Architecting Amazon S3: Designing Scalable and Durable Object Storage | System Design Interview

In this System Design Interview deep dive, we break down how to architect Amazon S3, one of the most widely used scalable and durable object storage systems in the world. This is a high-frequency system design question for Amazon and FAANG-level engineering interviews.

The discussion starts by defining functional requirements, such as immutable object storage and hierarchical directory support, and then moves into non-functional requirements including linear scalability, extreme durability, high availability, and strong consistency guarantees.

Key architectural components covered include:

Metadata stores for object and directory tracking

Chunk managers for splitting and managing large objects

Distributed storage nodes for massive-scale data persistence

Sharding and partitioning strategies used at Amazon scale

Quorum-based replication to achieve high durability

Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) to protect data integrity

Distributed locking mechanisms to maintain strong consistency

The session also explores critical Amazon-style design trade-offs, such as latency vs. consistency, replication vs. cost, and operational simplicity vs. scalability—exactly what interviewers expect candidates to articulate.

🎯 Ideal for:

Amazon System Design Interviews

FAANG / MAANG candidates

Backend, Platform, and Infrastructure Engineers

Distributed Systems learners

Senior & Staff Engineer interview prep

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