A deep dive into how Solana's account model works for data storage, explaining program-derived addresses, account sizing, and efficient data management patterns.

Overview

Solana's account model is fundamentally different from Ethereum's storage model. Instead of a persistent key-value store, Solana uses a collection of owned accounts to store program state. This tutorial explores how storage works on Solana and how to design efficient data structures.

Key topics covered:

• The basics of Solana's account model for program storage
• How to create and size accounts appropriately
• Designing efficient data layouts with borsh serialization
• Program-Derived Addresses (PDAs) and how they're used for storage
• Managing account rent and rent exemption
• Realloc functionality for resizing accounts
• Storage optimization patterns and performance considerations

Understanding Solana's storage model is crucial for developing efficient programs. Unlike EVM chains where storage is a simple but expensive key-value store, Solana requires more careful planning of your data structures, but rewards this with significantly lower costs and higher throughput.