Storage systems don’t fail overnight. They wear down, slow down, and eventually, they stop keeping up with your workflow. The tricky part is recognizing when that tipping point is near.
Maybe you’re noticing that issues are becoming more frequent. Maybe your team doesn’t trust the system enough to work at full speed. Or maybe you’re just hoping that nothing critical fails before you can budget for an upgrade.
The challenge isn’t just dealing with aging hardware—it’s knowing when “good enough” isn’t actually good enough anymore. So, how do you know it’s time for a refresh?
Regardless of which shared storage solution you use (EditShare’s or someone else’s), this is our take on the key signs to watch for, the questions you should be asking, and how to think about when it’s time to refresh your system.
What Happens to a Storage System After 5-7 Years?
It’s not just about age—it’s about workload. A production storage system isn’t just sitting there. It’s constantly reading, writing, rewriting, fragmenting, and filling up with massive files. And after 5-7 years, a few things start happening:
1. The Hardware Wears Down (And Becomes a Bigger Risk)
Storage systems aren’t built to last forever. Drives spin millions of times, SSDs wear out, and cooling fans run 24/7. Eventually:
Drives start failing. Even enterprise-grade HDDs have a finite lifespan, and after years of non-stop use, failure rates start to climb. The real risk isn’t just one drive failing—it’s multiple failures happening too close together, putting your media at risk.
RAID protection isn’t bulletproof. Most systems ship with RAID 6, which can tolerate two failed drives. But when a drive fails, it takes time to rebuild, and during that time, the system is vulnerable. If another drive fails mid-rebuild, data loss is a real possibility.
Rebuilds stress the system. The very process of recovering from a failed drive puts extra strain on the remaining disks, making cascading failures even more likely.
Think about it like a car that’s been idling for years without ever turning off. At some point, parts start wearing out. And the older it gets, the harder it is to find replacements. That brings us to the next issue…
2. Performance can potentially drop (Even If You Haven’t Noticed Yet)
At first, the slowdown is subtle. Then one day, you realize renders are taking twice as long. Here’s why:
File fragmentation increases. Video files aren’t small. Over time, data gets scattered across drives, making read/write speeds slower.
Capacity gets tighter. Running at 80-90% storage usage? That alone can slow performance by 50% or more.
New formats push old systems past their limits. Your storage was built for yesterday’s workflows. Today, it’s handling higher resolutions, heavier codecs, and larger files than it was ever designed for.
Software moves faster than hardware. Your system may technically still run, but much like a 7-year-old phone trying to run the latest OS, performance drops as software evolves beyond what your hardware was built to handle.
Bottom line: If your team is fighting dropped frames, sluggish exports, and unexpected slowdowns, your system isn’t keeping up.
3. You’re Probably Out of Support (And That’s a Risk You Don’t Want to Take)
Most storage systems have a support lifecycle. Once you’re past that window:
No more firmware updates. Security vulnerabilities pile up.
No guaranteed replacement parts. Older systems rely on components that may no longer be available.
No vendor support if things go sideways. At some point, you’re on your own.
And even if your system technically can run the latest software, newer features and updates are designed to perform best on newer hardware. The result? A system that once felt “screaming fast” starts feeling sluggish and outdated.
So How Do You Know It’s Time to Refresh?
It’s usually not one big thing—it’s a series of little frustrations that add up. Here’s what to watch for:
1. The Work Feels Slower
Video production isn’t just about skill – it’s about momentum. The best teams move fast – ideas flow, cuts come together, the energy is high. But old, slowing systems can easily kill momentum.
Like any form of electronic storage, media spaces can become overloaded, especially when they become a “dumping ground.” Millions of objects relegated to a project can make bootup, searching, and waiting for screens to load slower and more frustrating.
If your colorist spends more time fighting dropped frames than actually grading, your system is slowing you down.
If your render queue has turned into an overnight hostage situation, your system is slowing you down.
Unfortunately, this situation rarely improves on its own. Cameras aren’t getting less powerful. Files aren’t getting smaller. If your system is already limping, it’s not going to miraculously keep up with next year’s workflows.
