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How We've Scaled Dropbox

Stanford · 372.3K views · 2012-09-10 · 1:08:17

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Overview

Dropbox engineer Kevin Modzelewski gives a Stanford colloquium on Dropbox's history and the technical problems it faced scaling, including detailed database schema decisions.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a detailed, candid case study of scaling a real system from zero users to millions.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2014–2023

Topics

Distributed systemsDatabases & storageCloud, DevOps & reliability
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scalingdropboxdatabasessystem architecturemysql

What people said

fermienrico · 2018-09 · Strong recommendation

I found the Dropbox lecture [1] at Stanford one of the most riveting things ever. There is just so much technology behind Dropbox, it is staggering. There is a reason why it is so much better than iCloud sync, Google Drive, Box or OneDrive. [1] [VIDEO]

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testb · 2018-06 · Recommendation

imo the best way is to look at what other's have built. Here's some of my favorite talks that go from 0 users to millions. Dropbox - [VIDEO] Instagram - [LINK] Slack (bonus. not as applicable but good reminder of why initial architecture does matter) - [LINK]

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jesseendahl · 2018-03 · Recommendation

Dropbox is a lot more than a GUI on top of rsync. Even purely from an engineering standpoint (ignoring product & design) that's incorrect. You might enjoy this talk: [VIDEO]

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Video by Stanford, played through YouTube.

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