Auto Drive

Auto Drive transforms the underlying blockspace of the Autonomys decentralized storage network into a secure, easy-to-use, interoperable data storage platform with a user experience akin to Web2 cloud services — but with on-chain permanence.

Unlike other decentralized storage solutions that distribute data across servers with no durability guarantees, Auto Drive provides access to genuine on-chain blockspace. Your data inherits the same permanence, security, and decentralization as the Autonomys Network itself.

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Why Auto Drive?

Permanent Availability Without Pinning

Some services require active pinning or hosting to keep files online — when a pin expires or a node goes offline, the file disappears. Auto Drive eliminates this problem entirely.

The Autonomys Distributed Storage Network (DSN) is a permissionless on-chain storage layer supported by a globally distributed network of farmers who collectively pledge over 40 PB of SSD space. Farmers are economically incentivized via Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS) consensus to store as many provably unique segments of chain history as their disk space allows.

Tamper-Proof by Design

Autonomys maintains data redundancy via erasure-coded replication across the network — each data chunk is stored on multiple nodes, guaranteeing data availability and integrity.

Key Features

True On-Chain Storage

Auto Drive provides access to genuine on-chain blockspace. This means your data inherits the same permanence, security, and decentralization guarantees as the Autonomys Network itself — not a separate off-chain storage layer with additional trust assumptions.

End-to-End Encryption (Optional)

Auto Drive supports optional client-side encryption using AES-256-GCM. Files are encrypted on your device before they are transmitted to the network, so storage nodes never see your plaintext data. See the File Encryption Specification for full technical details.

Permissionless Storage Credits — Pay with AI3

Storage on Auto Drive is paid for with credits. Beyond the free monthly tier, credits can be purchased directly with native AI3 tokens on the Auto-EVM network — no intermediary, no grant form, no foundation approval. Payments settle on-chain and credits become available within a few blocks.

→ See the full guide: Pay with AI3

User-Friendly Dashboard

ai3.storage provides an intuitive web interface for managing your files and account:

Drag and drop file uploads and folders
Share files via direct link or Public ID
Manage API keys
Track and purchase upload credits

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Use Cases

Super dApps — host decentralized application assets with permanent availability guarantees.
Auto Agents — store on-chain agent state, logs, and artifacts transparently and verifiably.
NFT metadata — link NFT metadata and media files to permanent storage so they can never disappear.
Long-term archival — permanently archive important files without relying on pinning services.
Web3 file hosting — serve files for web3 applications with no single point of failure.

Storage Credits

Every account includes a free monthly allocation. When you need more, there are two options — grants for projects early in development, and permissionless on-chain purchase for production use.

Free Tier

Resource	Included Free
Upload	20 MB / month
Renewal	Monthly

Requesting a Grant

If your project needs more storage during development, submit your Auto Drive Public ID via the credits request form to request a grant from the Autonomys team.

Pay with AI3

For production applications, credits can be purchased permissionlessly with native AI3 tokens directly on the Auto-EVM network. No approval process, no intermediary — pay on-chain and credits are available within a few blocks.

→ Pay with AI3 guide — covers step by step process on how to purchase credits with AI3 tokens.