why decentralized Storage is cheaper than centralized?

[Husires]

I intended to renew my cloud space in one of the popular services, and because I encrypt my data before uploading it, privacy was not a priority for me as much as reliability and price. I tried to search for cheaper methods until I found this article, which frankly surprised me with the prices:

Decentralized storage is cheaper than centralized storage by around 78.6% on average. This is given that the main decentralized storage options cost $2.11 for 1TB per month on average, compared to the average of $9.88 among top centralized storage providers across personal and enterprise plans.

The most expensive major decentralized storage option costs $0.16 less than the cheapest centralized storage option, for 1TB/month. Storj charges the highest among top decentralized storage providers at $4.00, whereas Google Drive offers the lowest price of $4.16 among top centralized storage providers. That said, Storj charges separately for the retrieval of stored files at $7/TB for download bandwidth.

source https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/centralized-decentralized-storage-cost#:~:text=How%20Much%20Does%201TB%20of,Filecoin%20to%20%244.00%20on%20Storj.

Filecoin asks for around $0.19 per 1TB/month is this real? If so, how were these services able to outperform Amazon S3, Google Cloud, and iCLOUD, as the average prices seem very different.

The topic is up for discussion, but if anyone knows who has personal experience, I would be grateful.

[MrSpasybo]

I tried reading the documentation on Filecoin's website https://filecoin.io/ but did not see any specific requirements related to the quality of decentralized storage systems from infrastructure providers. Perhaps this will cost a lot of money, so Google or Amazon charge more when they need to build data centers on the seabed to ensure the best cooling.

Without enough competition, decentralized infrastructure providers can command significantly lower profit margins because they don't need to pay the thousands of people that large companies do.

Another reason may come from the decrease in token price of DEPIN projects. As FIL has decreased from $240 to $6 currently 

[Husires]

Another reason may come from the decrease in token price of DEPIN projects. As FIL has decreased from $240 to $6 currently 

I am not talking about the price, but rather the price of storage for high capacities, as I thought that Filecoin was something to store spaces in megabytes at most, such as photos, music, and short films at a maximum, and not something that can hold terabytes, especially at this low price compared to the costs of storing kilobytes in Bitcoin.

So far, the most answer I have found when asking this question is that these services have not been tested at these capacities, and that the promises that are given are inaccurate, or that demand is still low. I will try to upload 1 TB in the coming days and let's experiment.

[MrSpasybo]

I am not talking about the price, but rather the price of storage for high capacities, as I thought that Filecoin was something to store spaces in megabytes at most, such as photos, music, and short films at a maximum, and not something that can hold terabytes, especially at this low price compared to the costs of storing kilobytes in Bitcoin.

So far, the most answer I have found when asking this question is that these services have not been tested at these capacities, and that the promises that are given are inaccurate, or that demand is still low. I will try to upload 1 TB in the coming days and let's experiment.

I also don't know how Filecoin determines storage costs: in $/TB or FIL token/TB. If it is FIL/TB then the FIL token depreciation impacts the storage price in $.

I will wait for your experience with Filcoin, this could be the future of our storage instead of Google Drive or DropBox. It is cheaper and more decentralized, there is no reason for users to refuse. On https://destor.com/ from Filecoin, there are many organizations using data storage service.

[Husires]

I will wait for your experience with Filcoin, this could be the future of our storage instead of Google Drive or DropBox. It is cheaper and more decentralized, there is no reason for users to refuse. On https://destor.com/ from Filecoin, there are many organizations using data storage service.

It does not seem like a promising start. I visited the link. They asked me to complete a file and in the end it seems that there is a list and they will respond to you later.



They asked for a lot of information, but there was no explanation of the price. I will try again with filecoin, but I thought the idea was simple. Drag and Drop File Uploading, in addition to paying the fees, you get the TXID.

[dkbit98]

There is also something called IPFS or InterPlanetaryFileSystem and I think it is free to use it, that was the case last time I checked.
I think IPFS is based on Filecoin and it works similar decentralized way like bittorrent.
All decentralized storage is probably going to be slower, but also safer because there is no single file to hack.

[ABCbits]

It's a shame CoinGecko doesn't mention whether the price already include transfer cost or not. For example, Storj have additional bandwidth cost[1] which usually seen as hidden/extra cost.

