Design Dropbox

1. Problem Statement

2. Architecture Discussion Map

Use this as one discussion aid, not a single correct answer. Your design should follow from the requirements, scale, and trade-offs you establish.

graph LR
    A["Design Dropbox"]
    A --> F1["Chunking and deduplication fixed-size or content-defined"]
    A --> F2["Upload path and metadata commit ordering"]
    A --> F3["Metadata model, sharding, and consistency per namespace"]
    A --> F4["Client sync protocol, change notification, and conflicts"]
    A --> F5["Block durability, version retention, and garbage collection"]

3. Key Focus Areas

• 1
  Chunking and deduplication (fixed-size or content-defined)
• 2
  Upload path and metadata commit ordering
• 3
  Metadata model, sharding, and consistency per namespace
• 4
  Client sync protocol, change notification, and conflicts
• 5
  Block durability, version retention, and garbage collection

4. What the Interviewer Looks For

The interviewer probes these areas, and the report grades the interview against them.

• Requirements and estimation
• Chunking, deduplication, and upload path
• Metadata model and consistency
• Sync protocol and conflicts
• Durability, retention, and garbage collection

5. What Strong Candidates Should Demonstrate

• Move and store changed file data efficiently, without re-uploading whole files.
• Keep file metadata consistent per namespace and sync devices from a change journal.
• Preserve concurrent offline edits, and garbage-collect blocks safely under version retention.