Best practice to save files in blockchain

Question

What is the best practice to save files as part of a blockchain's data? I have tremendously large files to be saved.

Can't we save these file on cloud storage (centralized solution like drop box), and link them with blockchain data using a file hash? Or is it better to use a distributed file storage like IPFS? Or is there any better solution in term of security, volume, performance, and fault tolerance.

Answer 1

Storing data in a blockchain is fine, but you need to remember the fact that blockchain networks are immutable. This means that once you record data into a block, that portion of data stays there forever. Additionally, the size of the blockchain increases tremendously because the whole blockchain is replicated into all blocks. Additionally, transactions in a blockchain network are relatively slow. So, for continuously changing files, blockchain networks should not be your last option. 

However, you may look into IPFS based distributed hash tables for storing data. These distributed hash tables are reliable, fast, and more efficient. But they can only be used to store static files.

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