2. When Downtime Becomes “Normal” (And the Bigger Problems You Don’t See)
Every production team has dealt with a crash at the worst possible moment. It happens. But when slowdowns, dropped frames, and storage bottlenecks stop being a rare annoyance and start feeling like part of the job, that’s when you have a real problem.
When your team saves after every small change because they don’t trust the system to hold up.
When “try restarting it” is the first response to any hiccup.
When a simple export means crossing fingers and hoping for the best.
3. When Your System Stops Fitting the Way You Work
It’s easy to think of a system refresh as a “nice to have”—until one day you realize your setup is actively making things harder instead of easier.
Your storage architecture was built for on-prem workflows, but half of your team is remote now.
Your editors keep running out of space because the system wasn’t designed for today’s file sizes.
Your infrastructure was optimized for HD, but you’re working in 4K and beyond—and it’s showing.
The Risk No One Talks About: Team Morale is Built on What You Tolerate
Nobody’s walking out the door just because you stretched your storage system another year. But every decision you make about your tech stack sends a message—whether you mean it to or not.
If the system is slow, unreliable, and frustrating—and everyone knows it—what does it say when leadership shrugs and moves on?
At the end of the day, you encourage what you tolerate.
Keep tolerating lag, breakdowns, and workarounds, and you’ll get more of them.
The only question is: How much longer are you willing to put up with it?
Milestone affirms EditShare’s commitment to data security and operational excellence
Boston, MA, 28 January 2025 — EditShare®, a technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, is proud to announce that it has been awarded SOC 2 Type II certification. This significant achievement underscores EditShare’s unwavering commitment to data security and operational excellence.
SOC 2 Type II certification is a rigorous audit that evaluates an organization’s information systems relevant to security, availability and processing integrity. Achieving this certification with no findings indicates that EditShare has met or exceeded the stringent standards set forth by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
This milestone marks EditShare’s first SOC 2 report following its 2023 merger with Shift Media, reflecting the organization’s unified commitment to excellence across its expanded portfolio. The certification encompasses the entire EditShare organization, as well as the MediaSilo, Screeners, and SafeStream cloud-native video solutions.
“Receiving SOC 2 Type II certification validates our relentless focus on securing our clients’ media workflows,” said Brad Turner, CEO of EditShare. “This accomplishment reflects our commitment to building innovative, secure, and reliable solutions that empower storytellers worldwide.”
This achievement, alongside recent advancements such as the Ultimate EFS Series and workflow upgrades showcased at the 2024 IBC Show, underscores EditShare’s commitment to driving innovation and addressing the evolving needs of media professionals. With SOC 2 Type II certification, EditShare continues to set the standard for secure, collaborative media workflows across the industry.
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader empowering storytellers with collaborative media workflows designed for on-premise, cloud, and hybrid environments. Its scalable storage and collaboration solutions support media businesses at every stage of video production, from storyboard to screen.
With an open architecture, EditShare fosters workflow collaboration, third-party integrations, and content sharing across the entire production chain. Its high-performance, high-availability design meets the rigorous demands of media storage, management, and delivery. The comprehensive suite includes multi-tiered content storage for production and post-production, innovative asset and workflow management tools, and specialized features for content review, secure preview of pre-release materials, and the creation of customized branded pitch reels, ensuring a seamless and secure media production process.
University Invests in High Performance NVMe and Nearline Storage
Boston, MA, 13 December 2024 — Leeds Trinity University, recently ranked No. 1 in the UK for Journalism by The Guardian’s University Guide 2025, has enhanced its media production capabilities with cutting-edge EditShare technology, delivered in collaboration with channel partner Altered Images. The new system, built on the elite performance of EFS NVMe architecture, coupled with new nearline EFS nodes, provides exceptional breakthrough performance and scalability to meet the university’s growing media demands. This investment underscores the university’s commitment to equipping its students with leading-edge professional-grade tools for modern content creation.
In response to demands for increased bandwidth and performance for more simultaneous creative users, Leeds Trinity University sought a solution that combined cost-effectiveness with breakneck performance. The decision to select EditShare technology was influenced by the company’s proven track record of providing reliable media engineered production storage nodes previously implemented at the University.
