I might have asked this once before, or someone else might have, but how will the network handle a situation in which the uploaded and stored data on the network exceeds the amount of available storage?
I know churn is a valuable aspect of the network, but this also means that if the network say, had at some point 1TB of space available for storage, and 900GB worth of data on it, and some kind of disaster happened that led to the network only having 500GB worth of available storage, what would happen?
I know at scale this is probably less likely, but I’m just curious.
The network will always have much more space than data, all going well. However it does know when the space is reducing and no more nodes are coming on line to fill the void. At that time it can and should alert users of this. Ignoring archive nodes etc. it means that in a collapse or a better network becomes available there “should” be enough warning to remove your data. The remaining nodes will be getting increased rewards and should also try and balance the decrease in capacity, possibly holding data outwith their section.
If we consider it a retiring network then I feel it will and can provide the data. Data chains (a representation) also allows people to provide the data out of band in the absolute worst case scenario.
Nice question, we do need to consider such events as one day they will possibly be required.
