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Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

blog.sia.tech

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Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#91

Post by namibj »

q3k wrote: post #80
Taek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sia is built on a completely different assumption than most large datacenters - uptime requirements for hosts are around 95%, which equates to about 36 hours of downtime per month. This means that you can run a much leaner database and require substantially less expertise to keep things going. If a rack goes down, you don't need someone on-site to bring it up ASAP, you can fix it the next workday without upsetting yo…

> This means that you can run a much leaner database and require substantially less expertise to keep things going. If a rack goes down, you don't need someone on-site to bring it up ASAP, you can fix it the next workday without upsetting your customers. This is already the case for cluster storage systems like Ceph.

This extends to the whole site. You don't need backup power. At all. Maybe no redundant network equipment, if you get replacements on speed dial. Likely no redundant fiber, just don't take your time to arrange a replacement if someone cuts it (use a different, pre-scheduled conduit you can rent and fill with fiber in a day or two).

If you get unexpected "bus factor", you can handle replacement combing back early from holiday.

Get creative.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#92

Post by Taek »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #16
Ajedi32 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They explain what the mean by that two sentences later: > Hosts on Sia do not have to worry about building and maintaining enormous datacenters, employing thousands of employees, and marketing their services. They only need to worry about providing reliable storage capacity to renters on Sia. And yes, it's essentially a decentralized storage market built on smart contracts. You can either pay to store your files (the…

How do they verify that a host can actually store all of the data?

Ajedi32 is not correct.

Data is verified probabilistically on the Sia network. The blockchain has access to the Merkle root of the data that the host is supposed to be storing. The blockchain will request that the host provide a 64 byte segment of the data (chosen randomly) along with a Merkle proof that the data is part of the Merkle root.

If the host can provide the data and the proof, the host is rewarded as though they've demonstrated that they have all of the data. If the host cannot provide those 64 bytes along with a proof, the host is punished as though they are not storing any of the data.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#93

Post by ragle »

alexkcd wrote: post #27
Ajedi32 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. I suppose that would only work if whatever keys the pirate needed to publish to allow the data to be downloaded wouldn't _also_ give the keyholder the ability to delete that data. Otherwise the copyright holder could just issue the command to delete the file themselves. I'm not sure if Sia works that way or not; would be interesting to see.

Since they say their intent is to compete on price with S3 / CDNs, it seems possible to be able to download a file without having permissions to delete that file. If that were not the case, then Sia would be limited to personal backup only.

It's confusing, because they refer to themselves as a potential competitor to S3 several times in the linked article, but I thought I read somewhere that conceptually what they're building is actually just the data persistence layer of a service like S3?

A complete S3-like service would require a third-party tool on top of Sia. Goobox[1], for example, uses sia as a storage backend and provides an S3-compatible API[2].

In other words, right now - I think if you are interacting with Sia directly you can do whatever you want with the files you have access to. Not 100% sure about that.

[1] - https://goobox.io/

[2] - https://doc.goobox.io/#section/Why-you-should-choose-Goobox-...

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#94

Post by tempsolution »

This reads like a typical blockchain non-sense hype article. Before you even go down the road of comparing sia to S3, what about some unbiased benchmarks? Show us the 99.999999999% durability, the pretty much unlimited bandwidth, the single digit milli-second latencies, the practically unlimited capacity.

If you want to compare Sia to anything, compare it to Dropbox or OneDrive. S3 was made for an entirely different purpose and Sia can't even remotely compete with it.

As a personal data store? Maybe. But wait until this thing becomes more popular and hackers start making a mess. Will be interesting to see how stable this "fully decentralized" network is, once it gets the full attention from bad actors as all the cloud providers.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#95

Post by zherbert »

ukd1 wrote: post #76
xur17 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weird caveat I found: the smallest chargeable size is actually pretty large. This and the cost to form contracts is is large enough that it doesn't make economical sense until you are storing > $1gb. That said, they seem to slowly be working through a number of these concerns. They very recently released seed based backups, one of the biggest issues I had last time I looked.

Ya; that's another one - the same wallet on multiple machines = different set of contracts. Didn't notice that was fixed though...