EditShare Technology at Leeds Trinity University
The upgrade was driven by the need to handle more high-resolution media streams and support more simultaneous users. The advanced high-performance NVMe architecture, optimized by EditShare’s media-aware EFS file system, delivers the bandwidth and low-latency access required to easily handle these demands. Complementing this, EditShare’s EFS near-line system delivers robust data protection with reliable daily incremental backups. Additionally, the platform’s compatibility with a wide array of creative applications ensures efficient collaboration and media management across diverse environments.
The system, which went live in September, has already delivered transformative results for Leeds Trinity University’s media operations. The enhanced bandwidth allows more users to access the system without compromising performance and the daily backups ensure data security and continuity.
“The recent classification by The Guardian as the No. 1 University in the UK for Journalism is in large part due to the wonderful facilities we provide, of which EditShare is central,” said Mark Willett, Media Facilities Manager at Leeds Trinity University. “We are thrilled to be the first university in our region to embrace this cutting-edge technology. Our new EditShare system not only improves our capabilities but also underscores our commitment to providing students and staff with the best possible resources to achieve their goals.”
“This investment exemplifies the innovative and cost-efficient approach that we strive to support with our solutions,” said Sean Bradley, RSM for Northern Europe, EditShare. “They are designed to empower institutions and organizations to meet their media management challenges with confidence, enabling them to focus on supporting creativity and collaboration.”
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
About Altered Images Altered Images is a leading provider of technology solutions for the media and entertainment industry, specializing in system design, installation, and support. As a trusted EditShare channel partner, Altered Images brings expertise and personalized service to every project, ensuring clients achieve their operational goals with confidence. https://alteredimages.com/
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
Additional capacity for long-time user
Boston, MA, 2 December 2024 — EditShare, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative workflows at every stage from storyboard to screen, has expanded Inflight Dublin’s storage capacity by adding further high-powered EFS nodes. The new appliances, supplied through EditShare’s channel partner Tyrell, provide an additional half petabyte of capacity to the company’s infrastructure.
Inflight Dublin has been a market leader in providing content for Inflight Entertainment (IFE) for 40 years. Many airlines worldwide now rely on it for packages of movies, television shows and games tailored to the needs of their passengers. EditShare has provided its content library and management facilities since 2011.
Pat Nolan, Director of IT and Information Security, Inflight Dublin
“We curate and package everything that is needed for IFE: video, audio, subtitles and metadata,” said Pat Nolan, Director of IT and Information Security for Inflight Dublin. “We need agility to combine content with the right audio and subtitle languages, in the right formats for the IFE equipment on the client’s planes, quickly, accurately and securely.”
Inflight utilizes a tiered content storage strategy to optimize its production and archiving processes. This strategy includes EFS production storage, EFS nearline storage, and long-term archival solutions.
EFS production nodes deliver high-performance storage for fast content creation, EFS nearline storage, serves as an intermediate parking storage solution. Upon project completion and delivery, all content is securely archived using EditShare ARK.
Content flows and access are managed through EditShare FLOW software, which also provides the integration point for Inflight Dublin’s in-house developed software tools for automatically creating deliverables. Embedded in FLOW is EditShare Guardian, for comprehensive analytics and audit trailing, and combined with EditShare’s inherent security, provides assurance to the very high standards demanded by the company’s suppliers, which include major movie and television studios.
“As Infight’s long-term partner, we understand the critical role workflow and security plays in its business and the demanding needs of the airlines it serves,” said Stephen Murnane, Account Manager, Tyrell. “By providing additional EditShare EFS storage, Inflight Dublin can ensure a seamless IFE experience for passengers worldwide.”
“Content is a fundamental part of Inflight Dublin’s operations,” said Tara Montford, Co-Founder and EVP Sales at EditShare. “Its suppliers need to be certain that their intellectual property is protected; its customers need to know that the passengers on their planes will be delighted by the IFE experience, not disappointed or frustrated.”
“EditShare is the core of the operation,” he continued. “It is much more than very reliable storage: the FLOW software provides the functionality Inflight Dublin needs, the interconnectivity for its workflow, and provides the security and traceability to completely protect the media.”
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
About Tyrell
For 24 years Tyrell has been providing video, audio, graphics and storage solutions to the Irish and UK broadcast, post, production, corporate and education markets. In this time, we have become the leading provider of technology and service solutions both on-premise and in the cloud. Tyrell has an excellent understanding of the fast pace and unique pressures facing the media and entertainment industry; developing solutions for complex workflows. Allowing our clients to concentrate on the creative process and business development. From our two locations we offer a comprehensive range of professional services from consultancy to system design and integration, technical support and maintenance.
