A cloud architect is designing a petabyte-scale media archival system for a global photo-sharing application. The storage layer must allow each image to be retrieved through a unique identifier (rather than a file path), provide virtually unlimited scalability for unstructured data, and distribute objects transparently across multiple regions. Which underlying storage method best satisfies these requirements?
Object storage manages data as discrete objects that each include the payload, rich metadata, and a globally unique identifier. Because objects are addressed by ID instead of hierarchical paths, they can be distributed across many nodes and regions yet still be retrieved directly through an API call-ideal for large-scale media repositories, backups, and other unstructured workloads. Block storage maps data at fixed-size block addresses and is more suited to VM disks or databases. File storage relies on folders and paths, which become unwieldy at massive scale. A partition-based scheme may improve database sharding but is not a dedicated cloud storage architecture for unstructured data.
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What is object-based storage, and how does it differ from other storage methods?
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How does an API facilitate access in object-based storage?
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What types of use cases are best suited for object-based storage?