Screaming in the Cloud Solving the 20-Year S3 File System Problem with Hunter Leath
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Jan 20, 2026 
Hunter Leath, CEO of Archil and former Amazon EFS engineer, shares revolutionary insights into cloud storage. He reveals the 20-year struggle of making S3 act like traditional file systems and how Archil bridges this gap. Discussing fast SSDs as a cache layer and seamless integration with existing S3 buckets, Hunter also dives into pricing strategies that can beat Amazon’s services. He emphasizes the resurgence of file systems in the AI age and explains how they can enhance model performance. Prepare for a gamechanger in storage solutions!
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S3 Presented As A Real File System
- Archil converts S3 buckets into POSIX-compatible file systems that present as SSD-like storage to applications.
- Hunter Leath says this middle-layer approach provides instant access and S3 durability without forcing apps to be object-native.
NVMe Cache Bridges Apps And S3
- Archil uses NVMe-backed servers as a distributed durable cache between applications and S3 to get SSD-like performance.
- This cache reduces latency and request volume to S3, enabling file-system semantics without excessive request costs.
Put Storage Close To Compute
- Attach storage where compute runs to cut network latency and improve throughput.
- Hunter Leath recommends colocating Archil clusters near users' compute to reduce time on the wire.