Inflight Dublin is a leading provider of Inflight Entertainment and connectivity solutions. With a focus on innovation and quality, we offer a wide range of services including content provision, wireless streaming, and more. Our solutions are designed to enhance the passenger experience, providing airlines with the tools to deliver exceptional Inflight Entertainment.
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
New installation transforms post production workflow at top Swedish post house
Boston, MA, 27 November 2024 — One of the leading Scandinavian post-production houses, Tint, has supercharged its media workflows with EditShare’s high-performance storage across its Gothenburg and Stockholm offices. The solution combines ultra-fast EFS NVMe storage nodes and multiple EFS 300 units, delivering both locations easy access to shared content. Completed in June with regional partner Danmon Group Sweden, this installation boosts collaboration among its teams of colourists, VFX artists, editors, sound designers and producers, ensuring efficient and smooth operations.
Tint, known for its post-production expertise across commercials, feature films and serialized tv content, required a more efficient workflow solution between its two locations. Despite a private network, manual file transfers between Gothenburg and Stockholm caused delays and version control issues, especially for VFX artists in Stockholm facing bottlenecks. To overcome these challenges, Tint chose EditShare for its robust features, proven performance, and competitive pricing.
The installed system features EFS-300 nodes at both locations, with two nodes in Stockholm and Gothenburg each, all reinforced by ultra-high-speed NVMe nodes for unparalleled performance. This configuration enables easy media sharing, enhanced collaboration across sites, and delivers the exceptional performance and throughput required for high-end film and VFX work.
“Our primary goal was to create a frictionless, collaborative working environment for both our Gothenburg and Stockholm teams,” said Albin Abrahamsson, Post Supervisor, of Tint. “EditShare’s EFS storage has completely transformed how we work, eliminating file transfer delays, removing admin worries and allowing our teams to focus purely on the creative process. The NVMe performance is incredible, especially for our VFX and color grading workflows.”
Tint’s CTO, Vincent Larsson added, “We evaluated multiple vendors, including the option of building our own system, but EditShare stood out for its superior performance, feature set and price. It’s reassuring to have a high-speed media-aware storage solution that offers both reliability and the flexibility to meet our evolving needs.”
Tint has also capitalized on EditShare’s open API framework, writing their own scripts integrated with Apple Shortcuts. This has allowed producers to quickly and easily create media spaces, add folders and users to new projects without requiring access to the core EFS system. “Our producers can now manage new projects and media spaces themselves, saving everyone time and getting new projects up and running straight away,” added Abrahamsson.
Security is paramount in media, and EditShare’s EFS auditing capabilities play an important role by delivering real-time activity tracking and monitoring every user action, ensuring total confidence when handling valuable content.
“This is a perfect example of how modern post-production environments taking a tiered approach to their storage nodes, can achieve greater efficiency and creative freedom,” said Sean Bradley, RSM for Northern Europe, EditShare. We’re proud to support Tint with an EditShare solution tailored to their needs today and built for future success.”
Tint Post’s Cinema Mixing/Grading Stage in Gothenburg
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
Adds capacity, AI indexing and sharing technologies
Boston, MA, 17 October 2024 — EditShare, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative workflows at every stage from storyboard to screen, has expanded its installation at Last Cut Media. The extensions, which include AI indexing from Mobius and the EditShare MediaSilo collaboration platform, were implemented by Advanced Media Trading, EditShare’s distribution partner in the Middle East.
Last Cut Media, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is a large-scale independent post house, designed by content creators for content creators. Seeking to streamline its operations and allow its users to focus on their projects, at the beginning of 2023 Last Cut replaced its ad hoc storage systems with an EditShare storage network, including an EFS 300 shared online store, a nearline server and LTO tape archiving.
With the growth in premium business, Last Cut has returned to EditShare to increase both its capacity and functionality. The extension doubles the system capacity with a second EFS 300 storage node.
