Are you having trouble finding the right solution to store your big and constantly growing data? Well, you are not alone. We all need more convenient solutions where we can reach our stored data from anywhere, organise and locate it easily among terabytes of data. Obviously, the solution has to be cost effective. Object storage is one of the revolutionary results of the cloud technology which can be the solution to all these challenges. Understanding the benefits of object storage can help you to improve your business in many ways.
What is Object Storage?
Object storage is a technology suitable for storing any kind of data from photos and videos to system backups and log files. Do you wonder what makes it different? The key component is the way data is been stored.
Object storage system stores your data as objects in buckets along with the metadata. Such method allows you easily to locate and identify the stored files, pictures, videos etc. In the traditional block-based file system, your data is broken into small “blocks” and stored in “lookup tables”. With that, the block storage does not scale and is accessible by one system at the time.
Solution to the Main Problems: Scalability and Manageability
When you have a growing amount of data, scaling and organising block-based systems are very hard and complex. Conventional storage methods just were not designed to handle this kind of a scale.
Object storage is scalable because storage size can be kept expanded by simply adding “nodes” into a single namespace. It gets rid of the traditional file system hierarchies and data is stored in a flat structure that provides a good basis for highly scalable unstructured data access.
A lifesaver when you have terabytes of data is the “manageability of metadata”. Unlike traditional storage systems, object storage keeps your data along with metadata tags and unique identifiers. This allows you to customise the metadata with more identifying information according to your needs, to better organise and locate your stored files, pictures or videos. Object storage systems are also very ideal for digitizing and storing old documents thanks to the manageability of the metadata.
Save Costs in Different Ways
When you need less hardware for a big and growing amount of data, it means you already started saving costs. Object storage does this for you by maximizing the usable disk space. The technique behind this also provides extra data security.
A method called Erasure Coding behind object storage provides protection from data corruption and disk failures. It can survive multiple disk failures without the risk of losing data.
Object storage does not require any backup or archive of the data. A replication of your data is always stored in another location, giving you the opportunity for a very quick recovery. Because all object storage data is always available, you can get rid of the cost and administrative hassle of having a separate backup software.
Reach From Any Device
Object storage also allows you to reach your data from anywhere with any device with an internet connection. Traditional file systems can be only accessed when they are attached to an operating system. With object storage, you can access your data through REST API.
What to Use Object Storage for?
Object storage is ideal for storing any kind of data, like audio, image, video, backups or log files. It is also a convenient storage option for developers who deal with the large size of user-generated content or IoT data. Object storage is also used in AI and machine learning for analysing the unstructured collected data.
With PILW.IO S3 object storage, you can start storing your data with 0.025€ per GB per month. Most object storage providers charge users for data transfer activities and create unpredictable monthly charges. PILW.IO S3 object storage provides 15 TB free outbound traffic and unlimited free inbound traffic in order for you to have a flat and transparent pricing. Create your free account and get your 30€ credit to start using your first object storage space!
Create your account and create your first bucket to use object storage today.