We do not yet have the ability to share the same set of contracts across multiple machines, but it is on the roadmap. This would include using the same set of contracts on desktop and mobile devices, which will open up some intriguing use-cases.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#96

Post by rolltiide »

tempsolution wrote: post #94

This reads like a typical blockchain non-sense hype article. Before you even go down the road of comparing sia to S3, what about some unbiased benchmarks? Show us the 99.999999999% durability, the pretty much unlimited bandwidth, the single digit milli-second latencies, the practically unlimited capacity. If you want to compare Sia to anything, compare it to Dropbox or OneDrive. S3 was made for an entirely different…

coming from someone who is not a fan of Siacoin from when I last used it in 2017, I think you miss the point

what I like and want is encrypted distributed data that I can store and retrieve quickly and cheaply

I also like an economic model that aligns the hosts to maintain the data, and how the proliferation of that economic model lets me invest in its growth from merely being a passive non-productive speculator, and finally I would like a clear easy to understand ROI from being a productive host: can I subsidize the cost of my hardware that I'm already interested in having.

any cryptocurrency can do that, but how the software uses the cryptocurrency is a key factor, and unfortunately we can like an idea and team but get forced to accept an economic model that has flaws

so for me, it is easy for me to understand why teams want to promise the sky against S3, and it really isn't that relevant to using this securely. like, you might be able to subsidize all of your hardware and provide a service without worrying about if the SIA comparison is accurate because its really not relevant.

but finally, it turns out that unmonetized and non-cryptocurrency based decentralized cloud storage networks are good enough! so I stick with IPFS.

hope that was useful to someone.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#97

Post by leetbulb »

jchw wrote: post #74

> Today it is possible to purchase a refurbished 1 TB hard drive for about $20 — so buyers are essentially paying Amazon each month the entire cost of the hard drives used to store their data! What a refurbished hard disk does not give you: - Redundant storage - Redundant power/network/etc. - Geographic distribution - A network API - Any networking, or uplinks at all - Access control - A team ensuring the reliability…

Off topic, but: I purchased three refurb 6TB HGST He HDDs in Jan. from a reputable shop. All three failed last month. I was so happy that the shop completely refunded all of them because the warranty is generally very limited on refurb HDDs. Normal RMA is 5yr on this specific model.

There's no way refurb drives are cost effective for these environments.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#98

Post by panarky »

pmlnr wrote: post #62
buildzr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or less costly They're definitely less costly. I could host over 10x the amount on Sia for what I pay for B2 at the moment, B2 is already one of the cheapest providers, plus that's just in storage, ignoring all bandwidth costs. I'm really curious what the numbers will look like in terms of reliability here. Theoretically you can figure out how often storage contracts try to retrieve and fail and the host has to pay…

2x3Tb disk at hetzner, line rental, electricity included is 30€pcm.

At that price per GB, could you make money by setting up some Sia nodes?

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#99

Post by galaxyLogic »

dymk wrote: post #77
galaxyLogic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the concept of "Illegal Content" conceptually questionable. Authorities do not care much, I assume, if you possess illegal content. What they care about is if you share illegal content. Say you have a pro-democracy pamphlet on your hard-drive in China. If they find it they would imprison you no doubt but they don't care so much to look for it, and it is hard to find if you never share it with anybody. SIA prov…

> Authorities do not care much, I assume, if you possess illegal content. What they care about is if you share illegal content. You'd be wrong - people get nabbed for having or creating child porn, not just distributing it.

I am sure.

It would be an interesting case for the Supreme Court. Did you do something illegal by allowing SIA to store encrypted data on your hard-disk not knowing what it was?

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#100

Post by asdkhadsj »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #48
asdkhadsj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how it's implemented though, does it not? Eg, I can encrypt a file and give it to 10 people and they'll be clueless of what is in it, yes. But, because of how I encrypted it it is clear that the contents are the same on those 10 people. So if I am busted and my key/etc compromised, it is possible that those hosts are compromised as well. This says nothing of Sia's implementation, just that encryption itsel…

Couldn't the same thing happen with AWS? You encrypt an illegal file, store it on AWS, then get busted? Why would those 10 people in your example get in trouble but not AWS?

Well that too depends on implementation, I imagine. AWS has channels for communicating information about their part in illegal content. So does Reddit/Youtube/etc. Even early IPFS plans[1] included channels to take down content you may be hosting.

Though, I feel like you're injecting meaning into my reply. I was replying to your comment about how authorities wouldn't know if content on my computer (a Sia host) was illegal. My point was simply illustrating that encryption by itself does not prevent me from being the host of illegal or illicit content.

[1]: probably not implemented yet.

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