The new installation also incorporates technology from Mobius, seamlessly integrated into the EditShare FLOW asset management system. This adds AI support to automatically create rich metadata, including facial and scene detection. The core Mobius knowledge base includes more than 5000 objects, emotions and actions, and 10,000 famous people, which is added to with every piece of content passing through FLOW.
Last Cut also decided to implement the EditShare MediaSilo collaboration system. This replaced an existing standalone distribution system and provides seamless integration with the rest of the storage network. The result is that producers and other collaborators working remotely from the facility can receive high quality viewing copies, automatically generated, ensuring everything can be checked and signed off in a timely fashion.
Saad Duaibes, General Manager, Last Cut Media
“In today’s world, producers want the best facilities, but they do not necessarily want to spend time travelling to them,” said Saad Duaibes, General Manager of Last Cut Media. “We have clients all across the region and in all the creative hotspots like Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Adding MediaSilo means we can keep those clients up to date with progress, without adding to our workload, ensuring they see the very latest versions.
“Since we moved to EditShare storage we have been able to streamline our workflows,” Duaibes added. “It has helped our business grow, prompting us to expand our storage network to accommodate new projects. We are very comfortable with the solution, and see our use of it growing, including working with new tools like artificial intelligence.”
Michele Dwayk, head of sales for EditShare in the Middle East, said “Last Cut Media is widely respected in the region, and serves projects from commercials to movies, through television drama and documentaries. Each genre and each project has its own distinct workflow, and its own group of collaborators.
“EditShare FLOW is designed to be open and flexible, allowing Last Cut to set up each project according to the creative and business demands,” she continued. “They have embraced these capabilities and, working with our colleagues at Advanced Media Trading, we have helped them see further advantages for the future, including simple collaboration with MediaSilo and AI indexing with Mobius.” The extensions to the storage network and the new software functionality were installed in June 2024 and are now fully online.
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
That’s a wrap on another successful year in Amsterdam at IBC, the show that always brings game-changing innovation to the industry. Hall 7 was the exciting place to be. Pulling off a show of this size takes effort, and our team did an excellent job setting up the booth with eye-catching workflows . We couldn’t be more grateful to them, because it allows us to connect with creative professionals and have workflow discussions with so many customers and partners. This year marked our 20th year exhibiting at IBC, a milestone that reflects two decades of bringing innovation to the M&E industry—many of which have since become integral to mainstream workflows. 2024 was no different, as we continue to push the boundaries of technology and shape the future of production. It also allowed us to introduce our latest product innovations – the all new EFS Ultimate Series and EFS Field Unit.
Here’s a look back at some exciting highlights from this year’s show.
AI Still Dominates the Conversation, but Remote Workflows Are Redefining Collaboration
As more companies adopt generative AI, it continues to dominate discussions at industry events. While the full impact of AI and machine learning in the creative process is still emerging, many see these tools as ways to explore new ideas, techniques, and styles. Some view AI as a radical shift in creative technology, while others see it as an efficient way to speed up their work. As one keynote speaker noted, “AI may generate an image, but it’s people who are guiding the tools.”
At the same time, the rise of remote workflows is reshaping how media is produced. Cloud-based tools like MediaSilo and technology like our own Swiftlink are allowing teams to work together across distances, transforming post-production, editing, and even live broadcasts into remote-friendly processes. This shift enables greater flexibility, faster response times, and lower costs, creating a more agile industry.
Unveiling our latest portfolio of storage nodes sparked lively conversations at the booth this year. Designed to streamline workflows and reduce the cost of shared collaborative storage, the Ultimate Series offers 2U, 3U, and 4U form factors, along with an exciting new addition: a portable field unit that delivers unparalleled flexibility for on-set and remote production.
The Ultimate Field portable unit, built on cutting-edge NVMe architecture, provides exceptional bandwidth for on-location work. Featuring integrated SwiftSync technology, it ensures the secure, high-speed transfer of media, allowing teams to instantly send dailies to global facilities for faster collaboration. Whether for boutique post-production houses or national broadcasters, the Ultimate Series enables users to work faster, more efficiently, and from anywhere.
Security was a big discussion at the show and protecting sensitive or valuable content is critical. EditShare is fully aligned with TPN (Trusted Partner Network) security protocols, ensuring compliance with industry-leading standards. Our solutions provide robust real time auditing , secure access controls, and reliable data protection to safeguard media assets throughout the production and post-production process.
