Storj: Leveraging Unused Disk Capacity for Global Object Storage

Storj breaks up storage objects such as media files and documents into fragments, distributes them across storage devices globally, and reassembles them on retrieval. 

Twenty-nine of 80 fragments are sufficient to reconstitute a file on retrieval. Duplicate copies of fragments assures availability and reliability of the retrieval system. 

Storj is fundamentally a storage broker. They contract to consume excess disk capacity from data centers across the globe and rent it out to their customers. 

They track capacity and monitor use in redundant cloud based deployments of their management software. 

When a customer stores a large media file, for example, Storj’s management software breaks it into fragments, encrypts all of the fragments, and distributes them to various data centers for storage based on availability and location. 

On retrieval Storj’s system collects 29 of the distributed fragments (this number is configurable), decrypts the fragments, and reassembles the file from those fragments. 

Storj estimates that a typical storage device consumes 20% of its capacity, which leaves around 80% on average available for their system.

Their storage system is compatible with AWS S3 and supports the same object storage use cases.   

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