MinIO and SeeWeedFS - kdwivedi1985/system-design GitHub Wiki

MinIO

  • MinIO is a high-performance, distributed object storage system designed to store unstructured data such as photos, videos, log files, backups, and container/VM images.
  • It is API-compatible with Amazon S3, which means it can act as a drop-in replacement for AWS S3 in on-premises or hybrid cloud environments.
  • Full support for the S3 API (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, etc.)
  • Supports Horizontal Scaling: Easily scales from a single node to thousands of nodes.
  • MinIO is more popular than HDFS for on-perm use cases for Object storage.
  • MinIO can be used for Big Data / Machine Learning environments, HDFS replacements, High performance data lake, Cloud native applications (replacing file and block) etc.

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  • The nodes in MinIO cluster are grouped into a server pool. Each node is aware of the entire cluster topology, so any client can connect to any node. The node receiving the request routes internal operations to the correct nodes and returns the final response to the client.
  • MinIO splits each object into data and parity shards using Reed-Solomon erasure coding. For example, with 12 disks, an object might be split into 6 data shards and 6 parity shards. This allows the system to tolerate the loss of up to half the nodes or drives without data loss.
  • While clients can connect to any node, it is recommended to use a load balancer.
  • Data and meta-data synchronization between nodes is managed automatically through erasure coding and internal healing processes.

SeeWeedFS

  • SeaweedFS is a** distributed file system** with a layered architecture designed for scalability, high performance, and efficient metadata management.
  • Supports both:
    • File system semantics (POSIX-like via Filer)
    • Object storage semantics (S3-compatible API)
  • Built-in support for Geo Replication (cross-data center replication.
  • It Can be mounted via FUSE or exposed via NFS.
  • Core Components:
    • Master Server : Manages cluster metadata, volume assignments, and topology. Coordinates volume servers.
    • Volume Server : Stores actual file data in chunks and in large disk files (volumes). Handles read/write operations.
    • Filer Server (optional) : Provides advanced features (POSIX, S3, WebDAV) and manages rich metadata via an external database.

Compare MinIO with SeaweedFS and S3

Feature MinIO SeaweedFS Amazon S3
Storage Format Object storage (S3-compatible); flat key-value Hybrid: Object storage + POSIX-like file system via Filer Object storage; flat key-value
Deployment Self-hosted; lightweight binary or container; Kubernetes-native Self-hosted; standalone or clustered; supports Kubernetes Fully managed by AWS (no self-hosted version)
API Interface Full S3 API compatibility; AWS SDK-compatible S3-compatible API + gRPC + REST + Filer API (POSIX-like) Native S3 REST API; AWS SDKs & CLI support
Performance Very high(optimized for throughput and latency); supports erasure coding Very high (fast writes, seeks, streaming); efficient small file storage High (backed by AWS infra; performance abstracted from user)
Scalability Horizontally scalable; distributed mode supports multi-node and petabytes Horizontally scalable; supports volume tiering and replication Virtually unlimited (scales with AWS infrastructure globally)
Consistency Strong consistency (read-after-write by default) Strong consistency across volumes and files Strong consistency for most operations; eventual for multipart uploads
Use Cases AI/ML pipelines, hybrid cloud storage, backup/archive, S3 replacement Media storage, edge systems, document storage, file-object hybrid use General-purpose cloud apps, web/mobile apps, analytics, SaaS
Security TLS, IAM-style access control, encryption-at-rest & in-transit, audit logs TLS, volume-level security, JWT/token-based auth, optional encryption IAM, bucket policies, encryption (KMS/SSE), access logs, compliance tools
License AGPL v3 (open source, commercial license available for enterprise) Apache 2.0 (fully open source, permissive) Proprietary (AWS)

Usecases

Use Case Best Option
Lightweight S3-compatible storage MinIO or SeaweedFS
Massive-scale unified storage (object/block/file) Ceph
Geo-replicated clusters with minimal setup Garage