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System Design: A Blob Store

System Design: A Blob Store

Get an introduction to the blob store and get ready to design it.

What is a blob store?

Blob store is a storage solution for unstructured data.

We can store photos, audio, videos, binary executable codes, or other multimedia items in a blob store. Every type of data is stored as a blobA blob (binary large object) consists of a collection of binary data stored as a single unit.. It follows a flat data organization pattern, where there are no hierarchies, such as directories and subdirectories.

Mostly, it’s used by applications with a specific business requirement called write once, read many (WORM), which states that data can only be written once and cannot be changed.

Just like in Microsoft Azure, the blobs are created once and read many times. Additionally, these blobs can’t be deleted until a specified interval, and they also can’t be modified to protect critical data.

A blob store storing and streaming large unstructured files like audio, video, images, and documents
A blob store storing and streaming large unstructured files like audio, video, images, and documents

Note: It isn’t necessary for all applications to have this WORM requirement. However, we assume that the blobs written can’t be modified. Instead of modifying, we can upload a new version of a blob if needed.

Why do we use a blob store?

Blob store is a crucial component of many data-intensive applications, including YouTube, Netflix, and Facebook.

The table below shows the blob ...