Stage 2 · Lesson 10 of 10
Object storage for large files
Images, videos, backups and uploads belong in such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage or Azure Blob Storage, not in database rows. An object store keeps each file under a key, a bit like a file name. It scales to petabytes and is very durable, because it copies files across machines.
It also costs far less per gigabyte than database disks. The database stores only the file's details (metadata) and its key. Let clients upload and download directly using .
These are short-lived links that allow one upload or download, so large files never pass through your app servers. Put a in front for reads. Objects are written whole, so they suit files, not records that change often.
Common trapstreaming uploads through the tier, which ties up servers and for minutes per request.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- CoursePaidGrokking Database Fundamentals for Tech Interviews
Design Gurus · Beginner · Subscription
Storage engines, indexes, transactions, isolation, replication, sharding and NoSQL models
- GitHub repoFreeSystem Design Interview Roadmap by karanpratapsingh
Karan Pratap Singh · Intermediate
Free: the databases, indexes, normalisation, ACID, sharding and replication chapters