In this article, we will look at decentralised storage, how it works, and what makes it superior to a centralized storage model.
The internet began in a decentralized model with computers connected to each other in a shared network, but as the internet grew, the challenge of bandwidth led to the search for a new model.
In an attempt to find the best way to keep track records of important information and recover and store data, developers have come up with a lot of solutions in the past, of which cloud storage is a part.
This led to the adaptation of the centralized cloud storage model, which addressed the prevalent challenges of its time.
It offers a centralized storage model that achieves scalability, agility, cost savings and simplicity while offering users advanced security options such as end-to-end encryption and authentication.
It functions as a central file server for establishments with various office locations and can be seen as a natural disaster proof backup as it is eco-friendly.
In a cloud storage model, your data is stored on a central cloud space owned and controlled by a third party or a storage provider. However, the chances of unauthorized access to people’s data are high because networks and storage are being shared with many users.
There is always a possibility of other users gaining access to another user’s data, sometimes because of bug problems or even purposely with ulterior motives.
Users seeking to host data, websites, and applications on the internet totally rely on centralized servers like Google or Amazon web servers to provide storage services. If these companies were to go down, then users would be largely affected too.
The case with most centralized servers is that the users do not control their data. Big companies get to control or censor websites if they don’t agree with their opinion by sometimes removing the websites.
A great example is the website Parlar. It was socially built as a forum for reaction in the united states during the presidential election, it was like an eco-chamber for republicans, but they stood on the wrong side of big tech companies, which resulted in the website getting pulled out by Google more than a year ago.
This was an outright instance of directly targeted censorship because they disagreed with the masses. If Parlar was a decentralized server, it could not have been pulled out so easily.
Centralized cloud storage presents a system specifically influenced by a central server; all the hosts are given only one storage system for images, files and data. If an error or cyberattack manages to penetrate the system, it compromises the entire cloud.
The number of networks in which the data travels also increases the need for a wide area network (WAN) to connect. This became a significant limitation that led to the internet returning to its root, fully equipped to expand its bandwidth speed and make a more feasible storage system.
Decentralized storage has been birthed as a superior alternative to centralized storage. Aided by blockchain technology, decentralized storage came as a rescue in a world and an age that requires accurate data handling.
What is Decentralized storage?
This concept was pushed out in 2013-2015 by projects such as IPFS, Storj and Siacoin. We need decentralized storage to aim for great internet control for users and creators.
In a decentralized system, data is stored on a network divided among multiple users worldwide. It involves storing data across multiple computers, known as nodes connected on a decentralized peer-to-peer network.
The user’s engagement with the network keeps it running and ensures the utility of data. So instead of a single authority like in a centralized storage system, we get a server hosted by a group of people, ensuring a greater opposition to data breaches and encroachment. It allows users to exercise total ownership and control over their data.
In a decentralized cloud storage model, data is stored throughout a large network of thousands of storage nodes operated by unique entities without access to what is stored on their hardware.
There are many reported cases of its workability on a broad scale, primarily due to the advancement in bandwidth speed and availability. Its system is built with end-to-end encryption, erasure coding and refined access management to guarantee that no one other than the users can access their data.
Decentralized cloud storage is a more improved version of the cloud storage we are familiar with. It is a solution set in motion to meet the limitations of cloud storage as our world is becoming massively digitalized.
It provides an alternative to major tech companies like Amazon, Goggles’ drive, iCloud, etc., which act as the central bosses for data storage on their network.
Going further, a decentralized storage system works in such a way that it shares responsibilities between different individual operators, thereby forming a single storage network.
In other words, it is a prerequisite for a more distributed web. It employs a permission-less mechanism that allows users and developers to utilize their services without restrictions and undue influence.
The significant widespread use cases for the decentralized cloud storage model are aided by the fact we are currently in a generation where security, privacy and on-demand availability are of utmost priority, for large files and data sets, for data that is written once but read many times, has thousands of downloads a month or demands high speed for transfer.
It is reported to be the most secure storage option as long as it involves the handling of our data as consumers. In summary, it is considered decentralized cloud storage because it is distributed around the world.
Some examples of decentralized storage systems include; StorX, IPFS, Arweave, BitTorrent, Filecoin, Storj, Utopia etc. Among these, we would briefly discuss StorX and IPFS.
InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a simple decentralized p2p storage like HTTP built to store text, images, PDFs etc. It uses a distributed manner to allow users to share, read, and store files with high security, privacy and scalability.
StorX, on the other hand, is created as a collection of independent storage networks, implying that the control is not concentrated on one entity. It efficiently helps users to securely encrypt, fragment and distribute vital data across various hosting nodes all over the globe.
It provides a democratic marketplace for hosting data, aided by a decentralized blockchain network. It is a decentralized peer-to-peer storage network that permits users to engage their unused disk space and, by so doing, contribute it to cloud storage and receive payments for it.
StorX has central authority as different operators handle fragments of data. The three types of decentralized networks or vendors include; Storage network, Marketplace and Distributed storage, all created to fulfil different use cases and storage problems.
How does decentralized storage work?
First, a user needs to create a profile with any of the p2p networks and using his password, he uploads or downloads various fragments of the file from any blockchain-based p2p network, either StorX or IPFS.
In a decentralized storage system, nodes cannot view or change your files because, by default, all the data uploaded to the system will be encrypted. This assures a user of strong protection and privacy of data.