Pushing the Boundaries of What’s Possible
We wanted to showcase what is possible and set up an entire film restoration and archive workflow on the booth. We demoed an NVMe node connected to a gorgeous Lasergraphics Film Scanner, showcasing its ability to capture into an EFS mediaspace concurrently in stunning 5K DPX 4K 16-bit, 4K DPX 10-bit all at 30fps and concurrently playing back within Resolve at 8K 16-bit DPX— pushing the boundaries of high-resolution film restoration and archiving. This was showing what is possible. We still had so much more bandwidth left and this was all being produced on a single 2U Node.
“From the beginning, our mission has been to equip media professionals with practical, powerful, and cost-effective tools,” said Tara Montford, Co-Founder and EVP of Sales at EditShare. “The innovations we’re launching at IBC give users more power, speed, and capacity without sacrificing security—all at a price point that’s truly groundbreaking.
“With these advances, we’re delivering a revolution in content and workflow management that empowers the creative industry to do what they do best: tell great stories,” Montford added.
Got any questions, reach out to us right here, we are happy to talk workflow with anyone that wants to!
More power, more speed, more flexibility, more capacity, more security, more cost-effective
Amsterdam, MA, 13 September 2024 — EditShare, a leader in collaborative media workflow solutions, is set to redefine media storage at IBC 2024 with the launch of the Ultimate EFS Series, the next-generation storage platform. EditShare has long been renowned for its robust storage nodes and networks, powered by its proprietary, media-aware EFS file system. At IBC 2024, the company will introduce an entirely new portfolio of storage devices designed to simplify and lower the cost of building shared collaborative storage. Whether a facility needs 32TB or more than half a petabyte in a single node, EditShare’s scalable solution can expand beyond 15 petabytes within a single namespace.
The Ultimate Series will be available in 2U, 3U, and 4U form factors, alongside a portable field unit for enhanced remote flexibility. The EFS 210, EFS 310, and EFS 410 nodes cater to a wide range of users, from boutique post-production houses to national broadcasters with mission-critical playout needs. The Ultimate Field portable unit, built on the latest NVMe architecture, delivers exceptional bandwidth on location and features integrated SwiftSync technology for secure, high-speed transfer of dailies to global EFS facilities.
Leveraging the latest advancements in technology and resource management, these storage nodes come at unprecedented price points, bringing the power of EFS to a broader audience. The new nodes also integrate with existing EditShare deployments and will come bundled with FLOW asset management, ARK LTO tape archival platform and MediaSilo review and approval tools.
“From the beginning, our mission has been to equip media professionals with practical, powerful, and cost-effective tools,” said Tara Montord, Co-Founder and EVP of Sales at EditShare. “The innovations we’re launching at IBC give users more power, speed, and capacity without sacrificing security—all at a price point that’s truly groundbreaking.
“With these advances, we’re delivering a revolution in content and workflow management that empowers the creative industry to do what they do best: tell great stories,” Montford added.
As well as the new storage architecture and devices, EditShare will be showcasing the latest versions of its software solutions, including EFS, FLOW , MediaSilo and screeners at IBC2024.
Demonstrations will also feature EditShare FLEX and FLEX Sync, now adding simple cloud storage architectures and the ability to sync with services like Amazon S3, Wasabi and Backblaze.
Find EditShare on stand 7.A35 at IBC2024 and at www.editshare.com To book time with us at the show please click here
About EditShare
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
Evolution of remote workflows, asset management and approvals
Boston, MA, 2 September 2024 — EditShare, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative workflows at every stage from storyboard to screening, will show valuable gains in practical productivity thanks to significant new hardware developments and software releases at IBC2024. The enhancements are all driven by the practical experiences of users worldwide, seeking to make their operations even more swift and secure.
Our next-generation EFS storage nodes, powered by the latest HPE Gen11 servers and our advanced NVMe node, set a new standard in performance and efficiency. With over 18GB/s aggregate throughput, this system delivers unmatched performance with unrivalled scalability. Combined with our powerful FLOW workflow engines, it provides creative teams with an efficient platform for UHD editorial and finishing, complex workflows, and multi-site collaboration, ensuring better results and enhanced productivity in every project.
