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Introduction to Object Storage (S3)

The Object Storage service provides a highly scalable, durable, and secure solution for storing and retrieving unstructured data. Whether you need to store backups, archives, log files, or rich media content like images and videos, our S3-compatible service offers a cost-effective and reliable platform for your data storage needs.

Object storage is a modern storage architecture for handling large amounts of unstructured data. Unlike a traditional file system, it manages data as objects in a flat address space, which allows for massive scalability and durability.

Our Object Storage service is built on the enterprise-grade Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) and provides an API that is highly compatible with the Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) standard. This allows you to use a wide range of existing S3-compatible tools, SDKs, and libraries to interact with the service, making it easy to integrate into your applications.

When to Use Object Storage

Object storage is ideal for a wide variety of static data storage use cases:

  • Backups and Archives: Store application data, database dumps, and long-term archives in a durable and cost-effective manner.
  • Static Website Hosting: Host the static assets for your website, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files.
  • Big Data and Analytics: Use it as a data lake for storing large datasets for analytics, machine learning, and AI workloads.
  • Log Files: Aggregate and store log files from your applications and infrastructure for analysis and compliance.
  • Media Content: Store and serve images, videos, audio files, and other multimedia content.

Features

  • S3-Compatible API: Leverage the vast ecosystem of S3-compatible tools and SDKs to manage your data.
  • High Durability and Availability: The service is designed to ensure your data is secure and accessible, even in the event of hardware failures or downtime. Storage is replicated across multiple physical locations to provide enhanced resilience.
  • Scalability: Seamlessly scale your storage from gigabytes to petabytes without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
  • Secure by Default: All data is encrypted at rest by default. For data in transit, communication with the S3 API endpoint is secured using HTTPS, encrypted with internal TLS certificates. Access control is managed through standard bucket policies and access keys.
  • Cost-Effective: Pay only for the storage you use, making it an economical choice for a wide range of data storage needs.

S3 Compatibility

The service provides a highly compatible S3 API, and in most cases, you can use it as a drop-in replacement for Amazon S3. However, due to the underlying technology, there are some minor differences in behavior.

Manual Deletion of Empty Folders

One notable incompatibility is the handling of empty "folders." In the S3 data model, folders are typically represented by zero-byte objects with a name ending in a forward slash (/).

When you delete all the objects within a folder prefix, our service does not automatically remove the zero-byte folder object itself. If you need to remove the folder placeholder, you must perform a separate, explicit DELETE operation on that empty folder object.

Tip

For general information about pricing, legal or support concerning the platform, services or components, consult your contract or see the contact page.