A decentralized storage works by storing data in a vast p2p network regardless of location. It first divides the data into multiple chunks as blocks, after which it encrypts every block with a specific hash or private keys and further distributes these blocks across different systems and nodes globally. (the process of this distribution is called sharding).
The network goes on to create several copies of these blocks, which ensures that the data fragment can be retrieved from an alternative node in case of any unavailability of a node. They can access the files using their login information to enable the private keys and background.
Storage node reputation mechanism
The node reputation determines if the node will be included in the operation of the network or not. In order words, it determines whether a node will be filtered. Different peer-to-peer networks use a unique mechanism peculiar to them, but we would be looking at StorX.
It uses an AI-based mechanism to discover the high performing nodes and, by so doing, eliminates the low functional ones. By using an AI-powered mechanism, StorX carries out periodic substantial evaluations on all storage nodes, which pass a quality evaluation score on each node based on its performance.
Despite its in-app AI mechanism, StorX’s node reputation can be affected by several factors: the reliability, latency, quality, location and volume of SRX (the native cryptocurrency of StorX) staking. The system ensures also that nodes are not focused on the same internet path.
There is also a penalty for low reputation nodes which requires an automatic deduction of their staking reward token using AI. The general procedure makes use of smart contracts to achieve transparency. One of the easiest ways users get to boost their node reputation is through sharing the StorX app to generate more traffic for the network.
Decentralized VS Centralized storage solutions.
Unlike in the traditional centralized storage system, the decentralized storage model gives users the utmost ownership and control of their data. A major distinctive factor separating these two storage models is how privacy and security are handled.
Due to its global distribution and lower cost, decentralized cloud storage is a much more appealing option when compared to centralized cloud storage. Going further, we would explore, on a general note, what makes decentralized storage solutions a superior alternative to the centralized storage system with the following features;
They are more resilient.
In the centralized server, there are points of failure. This means that if one point of the network goes down, your entire server will crumble (a closed system). Still, in a decentralized storage model, distributing several duplicating copies of file fragments leads to increased security and privacy. If some nodes on your network fail, your file is still safe and can still be retrieved from the remaining distributed nodes. This means that there is no point of failure like in the centralized storage model.
User controlled.
Unlike the centralized storage model, where the central authority has the power to censor or even remove websites, the decentralized storage model is resistant to censorship because it doesn’t have an exalted central authority.
No one controls decentralized servers; it is a network unto itself, just like Bitcoin. In an age where people are constantly getting cancelled or censored because of what they say or the opinion they hold, the decentralized storage model is a breath of fresh air as it is resistant to control. The users also own and control their data, unlike in the traditional model where the storage providers are in control.
Large file distribution.
For users, researchers, and developers who frequently distribute larger files, centralized cloud storage can be seen as having many hiccups, given that it is costly and limiting. Decentralized cloud storage, on the other hand, is a favourable option as it is built to distribute large files regardless of geographical location with a high performance rate, durability and consistently low prices. Simply put, decentralized storage balances load effectively and reduce network traffic.
More secure.
In the case of a centralized server, an attack on the storage provider affects the entire network. The manner in which privacy and security are being handled totally differs.
In a centralized storage model, the users completely put their data in the hands of a storage provider, giving them full access to it.
A decentralized storage model has a feature of ‘zero trust’; only the user who owns the data and the people he granted access to can access and retrieve data using the unique private keys. And there are a lot of hoops to go through in order to bring the network down, which is impossible to do, whereas a centralized server can fall as an easy target as a bullet to one affects all.
Use of encryption.
Although centralized storage systems have made several attempts to compete with decentralized storage model by creating hybrid decentralized solution, which is obviously lacking in some necessary attributes when compared to its counterpart, decentralized storage node uses end-to-end encryption, erasure coding and refined access management to increase the security and confidentiality of data. Decentralized storage system like StorX employs military-grade encryption AES-256 and fragmentation techniques to ensure that data is being secured.
P2P technology.
Using p2p technology that the traditional storage system lacks, a decentralized storage system can achieve optimal data retrieval speed due to how data is distributed into multiple nodes.
So unlike the traditional system where a massive amount of data is concentrated on a single source, decentralized storage has various nodes for storing data. Also, bandwidth and other factors make transmissions slower in centralized storage. At the same time, in decentralized systems, retrieving data is faster as the network just fetches from any node closest to it.
Although Decentralize Storage offers a better and more efficient storage system, the decentralized storage system has drawbacks. Compared to the traditional storage system, which places the responsibility of preserving data with one storage provider, a decentralized system uses different contractors.
So, let’s assume in the worst case scenario, if data happens to be lost, who will be held accountable? Efforts are being made to create the highest level of security so that this will not happen in the future. It needs time to go mainstream, and there are also migration concerns as people are sceptical about switching ships.
Developers are tackling several other perceived challenges of the decentralized storage system to ensure it becomes fully operational.
Future of decentralized storage system
Blockchain technology has mounted a foundation for many revolutionary internet events, of which decentralized data storage is a part. Although still in its infancy, decentralized storage system embodies a lot of solutions and upgrades, especially for our generation, with the potential of becoming better in the future.
A lot tech savvy people and users are fully anticipating this internet event as it promises to improve scalability, data security, and accessibility in the future with its multi-region factor. It is eco-friendly as it reduces power and equipment consumption. Its promises to provide a superior network as it aids in the achievement of Web3 and a more efficient internet that our generation needs.