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Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

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Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#131

Post by carlosdp »

rolltiide wrote: post #119
carlosdp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPFS isn't decentralized cloud storage though. Unless you host your file yourself on your IPFS node, your file is not guaranteed to be available. Hence why Filecoin is a thing they are working on.

yes, pinning IPFS files is good enough FOR ME. there are also services and nodes which will maintain pins for you, and the capacity for decentralized encrypted shards is fine. There may be circumstances where I want the piece of mind to pay multiple nodes to store/retrieve encrypted shards of data. SIA nor STORJ seem to be it.

What you're now describing is a centralized system though, albeit an unnecessarily convoluted one.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#132

Post by gnode »

jchw wrote: post #124
zherbert wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate your response. My comparison to the cost of a hard drive today is not meant to be a direct comparison, but instead to demonstrate that traditional cloud storage is actually quite expensive. Sia is able to bring down storage costs by an order of magnitude and bandwidth costs by two orders of magnitude. While most HN readers understand the nuances of cloud storage costs, most non-technical readers are unfami…

The issue I take is that the comparison is truly not meaningful. Yes, storage is cheap, but you are comparing the cost of a refurbished disk to a managed service. This may lead people to think cloud storage is a waste of money, which I personally think is untrue (though Sia certainly may be able to do it for cheaper than cloud storage, too. Both things can be true.) While the cost to us is certainly more than the cos…

The comparison wasn't complete, but I think it was still meaningful. It's like comparing the cost of sand to glass; it should be obvious that sand is not glass, but it begs the question: how much proprietary value is there in glassmaking?

> This may lead people to think cloud storage is a waste of money, [...]

But that is exactly the argument being made -- that a trustless distributed system can substitute and obsolete cloud storage.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#133

Post by leetbulb »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #101
leetbulb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On balance, I purchased 45 refurb 4TB SAS drives around the same time. I had two DOA with 0% failure rate since then. Also, very anecdotal, I know.

I'm wondering if the fact mine were He filled refurbs could've been a factor.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#135

Post by jchw »

gnode wrote: post #132
jchw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I take is that the comparison is truly not meaningful. Yes, storage is cheap, but you are comparing the cost of a refurbished disk to a managed service. This may lead people to think cloud storage is a waste of money, which I personally think is untrue (though Sia certainly may be able to do it for cheaper than cloud storage, too. Both things can be true.) While the cost to us is certainly more than the cos…

The comparison wasn't complete, but I think it was still meaningful. It's like comparing the cost of sand to glass; it should be obvious that sand is not glass, but it begs the question: how much proprietary value is there in glassmaking? > This may lead people to think cloud storage is a waste of money, [...] But that is exactly the argument being made -- that a trustless distributed system can substitute and obsole…

> But that is exactly the argument being made

Then I respectfully disagree. I don't think cloud storage is always the best use case, but I do believe it is a good value for what it actually offers you. Backblaze B2 is my ideal marker for what a 'good value' in cloud storage should look like. At $5/mo per TB[1] it easily crushes the metric of monthly cost being less than equivalent non-redundant refurbished storage media.

> that a trustless distributed system can substitute and obsolete cloud storage.

OK, I have literally no qualifications to say that this isn't true. After all, what I am NOT claiming is that it can't be done for cheaper. What I AM claiming, is that without a service like Sia, it is certainly not going to be cheaper for common use cases of end users. I'm talking about comparing harddrives to services.

> Buyers are essentially paying Amazon each month the entire cost of the hard drives used to store their data

I still think though, that a compelling case could be made without bad comparisons or hyperbole. Which makes this more frustrating than it needs to be imo.

[1]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html - Assuming I am not deeply mistaken.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#136

Post by jchw »

gnode wrote: post #108
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…

> What a refurbished hard disk does not give you: [...] The whole point is that a decentralized storage network can add such features on top of the 1TB refurbished hard drive. The refurbished drive may not be reliable, but if you replicate your data amongst many separate drives with independent failure (geographically distributed; different providing entities) then you can create a system with greater reliability. By…

What I am not saying is that Sia is not viable or that cloud storage providers have no downsides, which they clearly do. I did not mean to imply that there is anything wrong with this service, just to express my annoyance with the comparison. I am not happy that my comment got so much attention, because I had no intention to overshadow the announcement with my single gripe.

The line that is annoying me and probably others is this:

> Buyers are essentially paying Amazon each month the entire cost of the hard drives used to store their data

...They're not. Because redundancy. Because electricity, CPUs, network, software development, etc.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#137

Post by arcticbull »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #127
arcticbull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise encrypted illegal content is stored on everyone's computers, and technically makes them potential felons. And thanks to the magic of the blockchain, it's indelibly recorded forever.

What’s to stop a hacker from planting such content on your computer?

Infosec usually, the difference here is you're taking on the risk and data knowingly and willfully. "Officer, it's part of a blockchain thing called Sia" is unlikely to satiate them.

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#138

Post by rolltiide »

carlosdp wrote: post #131
rolltiide wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, pinning IPFS files is good enough FOR ME. there are also services and nodes which will maintain pins for you, and the capacity for decentralized encrypted shards is fine. There may be circumstances where I want the piece of mind to pay multiple nodes to store/retrieve encrypted shards of data. SIA nor STORJ seem to be it.

What you're now describing is a centralized system though, albeit an unnecessarily convoluted one.

which exists now and is free and more decentralized and private than fairly cheap alternatives

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#139

Post by simonebrunozzi »

easymodex wrote: post #129
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being deceived by Amazon's PR machine at its finest. The 11 9s of durability are a "design", not a guarantee. The official PR line at the time was "S3 is designed to provide 11 9s of durability". There's still no SLA on durability AFAIK.

Actually it is 11 9s of durability, but availability is a different story.

Parent comment mentioned durability, in fact. Not sure where did you read availability?

Re: Sia – Decentralized cloud storage network

#140

Post by alexnewman »

I was greatly skeptical of these types of systems but ipfs proved me wrong. It's fine, when combined with a CDN. I'm interested in what new use cases Sia handles when CDN + IPFS works so well. For instance my blog https://www.wuli.nu (source code https://github.com/posix4e/blog)
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