We recap the key attributes of file and block storage access and the pros and cons of object storage, a method that offers key benefits but also drawbacks compared with SAN and NAS.

We run the rule over file, block and object storage from the big three public cloud providers: AWS, Azure and GCP. We look at what’s on offer and the use cases they are aimed at.

Block storage in the cloud that is not properly backed up can result in lost data, and while object storage in the cloud is more resilient, it pays to be careful.

Storing data in fixed chunks called "blocks," each with a unique address. A file or object can be made up of many blocks that can be stored across multiple storage drives. Block storage is used in ...

The mass adoption of object storage systems like Amazon S3 may appear to be a top achievement of the big data era, since we got essentially unlimited storage accessible through REST commands. But to ...

The evolution of media storage has gone from achieving the required speed, to making it available to multiple users, to ensuring permanence. First we had block-based storage incorporated into ...

Fig 1: Block-based vs. object-based disk structures. Objects are typically composed the object identifier (OID), attributes (inferred and user supplied), user metadata (creation date, time, etc.), and ...