Central to everything in the EditShare environment is FLOW, the asset management software which defines workflows and workgroups. IBC2024 sees FLOW adding native support for codecs which are critical for high quality production. These include Avid DNxHR and Sony X-OCN at resolutions up to 8k. Working directly with CineAlta files, for example, simplifies and speeds the process of creating dailies as well as smoothing workflows for cinematic projects.
FLOW provides workflow orchestration as well as asset management, and FLOW 24.2 enhances the Organize module. This ensures users can create projects, and bins efficiently. By logging in from any secure web browser, users can streamline workflows and collaborate most effectively.
Widely used for review and approvals of work in progress, EditShare MediaSilo also sees enhancements, including support for Ultra HD proxies. With better quality visuals, collaborators are empowered to make more detailed feedback and faster project approvals. The new Bulk Download feature accelerates the process of delivering vast amounts of content to clients. “We talk to post-production professionals all the time, and we understand what is really important in today’s market,” said Tara Montford, Co-Founder and EVP sales at EditShare. “The message coming over loud and strong is that they want to use their preferred creative tools and formats, but within an environment that gives them real speed and security, to deliver completed projects against tight deadlines without compromising quality. The system enhancements we are introducing at IBC this year speak directly to that need.”
Also aimed at speed and simplicity, the latest version of EFS, the media aware File System from Editshare, brings a new way to upgrade across the technology stack. An intelligent Orchestrator tool now automates system upgrades, ensuring every step is executed correctly at the determined time, even across multiple sites. With an intuitive, web-based user interface, this is another essential element in bringing efficiency and reliability to storage management.
All these new software releases will be demonstrated alongside the latest in hardware developments on stand 7.A35 at IBC24. To book time with us at the show please click here
About EditShare
EditShare is an Emmy Award-winning technology leader, supporting storytellers through collaborative media workflows across on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures. It offers scalable storage and collaboration for media businesses and at every stage of the video production process from storyboarding to screening.
The software is inherently open, encouraging workflow collaboration, third-party integrations and content sharing across the entire production chain. Where required, the software is backed by high performance, high availability designed specifically for the demands of media storage, management and delivery. The comprehensive offering covers multi-level content storage for production and post, along with innovative asset and workflow management software, plus specialized and highly valued tools for content review and distribution, the creation of customized and branded pitch reels, and secure preview of high-value pre-release content.
Press Contact Katharine Guy katharine.guy@editshare.com
When you want to scale your video production capabilities, people first think about buying another camera. But for many teams, the bottleneck isn’t in production; it exists in post-production. However, storage for video assets falls into a strange in-between category for many organizations. It feels like an extension of video production, but camera experts usually aren’t IT experts. Seasoned IT pros are often slow to discover that the needs for video editing are fundamentally different from your typical workgroup.
The experts in the storage needs for video teams often arise from technically-minded video editors and post-production experts. This is because they had to figure out the challenges for themselves and explain the difficulties of post-production to their bosses and the IT staff. That’s my story, at least. Over the past few months, I’ve observed several cases where teams are willing to invest in expensive cameras and lenses but shy away from investing in the necessary post-production infrastructure to truly break the log jams in their workflow.
I found that an efficient post-production shared solution is the best foundation you can give to your team. It lets you keep all your most relevant footage at your fingertips. It provides the ability for quick collaboration between editors and motion graphics designers, and it enables you to scale. So, if you want to lay a foundation for real growth, let’s dig into how digital media production can quickly scale.
Free yourself from the sneakernet
If you’ve ever found yourself grabbing a hard drive off a shelf and passing it in between team members, only to run back over to the shelf to find the right drive, you’ve used the “sneakernet” to manage your projects. This process is fraught with difficulties, and you always have the sinking feeling, “I think I still have that footage.”
A shared storage solution keeps your most relevant assets “online” instead of “offline.” It connects to multiple workstations at the same time as well. This means that as you scale your production capability, editors and motion graphics artists have immediate access to all their work instead of having to hunt down a drive. Additionally, editors can access the same footage simultaneously since the shared storage is accessible to everyone. Finally, you don’t have to worry about wasting space by duplicating the same footage on multiple computers. Freeing yourself from the sneakernet is reason enough to deploy scalable storage like EditShare EFS.
