Which Decentralized Storage Is Best?

The online data storage space is rapidly evolving as decentralized solutions continue to bite into the traditional storage market. Currently, three widely known decentralized storage platforms—Filecoin, Arweave, and Storj—offer solutions that individuals and businesses can't ignore due to their security, cost-effectiveness, and resilience.While these platforms have the same value proposition, decentralized data storage, they don't offer the same services.

What Is Filecoin?

Filecoin is a cryptocurrency-backed decentralized storage platform launched in 2017 by Protocol Labs. It was built to offer better storage services than traditional server-based and cloud storage. In the ecosystem, miners offer their extra storage space for use in the network, and in return, they earn Filecoins from users who pay to host their data in the space.

The network is built on the IPFS (Interplanetary File System) and bolstered by blockchain technology to incentivize users' worldwide storage contribution, hence decentralizing storage services. For reference, the Interplanetary File System is a decentralized file storage system.

To keep the network secure, Filecoin uses cryptographic protocols that provide access to authorized personnel. In addition, it uses both the Proof of Space-Time and Proof of Replication consensus algorithms, which ensure miners indeed have the space they claim and have a replica of the data provided by the network. This ensures easy access and immutability of data.

What Is Arweave?

Arweave is a decentralized data storage solution founded by Sam Williams in 2017 to address data permanence and immutability on the internet. Its decentralized storage system stands out due to its ability to store data in a decentralized manner forever.

It's based on the hope of diminishing cost of data storage, which takes a leaf from Moore's law. Essentially, the decreasing cost of data storage presents an opportunity for Arweave to provide indefinite data storage at a finite cost. So users who wish to store data on the network pay a one-time fee of about 1 cent per megabyte for 200 years of storage. Then the interest accrued is used to cover the declining cost of storage over the years.

Arweave uses a combination of Proof of Work and Proof of Space where miners store data to mine block, a technique known as "blockweave." The stored data becomes the basis for mining and is rewarded with AR, Arweave's native token. Also, the data stored is guaranteed permanence by the miners' long-term economic incentive, eliminating the need for data replication.