Storage Systems in the Cloud
There are 3 types of storage systems in the Cloud as follows.
- Block-Based Storage System
- File-Based Storage System
- Object-Based Storage System
Let’s discuss it one by one as follows.
1. Block-Based Storage System –
- Hard drives are block-based storage systems. Your operating system like Windows or Linux actually sees a hard disk drive. So, it sees a drive on which you can create a volume, and then you can partition that volume and format them.
- For example, If a system has 1000 GB of volume, then we can partition it into 800 GB and 200 GB for local C and local D drives respectively.
- Remember with a block-based storage system, your computer would see a drive, and then you can create volumes and partitions.
2. File-Based Storage System –
- In this, you are actually connecting through a Network Interface Card (NIC). You are going over a network, and then you can access the network-attached storage server (NAS). NAS devices are file-based storage systems.
- This storage server is another computing device that has another disk in it. It is already created a file system so that it’s already formatted its partitions, and it will share its file systems over the network. Here, you can actually map the drive to its network location.
- In this, like the previous one, there is no need to partition and format the volume by the user. It’s already done in file-based storage systems. So, the operating system sees a file system that is mapped to a local drive letter.
3. Object-Based Storage System –
- In this, a user uploads objects using a web browser and uploads an object to a container i.e., Object Storage Container. This uses the HTTP Protocols with the rest of the APIs (for example: GET, PUT, POST, SELECT, DELETE).
- For example, when you connect to any website, you need to download some images, text, or anything that the website contains. For that, it is a code HTTP GET request. If you want to review any product then you can use PUT and POST requests.
- Also, there is no hierarchy of objects in the container. Every file is on the same level in an Object-Based storage system.
What is Cloud Storage?
Cloud Computing in general is termed as a different service through the Internet. It has various resources which include tools and applications like data storage, databases, servers, networking, etc. It has applications, platforms, and infrastructure which is surrounded by servers, laptops, desktops, phones, and tablets.