Object storage

Object storage organises data not in a directory tree (like a classic filesystem) but as a flat bucket of objects with a unique key and metadata. Pioneer: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), whose API became the de-facto standard — most object-storage offers (Hetzner Storage, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, MinIO, Scaleway, OVH) speak S3-compatible protocol. Useful for: off-site backup copies, static website assets (often paired with CDN), user upload storage in SaaS apps, video/image archives. Advantages over block storage: practically unlimited capacity, built-in versioning, S3 replication for DR, often no egress surcharge with European providers. Drawback: higher per-request latency — not suitable for database workloads.