S3 Is the Future, S3 Is the Past
Viktor Leis argues that cloud systems still inherit the latency and update constraints of spinning-disk object storage, even as SSDs and datacenter networks make a different design possible. Those constraints drive caching, write batching, separate metadata stores, and whole-object rewrites; a low-latency disaggregated SSD service could remove some of that machinery. The article is a design argument, not a measured comparison of a proposed replacement, and it acknowledges S3 Express One Zone while criticizing its latency, durability trade-offs, and price.
The Hacker News discussion (66 points, 88 comments) questioned whether standard S3’s flat pricing history supports the argument; others noted that S3 now has distinct storage tiers with different costs and trade-offs. The thread didn’t settle the broader hardware/design question.