Award Date

8-1-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Computer Science

Department

Computer Science

First Committee Member

Yoohwan Kim

Second Committee Member

Ju-Yeon Jo

Third Committee Member

Wolfgang Bein

Fourth Committee Member

Sean Mulvenon

Number of Pages

82

Abstract

Increasing storage needs has driven cloud storage to become a prevalent choice to store data for both business and personal use. Cloud service providers, such as Google, offer advantages over storing personal hard drives; however, customers lose privacy and require trust in the provider to act honestly with their data. This thesis explores an alternative to cloud storage using Blockchain technology. I focus on Sia, a blockchain-based storage platform that allows users to rent storage from other users.

In this study, I evaluate the security, performance and costs between the Sia and traditional cloud storage. I assessed security based on five categories: encryption, data access, durability, redundancy and availability. The performance and costs were evaluated through various storage tests using Sia and Google Drive. The results revealed Sia to have higher availability and less data access (more privacy). Google Drive displayed faster upload times, while Sia displayed faster download times. Additionally, the final cost of using Sia was comparable to cloud providers; however, was more than double of what was expected due to data redundancy costs. Further testing is needed to fully understand the complex costs structure of a blockchain-based storage platform.

Keywords

Blockchain; Storage

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

File Format

pdf

File Size

3118 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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