Design Cloud File Storage (Dropbox)

Advanced · 28 min read · High-Level Design, Case Studies: Core

Chunking, deduplication, sync, conflicts and metadata.

This is an Advanced lesson, part of Premium. What it covers:

  • 1. Clarify the problem
  • 2. Requirements
  • 3. Capacity estimation
  • 4. Key idea: split files into blocks
  • 5. API
  • 6. Data model
  • 7. High-level design
  • 8. Deep dives
  • 9. Failure modes
  • 10. Trade-offs summary
  • 11. What interviewers look for
  • Interview questions
  • Practice
  • Further reading

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