Ask HN: What services are the “big boys” using for data storage?

2 pointsgab0077y ago2 comments

I am building a "notes with attachments" app and I am looking for cloud storage services. What others are using? Apparently this seems to be kind of a secret :)

I know Evernote is now using their own data centers. I am still trying to figure out monthly prices on Amazon Glacier (simple calculator... not so simple) - and having difficulties to estimate a monthly price.

I am looking for a "pure cloud storage" reliable long term solution with simple and easy to understand pricing, where I can store customer attachments.

Would appreciate any advice. Thank you.

2 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

rdegges7y ago· 1 in thread

Most of the big players maintain their own datacenters. That said, if you're looking for what the "big boys" do (outside of the top few tech companies), most of them use Amazon S3: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/ (NOTE: I'm not in any way affiliated with Amazon).

S3 is one of the oldest and most popular storage services because:

- It's very fast and can be fronted by Cloudfront, a very large/popular/inexpensive CDN (this is what Netflix uses) - It's inexpensive and gets cheaper with volume - You can choose to use the default redundancy (which is very cost effective) or reduced redundancy which makes it far less expensive - You can archive infrequently used data from S3 to Glacier for a fraction of the cost - It has a ton of features and can be embedded into just about every language/framework in minutes - It's been around forever and has incredible support

gab007OP7y ago

Thanks rdegges. I am aware that Amazon S3 is the "de-facto" in storage right now (and it has been for a while). The problem is that I am not able to come up with an estimated monthly cost, using their calculator (data at rest, in transit, downloads, uploads are charged differently). I would love to use Amazon S3, but do not want to find out months later that bills are higher than what I charge my customers.

However, I believe that your answer still helps - it's what I have suspected. Looks like I will have to bite the bullet and try S3, do a "best effort" estimate and learn as I go...