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System Design Case Studies Tracker

43 case studies tagged Storage with full breakdowns.

176case studies
30companies
31topics
~5 minaverage read

Companies

Meta28Microsoft27Amazon23OpenAI23Google20TikTok16Anthropic15Salesforce15Apple12Uber12Atlassian11JPMorgan11LinkedIn11Goldman Sachs9Netflix9Oracle9Snowflake9Rippling8Airbnb7Bloomberg7Capital One7Databricks7Walmart7Flipkart6NVIDIA6Pinterest6Roblox6Adobe4Visa4Anduril1

Topics

Distributed Systems 90Real-time 51Storage 43Data Pipelines 42API Design 41Databases 38Caching 37Security 32AI / ML 23Algorithms 20Scheduling 20Search 19Event Driven 14Fintech 14Analytics 11E-commerce 11Geospatial 11Observability 11Payments 11Messaging 10CDN 9Ads 8Concurrency 8Frontend 8Booking System 6Networking 5IoT 4Collaboration 3Media 3Media Streaming 3Rate Limiting 2
Storage✕Clear all
Gaming Leaderboard (Top K)
16 min readDistributed SystemsReal-timeStorage
Beginner▶ Mock
Google Drive
16 min readStorageCDNDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Instagram
17 min readDistributed SystemsMediaSearch
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Netflix – Streaming Service
17 min readMedia StreamingCDNStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Search Engine (Google)
15 min readSearchDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced—▶ Mock
Web Crawler
15 min readDistributed SystemsStorageSearch
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Multi-Tenant Audit Logs Service
4 min readSecurityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Calendar Service (Google Calendar)
6 min readSchedulingDistributed SystemsStorage
Intermediate+2▶ Mock
CI/CD Platform (GitHub Actions / Jenkins)
7 min readSchedulingDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Cloud Development Environment (Codespaces / Replit / DevBox)
7 min readDistributed SystemsSecurityScheduling
Advanced▶ Mock
Core Dump Collection and Crash Analysis System
5 min readObservabilityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Digital Game Store and Distribution Platform (Steam)
6 min readE-commercePaymentsCDN
Intermediate▶ Mock
Inventory Serving on Spinning Disks with Little RAM
5 min readStorageDatabasesAlgorithms
Advanced▶ Mock
Distributed File System (GFS / HDFS)
5 min readStorageDistributed SystemsDatabases
Advanced▶ Mock
Distributed Key-Value Store (DynamoDB / Cassandra)
7 min readDatabasesDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Centralized Logging System (ELK / Splunk)
6 min readObservabilityData PipelinesSearch
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Duplicate File Detection at Scale
6 min readStorageAlgorithmsDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Sorting a 500 GB CSV with 16 GB of RAM (External Merge Sort)
4 min readAlgorithmsStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Fitness Tracking App (Strava-style)
3 min readGeospatialStorageAPI Design
Intermediate▶ Mock
Globally Consistent (Linearizable) Metadata Service
4 min readDistributed SystemsDatabasesStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Simple Greeting-Card Web App (MVP Architecture)
4 min readAPI DesignStorageCDN
Beginner▶ Mock
High-Volume Healthcare Data Ingestion Pipeline
4 min readData PipelinesSecurityStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Scalable Image Processing Service
5 min readData PipelinesSchedulingStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
Interactive SQL Query Notebook (Snowflake)
4 min readAPI DesignSchedulingStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
IoT / Sensor Telemetry Pipeline
7 min readIoTData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
REST APIs for JSON Document Storage
3 min readAPI DesignStorageDatabases
Beginner▶ Mock
Large File Upload and Processing Pipeline
7 min readStorageData PipelinesSecurity
Intermediate▶ Mock
Word Store with Lexicographic Range Queries
4 min readStorageAlgorithmsDatabases
Intermediate▶ Mock
Metrics Monitoring and Alerting System
7 min readObservabilityData PipelinesStorage
Advanced+3▶ Mock
Distributing Large Model Weights to Thousands of GPU Hosts
6 min readAI / MLDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Object Storage Service (Amazon S3) with Deduplication
6 min readStorageDistributed SystemsAPI Design
Advanced▶ Mock
Offline Multi-Device E-Book Reader (Kindle-style)
3 min readStorageAPI DesignCollaboration
Intermediate▶ Mock
Pastebin (Share Text by Link)
4 min readStorageCachingAPI Design
Beginner▶ Mock
Price Drop Tracker (CamelCamelCamel)
5 min readE-commerceSchedulingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
AI Prompt Playground (OpenAI / Anthropic Console)
6 min readAI / MLFrontendStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
Pub/Sub System with Replay (Seek Back in Time)
3 min readMessagingDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Relational Database Internals (Write Path and Recovery)
7 min readDatabasesStorageDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Cloud Resource Change Tracking Database
3 min readDatabasesEvent DrivenStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
Data Engineering for a Short-Video App (TikTok-scale)
4 min readData PipelinesAnalyticsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Street View Image Ingestion and Storage
4 min readMediaStorageData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Text-to-Video Generation Service (Sora)
6 min readAI / MLSchedulingDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
URL Shortener (TinyURL / bit.ly)
7 min readDistributed SystemsCachingStorage
Beginner+4▶ Mock
User Activity Collection and Recent-Window Queries
5 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What are system design case studies?

System design case studies are real-world architecture problems broken down into structured breakdowns. Each case study covers requirements, high-level design, scale estimates, API designs, and deep dives into key components.

How many system design case studies should I prepare?

For FAANG interviews, preparing 15-20 case studies covering core topics like caching, load balancing, and database sharding is recommended. Focus on understanding trade-offs rather than memorizing solutions.

Which companies ask system design case studies?

All FAANG companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) plus top tech companies like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb ask system design case studies. Senior-level interviews almost always include at least one system design round.

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