I think IPFS is based on Filecoin and it works similar decentralized way like bittorrent.

That's not true. IPFS is independent project/network. Skimming IPFS blog[2], Filecoin is optional where it's used to ensure certain content remain available by paying someone.

[1] https://docs.storj.io/dcs/pricing
[2] https://blog.ipfs.tech/2021-06-03-ipfs-filecoin-content-persistence/

[dkbit98]

That's not true. IPFS is independent project/network. Skimming IPFS blog[2], Filecoin is optional where it's used to ensure certain content remain available by paying someone.

IPFS is a network protocol, and Filecoin is a decentralized storage project based on IPFS. Filecoin is an application under the IPFS protocol, but Filecoin is not the only project that uses the IPFS protocol.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/q7aq5l/the_relationship_between_ipfs_and_filecoin/?rdt=34857


You can literally find IPFS page on Filecoin website:
https://docs.filecoin.io/basics/how-storage-works/filecoin-and-ipfs


Filecoin Foundation Successfully Deploys InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) in Space
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/filecoin-foundation-successfully-deploys-interplanetary-file-system-ipfs-in-space-302035233.html

[ABCbits]

That's not true. IPFS is independent project/network. Skimming IPFS blog[2], Filecoin is optional where it's used to ensure certain content remain available by paying someone.

IPFS is a network protocol, and Filecoin is a decentralized storage project based on IPFS. Filecoin is an application under the IPFS protocol, but Filecoin is not the only project that uses the IPFS protocol.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/q7aq5l/the_relationship_between_ipfs_and_filecoin/?rdt=34857


You can literally find IPFS page on Filecoin website:
https://docs.filecoin.io/basics/how-storage-works/filecoin-and-ipfs


Filecoin Foundation Successfully Deploys InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) in Space
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/filecoin-foundation-successfully-deploys-interplanetary-file-system-ipfs-in-space-302035233.html

I didn't know there's connection between IPFS and FF. But it doesn't change the fact that you can use  IPFS without Filecoin.

[dkbit98]

I didn't know there's connection between IPFS and FF. But it doesn't change the fact that you can use  IPFS without Filecoin.

So what? It's clearly not independent project like you said when you ''corrected'' me and said I was wrong.
I never said you can't use them separately, and I actually know more about whole history of IPFS, filecoin and other projects that use IPFS all the time for storage.

[ABCbits]

Relevant to this topic, i found https://file.app/ which show price of traditional and centralized cloud storage which sorted from lowest price.

I didn't know there's connection between IPFS and FF. But it doesn't change the fact that you can use  IPFS without Filecoin.

So what? It's clearly not independent project like you said when you ''corrected'' me and said I was wrong.
I never said you can't use them separately, and I actually know more about whole history of IPFS, filecoin and other projects that use IPFS all the time for storage.

Okay, it looks like i misunderstood what you meant when you said "I think IPFS is based on Filecoin".

[Rex067]

I intended to renew my cloud space in one of the popular services, and because I encrypt my data before uploading it, privacy was not a priority for me as much as reliability and price. I tried to search for cheaper methods until I found this article, which frankly surprised me with the prices:

Decentralized storage is cheaper than centralized storage by around 78.6% on average. This is given that the main decentralized storage options cost $2.11 for 1TB per month on average, compared to the average of $9.88 among top centralized storage providers across personal and enterprise plans.

The most expensive major decentralized storage option costs $0.16 less than the cheapest centralized storage option, for 1TB/month. Storj charges the highest among top decentralized storage providers at $4.00, whereas Google Drive offers the lowest price of $4.16 among top centralized storage providers. That said, Storj charges separately for the retrieval of stored files at $7/TB for download bandwidth.

source https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/centralized-decentralized-storage-cost#:~:text=How%20Much%20Does%201TB%20of,Filecoin%20to%20%244.00%20on%20Storj.

Filecoin asks for around $0.19 per 1TB/month is this real? If so, how were these services able to outperform Amazon S3, Google Cloud, and iCLOUD, as the average prices seem very different.

The topic is up for discussion, but if anyone knows who has personal experience, I would be grateful.

The main reason is that decentralized storage is typically cheaper than centralized storage. Decentralized storage you don't have to pay for the overhead if large company like data centers, you are only paying for storage space directly from other users on the network.