cloud Storage won over the centralized, non-distributed, and highly expensive local storage by connecting people and data from anywhere in the world under one roof which was monotonously maintained. But increase in the number of users entering the cloud also paved way for unavoidable humans errs and threats. In a distributed cloud the data is not just coded and spread, but also safeguarding data using keys which only the data owner possesses.[/item]
[item title=”How can a Blockchain powered cloud storage platform make money?“]
As a business hosting the files, you can build charge the users would charge their users. You can rent out unused space on your hard disk space to the StorJ cloud storage platform for some recurring revenue.
The blockchain powered platform is dependant on a network of users sharing space on their hard drives (Renter) and also servers across the world. The customers would pay the platform for using the storage space charged per GB and also a per GB bandwidth charge for downloading the files.
The renters who provide the unused storage space would also get paid for the space rented. This incentive would also encourage people to signup and rent their space. Thereby expanding the distributed network to handle more paying customers on the platform.
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[item title=”What are the features?“]
- Globally distributed storage Storage space is distributed and the users rent out extra space
- Automatic sync – Automatically synchronize all the files in the folder you set up for uploading
- Multiple nodes – Multiple nodes ensure that the copies of your file are distributed across the network so you can retrieve it any time. [/item]
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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[item title=”What is a Blockchain?“]
A Blockchain is a secure, globally distributed ledger that keeps track of all the transactions done on the platform. The Blocks are records that are permanently stored here and cannot be altered. In short, its a distributed secure database.[/item]
[item title=”What is Proof-of-Replication?“]It is a measure that can be used to prove that some data D has been replicated to own uniquely dedicated physical storage. It also enables verifier to check if only unique copies exist within a space and thereby avoids deduplication.[/item]
[item title=”What is Proof-of-Space-Time?“]It is a mechanism to check that a specified amount of space and time is allocated for storage and its operations respectively. Here space and time are allocated for the miners to mine storage requirements.[/item]
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