YOUR BRIEF
What to work through
Work through s3 object storage as a spoken system design interview. Start by clarifying the scope, sketch a working design and explain the trade-offs behind your choices.
- Create buckets
- Upload and download objects, small and very large
- Keep versions of an object
- List the objects in a bucket by prefix
- Upload large objects in parts
BEFORE YOU START
Constraints to discuss
- 100 PB of new data a year
- 6 nines of durability (99.9999%)
- 4 nines of availability (99.99%)
- Low storage cost without losing durability
Need a starting point?
Watch for these common gaps as you prepare:
- Storing data and metadata together
- One file per small object
- Acking a write before it is replicated
- Sharding metadata by bucket alone
- No checksums, so silent corruption goes unseen
Why this question is in the collection
These sources connect the problem to company interview reports or preparation guides. They do not guarantee what a company will ask you.