What is decentralized file system?

IPFS, which stands for InterPlanetary File System, is a communication protocol that uses peer-to-peer networking to store, retrieve, and share data through a distributed file system mechanism. IPFS is a decentralized, peer-to-peer file sharing protocol .

With decentralized storage, data is encrypted and stored across multiple locations, or nodes, that are run by individuals or organizations that share their extra disk space for a fee . Only the data’s owner holds the private encryption key; storage providers cannot access the data.5 Oca 2022

Unlike centralized storage systems where data is stored on multiple servers that are hosted in a centralized database, decentralized storage involves storing data across multiple computers, which are also known as nodes . All these nodes are connected together on a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

In a decentralized storage system, instead of storing all the data in a centralized server, the data is distributed into different chunks and stored inside various nodes of a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. There have been a few successful distributed file-sharing systems like Bit torrent, Napster, etc.