BestDiskPrices - Storage Drive Price Comparison Platform
Overview
BestDiskPrices is a modern web platform developed with Django that allows users to compare prices of storage devices (HDD, SSD, NAS, external drives, SD cards, USB keys) from multiple marketplaces in real time. The site also includes a full suite of calculation tools to help optimize storage choices.
Technical Architecture
Backend
- Main framework: Django with MVT (Model-View-Template) architecture
- Database: PostgreSQL in production, SQLite in development
- REST API: Django REST Framework with token authentication
- Cache: Redis for performance and session management
- Asynchronous processing: Celery with Redis as broker
- File storage: MinIO (S3-compatible) for images and assets
Frontend
- CSS Framework: Tailwind CSS with custom design system
- Interactivity: HTMX for dynamic updates without full page reloads
- Responsive Design: Mobile-first adaptive interface
- Internationalization: Multilingual support (EN, FR, DE, ES, IT)
Infrastructure
- Containerization: Docker with Docker Compose
- Orchestration: Separate services for web, Celery worker, Celery beat, Redis, Flower
- Security: HTTPS enforced in production, HSTS, CSRF protection
- Monitoring: Flower for Celery task monitoring
Main Features
Price Comparison System
- Data sources: Integration with eBay and AliExpress APIs
- Automatic updates: Scheduled Celery tasks to refresh prices daily
- Advanced filtering: By capacity, brand, store, language, condition
- Automatic calculations: Price per GB/TB, identification of best value for money
- Optimized pagination: Progressive loading with HTMX
Storage Calculation Suite
- Storage calculator: Estimate storage capacity needs
- RAID calculator: Configuration and redundancy calculations
- TCO calculator: Total cost of ownership
- Performance calculator: Transfer time, bandwidth
- NAS compatibility calculator: Compatibility check
- Migration calculator: Data migration planning
- Redundancy calculator: Backup strategy planning
- Power consumption calculator: Estimate power usage
- Backup time calculator: Backup duration estimation
- Recovery time calculator: RTO/RPO estimation
Full REST API
- Data endpoints: Retrieve storage devices with advanced filtering
- Pagination: Custom pagination system
- Multi-filtering: Support for multiple filters per parameter
- Flexible sorting: Sort by price, capacity, performance
- Authentication: Token-based authentication
Advanced Technical Aspects
Data Processing
- Smart extraction: Algorithms to detect brands and capacities in titles
- Normalization: Standardization of data from different sources
- Automatic calculations: Price per GB/TB automatically computed
- Error handling: Robust exception management system
Performance and Optimization
- Indexing: Optimized indexes on frequently queried fields
- Redis cache: Caching of frequent queries
- Query optimization: Use of select_related and prefetch_related
- Compression: WhiteNoise for static asset compression
Security and Reliability
- Data validation: Server-side and client-side validation
- CSRF protection: Protection against CSRF attacks
- Session management: Secure sessions using Redis
- Structured logs: Logging system with configurable levels
Deployment and DevOps
- Containerization: Microservices architecture with Docker
- Orchestration: Docker Compose for service management
- Monitoring: Flower for asynchronous task monitoring
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions-ready configuration
- Environments: Separate dev/prod environment management with environment variables
Technical Innovations
- HTMX Integration: Reactive interface without complex JavaScript
- Multi-marketplace: Aggregation of data from multiple sources
- Specialized calculations: Complete suite of storage-related tools
- Advanced internationalization: Support for 5 languages with marketplace adaptation
- Scalable architecture: Design allows easy addition of new data sources
This project demonstrates deep expertise in modern web technologies, distributed architecture, and third-party API integration, with a strong focus on user experience and performance.
