[lewisl9029]

Do these decentralized storage networks provide any guarantees in terms of durability, redundancy and availability? I've been looking into Siacoin, Filecoin, Storj and the like, but lack of clarity around some important concerns have so far prevented me from taking them seriously as a backup solution:

1. Performing a restore in a timely fashion on a large dataset seems like a tall order if these networks don't impose any minimums for the upstream bandwidth of the hosts.

2. Files can completely disappear from the network if the machines that are hosting them happen to go dark for whatever reason, which seems to be a much more likely occurrence for some random schnub hosting files for beer money than it would be for traditional storage providers that have SLAs and reputations to uphold.

Maybe these concerns are unfounded, and some or all of these networks already have measures in place to address them? I'd appreciate it if someone more familiar with these networks could enlighten me if that's the case.

[Geee]

In addition to redundancy, Sia has the concept of collateral, which is basically money locked in a smart contract that says "I'm willing to bet this money that I'm not going to lose your files". I.e. Hosts lose the money if they fail to store your files.

Different hosts have different amount of collateral, and it's both an important security measure as well as market mechanism.

Also, Sia is completely decentralized (unlike StorJ for example), so it can't be intervened with by anyone which might result in lost files.

[Taek]

Speaking as a Sia developer, I can address your concerns.

> these networks don't impose any minimums for the upstream bandwidth of the hosts.

Sia today primarily handles that through gross redundancy. If you are using the default installation, you're going to be putting your files on 50 hosts. A typical host selection is going to include at least a few sitting on large pipes. Downloads on Sia today typically run at about 80mbps. (the graph is really spiky though, it'll spike between about 40mbps and 300mbps).

We have updates in the pipeline that will allow you to speedtest hosts before signing up with them, and will allow you to continually monitor their performance over time. If they cease to be fast enough for your specific needs, you'll drop them in favor of a new host. ETA on that is probably ~August.

> Files can completely disappear from the network if the machines that are hosting them happen to go dark for whatever reason

We take host quality very seriously, and it's one of the reasons that our network has 300 hosts while our competitors are reporting something like 20,000 hosts. To be a host on Sia, you have to put up your own money as collateral. You have to go through this long setup process, and there are several features that renters will check for to make sure that you are maintaining your host well and being serious about hosting. Someone who just sets Sia up out of their house and then doesn't maintain it is going to have a very poor score and isn't going to be selected as a host for the most part.

Every time someone puts data on your machine, you have to put up some of your own money as collateral. If you go dark, that money is forfeit. This scares away a lot of hosts, but that's absolutely fine with us. If you aren't that serious about hosting we don't want you on our network.

> but lack of clarity around some important concerns have so far prevented me from taking them seriously

We are in the middle of a re-branding that we hope introduces more clarity around this type of stuff as it relates to our network.