What Can Video Teams Benefit From Shared Storage

Every industry is bound to go through evolutions and it is exactly what keeps things alive. When it comes to the video industry, where collaboration is a prime factor that contributes to efficiency, the evolution to modern storage solutions has added a lot of benefits.

For instance, there are several unique benefits of shared storage over other contemporary solutions, like hard drives, SSDs, etc. Once shared storage came into the picture there was a revolutionary leap and things have never been better for the content creation community.

If you are wondering what this revolution is about and the benefits of shared storage for video creation teams, here is what you need to read.

What Is Shared Storage For Video Teams?

Before getting into the benefits of shared storage in the context of video making, it is pertinent that we understand the mechanism of shared storage and how it works.

During the early stages of video editing, professionals used to store all the media files on hard disks or other physical storage devices that are either already attached to the computer or attached separately via external cables. In this case, collaboration was becoming more and more difficult as these physical devices had to be tossed around from one person to another for access and editing.

There was an increasing need for means to centralize the created content and make it accessible for all the stakeholders. This is when shared storage took charge and changed the game forever for good. shared storage, in simple terms, is a system that involves centralized storage that can be accessed and used by many computers and multiple users. 

A single storage resource pool that is shared by numerous computer/server resources is referred to as shared storage. It enables servers to keep data and files on a shared storage system that is independent of any server or PC. It is also intended to be significantly faster, more dependable, and simpler to scale. 

There are four primary types of shared storage systems, each offering unique advantages:

• Network Attached Storage/NAS: This system involves the main server that has storage space built into it.
• Storage Area Network/SAN: SAN involves transferring data into disk arrays with the help of metadata controller servers, individual Network controllers.
• Redundant Array of Independent Disks/RAID: As the name suggests, RAID is more of an array of hard drives. Most NAS and SAN systems also make use of RAID devices at the primary levels of storage.
• Cloud storage: Cloud storage is a way of storing videos with your preferred quality to be accessed remotely from anywhere, anytime. Owing to the many benefits of cloud storage, it has quickly become the primary source of storage for many individuals and companies.

You can access the data on a shared storage medium by the following means:

• Programmatically using API
• Over the internet with the help of a storage management application
• Directly through FTP or Local network.

Accessing data within a shared storage system is facilitated by authentication processes and logins and access is provided by the primary administrator to the relevant users. These users can then access, edit/modify and add data present on the centralized shared storage, based on their permission levels. 

All of these features enable a better, collaborative workflow in video teams, and enhance connectivity. Besides, there are multiple tools like Adobe sharing, Bin locking, Media Composer, etc. that can add to the jazz of insane collaborative workflows. 

Benefits of Shared Storage For Videos

The most contemporary idea of Storage is that it has to be as independent as possible and this is becoming more and more feasible with shared storage. Despite being a beginner or an established professional or company in the video industry, shared storage can be very beneficial in the following ways.

Cloud storage allows users to share and view files securely without requiring access to their local storage systems. It offers several benefits over traditional storage solutions. Teams who integrate cloud storage into their workflow can benefit in several ways, such as:

1. Cost effectiveness: To explain this better, we can consider two scenarios of a team consisting of five people who work on the same video content. In the first case where there is no shared storage, the team has to invest in substantial hardware that helps with duplicating the content. The team might also require multiple hard drives that can cost thousands of dollars. Besides, there is cost wastage in the form of time as people are waiting around for the content to be copied and transferred. Applying shared storage to the same team scenario, the only investment is the shared storage platform itself and that is pretty much it.
2. Time management: In general, a video team consisting of 4 people, who work on HD content, spends around 30 hours in a month just waiting for files to copy. When you consider the relinking time, backing up, etc, the number would even go up to 50 hours. If this is the case with HD, you can imagine the number getting doubled or tripled with 4K footage. With shared storage, you will never have to worry about waiting around and all these manhours will not go in vain.
3. Better collaboration: The more time you have, the better will be the efficiency of the team and its collaborative nature. This point might feel vague as it cannot be quantified like the precious ones, but it makes a lot of difference. It is a no-brainer that collaboration is the key to better content be it inter-team or intra-team and this process has been deemed complicated or difficult in the past when traditional storage was used. These complications were attributed to bandwidth, file size, and networking and we know that all of those technical issues can be tackled by means of shared storage.
4. Easy archival: When you are producing creative content that is literally gold, it is essential that you find the means to effectively store it. Archiving by traditional means is going to cost you a ton and it demands a lot of physical space too. This is not the case with shared storage on the cloud. You can always be ahead of the demand and recycle the content you have got. 
5. Deliverables with better quality: You can make any number of changes in your workflow to enhance the quality of the deliverable but without a solid storage system, all of it would just go to dust. As you shift to shared storage, your limitations on storage capacity will go down which will eventually allow you to create higher quality content.
6. No more relinking: If you are a video editor, you would understand how the relinking process can put your sanity to the test. Imagine a world where there is no need to relink again! This is exactly what shared storage can offer you.
7. Built-in Security: Most shared storage service providers ensure top-level data encryption and security. They also offer add-on features such as two-factor authentication, web-based antiviruses, and more to keep all of the stored data safe from cyberattacks.
8. Centralized data management: Shared storage is easy to manage, compared to managing your data on different servers or physical drives. You can easily manage users, their rights and roles, storage space, work allocation, and more from a single dashboard, optimizing your operations for quicker deliveries.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Using Shared Storage

There are multiple advantages to using a shared storage system such as:

• Better cost-effectivity and improvement in managing the infrastructure of the team
• Increase in the efficiency of the team by means of collaborative workflows.
• Better scalability and more room for growth
• Effective usage of manhours 
• Improvement in the team dynamic and better quality of deliverables
• Archiving in shared storage  is better and more efficient than the traditional means
• You can enjoy features like automated backups and data recovery

Some of the common disadvantages of shared storage stated by users are as follows:

• There could be a compromise in security and the data is vulnerable to threats and attacks
• Data management might not be as seamless as it would be on traditional platforms
• Every time the bandwidth requirements of your team or business exceeds the limit offered by the service provider, you must pay more

Conclusion

Video teams come in various sizes, and their requirements vary based on every project they work on. Sticking to traditional means of storage might not be the most brilliant option here as it poses a ton of limitations. Besides, with shared storage, the benefits outweigh the cons, and this solution almost fits every video team, despite their shape and size. The most significant contribution that shared storage can make is that it can centralize a team or an organization, eventually leading to better business.

If your team is struggling to manage large files, which is impacting productivity, it is high time that you migrate your data to shared storage. With ProMAX MediaHub, your creative team can share files and collaborate in real-time just like they were in the same office.

Contact a ProMAX Expert to learn more about MediaHub and how you can use a peer-to-peer network, ensuring your teams are connected and collaborating seamlessly round the clock.