Are you wondering how YouTube stores videos? As you know, storage is an eternal part of our lives. We can literally store everything, so later on, there is no issue of losing some data. YouTube has adopted the same strategy to store its gems. So, without further delay, let’s learn how YouTube stores videos.
Data Storage – How Does YouTube Store Such An Insane Amount Of Data?
Videos are stored on the hard drives of Google’s data centers. The data is managed by either Google’s file system or BigTable. Google’s file system manages large-scale data in a distributed environment, while BigTable is a low-latency system built by Google to manage petabyte-scale data with thousands of machines. Your videos are stored on hard drives, while all the critical details, such as metadata, user preferences, profile info, and account settings, are managed in MySQL to ensure smooth access and playback.
Plug-and-play commodity servers
Google’s data centers function with standardized hardware, and their software is custom-built to maintain massive clusters of servers. For the expansion of storage, Google uses affordable commodity servers that are off-the-shelf machines and easy to purchase in bulk. Instead of repairing these servers, Google tends to replace them with new ones for smoother operations. Whenever there’s a lack of storage, new servers are added seamlessly, making the infrastructure both scalable and cost-effective.
Storage disks designed for data centers
YouTube requires more petabytes of new storage daily. It heavily relies on spinning hard disk drives as they are affordable and reliable. Which are also called HDDs.
SSDs solid-state drives are faster since they use semiconductor technology. But they aren’t an ideal choice for large-scale storage. They are also expensive and gradually lose data over time. Focus on speed, security, capacity, cost efficiency, and reliability while building hardware for data storage.
Conclusion
We hope that we have answered your question about how YouTube stores videos. Although the information may be complex if you don’t have a tech background, we have explained it in the simplest language possible.