DxBox, DxChain’s first blockchain cloud storage product, is the application to provide secure & private cloud storage for users all over the world.
More in-depth research please check: DxBox: Blockchain based web application for secure data storage
In recent two months, DxChain held a series of DxBox Testing Events with more than 5,000 participants joined. What impressed us was that we received a huge amount of meaningful comments and reviews.
Your comments and suggestions are of great value to us!
Among these reviews, we summarized the top 3 reasons why users like DxBox:
1) High speed/transaction and convenience of uploading/downloading
2) Simple and clean interface
3) Easy to understand and user-friendly
Thanks for every community member’s support and encouragement which inspire us to do better in the research and development of DxChain products.
Welcome to participate in the free trial for DxBox Testing!
Have your own secure and decentralized blockchain storage now: https://explorer.dxchain.com/register/
In response to the support and trust of DxBox enthusiasts, DxChain engineers Jacky Wang and Manxiang Zhang were invited to answer 10 questions which community users concern the most.
[Part 1] Top 5 questions users raised about DxBox
1. What is the difference between DxBox and Dropbox or another solution?
The major difference between DxBox and Dropbox is the architecture, where DxBox implements blockchain technology and the others use the traditional centralized client-server model.
Unlike the decentralized system, there are server administrators for the centralized system who have direct access to user data, leads a potential risk on the data breach. Moreover, files uploaded to a centralized system will be replicated and stored in different data centers. However, once the data center got hacked, all files will be exposed.
The decentralized storage network of DxChain provides a solution to solve the problems above.
1) By using DxBox, storage provider only has encrypted file pieces, making it almost impossible to recover the original file, ensuring the data security and privacy.
2) In addition, by using blockchain technology, the system is more flexible. The traditional client-server model requires large data centers built with special hardware and specialties to maintain the status. However, by adapting blockchain technology, each computer can be a storage provider which can be easily added and maintained.
3) Last but not least is the problem we aim to solve. Traditional cloud storage service like Dropbox is a centralized service provider that makes profits by meeting clients’ needs. In DxChain economic model, the node could act as two roles: client and host. The client can earn DX tokens by sharing data, and the host can get profit by providing idle storage capacities. Thereby, the ultimate goal of DxChain is to build a more secure, reliable, and profitable decentralized ecosystem.
2. What is the maximum possible file storage size?
We limited the upload file size to be less than 10 MB at a time for testing purposes. However, the user is able to upload files as many times as they want. The entire file storage size is around 5 TB so far and can be easily expanded by adding more hosts. Therefore, theoretically, the storage size is unlimited.
3. Is the data shared by other people safe from viruses?
The sharing feature is not supported by DxBox yet, the file you download is what you’ve uploaded before. After implementing this feature, we will provide a third-party anti-virus software interface for users to decide whether to start the anti-virus plugin.
4. Can you guarantee that my files will not be lost after 5 years or more?
In a word, yes. DxChain’s design can technically ensure data security. Therefore, DxChain can provide unlimited file storage service with abundant economic incentives.
The file will be encrypted and divided into shards using erasure codingalgorithm and stored to different storage providers based on certain parameters. According to the erasure coding algorithm, only a certain amount of data pieces are needed to recover the original file. The use of storage proof submitted by the host periodically and erasure coding algorithm immensely ensures the data privacy and security.
For instance, a file is sharded into 30 data pieces and stored to 30 storage providers based on the user’s parameter. The original file can be recovered as long as any 10 pieces are available.
Suppose the probability that the storage provider can securely store a data piece for one day in the DxBox model is 90%, then the probability that a file cannot be recovered is:
The probability that the file can be recovered after 5 years is:
As a conclusion, DxChain can guarantee the security of files to a large extent.
5. How much will it cost to store a 10-gigabyte file?
The price totally depends on the supply and demand in the storage market and we do not have any control over it. Like buying apples from grocery stores, the sellers have strong bargain power when they have few competitors in the market. However, the sellers will decrease the price to draw customers if there are lots of competitors keeping a large stock of apples.
The theory applies to the storage market as well, there will be a great number of storage providers available when the decentralized storage network of DxChain breaks the data monopoly of technical giants. On this occasion, the storage providers will compete with each other by lowering down the price to draw more users’ attention.
[Part 2] Top 5 features what users want in the future
1. Hybrid payment system
Currently, users can only use DX Token as the currency for file storage, and we are not going to implement this feature in the near future. However, based on the users’ request, we may add a feature to convert different types of currency to DX Token more conveniently.
2. Upload more than one file at a time
This feature is going to be added in the next release of DxBox. Currently, DxChain Testnet has already supported the batch uploading and you can check the file uploading status when multiple files are uploaded.
3. Create and modify a folder / categorize different types of files
We are planning to build a file management system based on the storage service in the near future. Users can make a data directory just like any popular cloud storage systems, including customizing and categorize your files with tags.
4. Log-in/register system enhancement
For the demonstration purpose, DxChain engineers mostly focused on the implementation and optimization of the storage feature instead of the login/register system. However, we will definitely implement this feature and making the system more secure in the future.
5. Share the files via social network/email address
As mentioned before, currently we do not support file sharing feature, you can only download the file you uploaded. But data sharing is the core feature we want to design and implement in the next phase. What we want is not simply data sharing among friends for free, but the owner can get profit by sharing their data, idle storage and computing capacities to build a low-cost, secure, decentralized blockchain cloud storage network. We are working on it to meet DxChain community members’ needs.
