Hacker News Reader

That’s simply not true. I use S3 (well GCS mostly) for data that I wouldn’t be upset if it’s lost. And I pay the zonal discount for it.

View on HN

Google internally has lots of possible redundancy levels for data.

They don't sell any of the lower and less reliable levels to the public, I suspect simply because the reputational damage from losing user data is so bad, and the news will take no notice of the fact the user got a discount for less reliable storage.

Most of Google's customers wouldn't know how to choose anyways, if these were exposed. My memory was quite hazy but I recall having a discussion with my colleague on choosing which Reed–Solomon code for our Colossus files, and apparently the choice was down to RS(8,3) or RS(9,3). I don't think even as Googlers we really had enough information to make an informed choice. Comparatively it was much easier to decide which cells to use for multi-location replication in Placer.

You call it "discount" but it's a 20% discount on a 10x inflated price, so it's an 8x inflated price

Reply on news.ycombinator.com