Choose specialized storage
When it becomes evident that a video team needs a server for their footage, inevitably, somebody from IT pulls up a webpage from Dell or HP and starts to calculate the costs. This is the decision moment. If we were in a movie, this moment is the equivalent of the villain’s entrance. I’m serious. If this moment isn’t handled well, a video team can get saddled with an underperforming server solution that is worse than Sneakernet.
Consider the difference between an interstate and a main street downtown. Shared storage for media allows for sustained, smooth playback of raw video files, like an interstate. Normal servers are designed more like the traffic signals of a downtown, allowing for lots of little pieces of data to come and go. But if you have ever been stuck in traffic, looked over to a carpool lane, and seen cars zooming by, you have a good indication of the difference between a normal server and a shared storage solution. Video production storage allows for multiple video files to be played from the server to multiple workstations without interruption, and you can think of these files as big semi-trucks. These trucks need protected lanes to be able to go fast and move without hitting the breaks
If you can help your IT team understand this fundamental distinction in “traffic,” you can turn them into your biggest supporters. Why? Practically speaking, if they master this new area of IT for media, they will become more valuable to their organization, and their career will take on a level of specialization.
So why not optimize a generic server for “interstate highway mode?” Editors not only need the bandwidth for sustained “reads” of data, but they also need to write to project files on the server. Those project files require fast write speeds. If video files are like semi-trucks, project files are like mini coopers. This means that the shared storage solution has to be optimized for two ends of the spectrum, sustained reads and fast writes, while handling the different kinds of traffic going to and from the server. Video files aren’t PDFs.
I believe that if a video team can communicate this metaphor well, it can vault them into new levels of productivity. Video teams and IT teams can then collaborate effectively and understand each other’s needs much better.
Online, Nearline, and Cold Storage
When we talked about sneakernet, we learned about the difference between offline and online data. But what about footage that you need to access occasionally? We call this storage “nearline.” It doesn’t need to be on your high-performance storage, but it doesn’t belong on the shelf.
Active storage
You can save money when building your shared storage solution by identifying a specific capacity for your “online” or “active” storage. You might want this storage to be on SSDs or NVMe drives. These solid-state drives are lightning quick and work exceptionally well with high-resolution 4K, 8K, and VFX files. While this storage is quick, it is also the most expensive. (Some of that cost is offset by the fact that these drives use less power) Remote users can access an EditShare EFS volume with Swift Link, delivering remote performance that used to be available only in-house.
Nearline storage
If your most accessed files live in your online storage, place your infrequently accessed files on your nearline storage. This unit typically uses mechanical spinning disk hard drives. They work together in a configuration to ensure that you won’t lose your data if one, or even two, of them fail. This configuration is called a RAID configuration. A nearline storage unit with a group of hard drives won’t be as fast as your active storage, but it will be cost-effective. And if you have an intense project, you can always move data between your nearline and active storage.
Cold Storage
At a certain point, you can determine that you probably won’t be going back to the original footage for a project. But you don’t want to delete it all. This means your project is ready to move from nearline storage to cold storage. Some organizations may upload footage to the cloud or archive it on LTO tape.
I recently had to pull footage from Google Drive. My former team used Google Drive as cold storage. Man, was this a mistake! When you download large amounts of data from Google Drive it rearranges the folder hierarchy and appends suffixes to the file names. What a headache! I spent hours reconstructing the file structure of the REDCODE RAW files. I had to delete the suffixes that Google Drive appended on hundreds of files.
A much better approach to cold storage would have been to use LTO tape with a solution like Editshare ARK. This approach does take your files offline, but it also keeps track of those LTO tapes so you can know what is online, what is offline, and where to find what you need.
Specialized hardware calls for specialized software
Having a place to put your data doesn’t necessarily mean people can easily find what they need. Many teams use their senior editor’s brain as an “index” for project files. A much better solution is to have software do that for you. A media asset manager is an application that organizes your footage and lets anyone find what they need without Slacking the senior editor again. Editshare FLOW works with your shared storage to keep track of all your assets. Those could be online or offline. It will track data in your active, nearline, and cold storage. EditShare FLOW becomes the brain for your entire post-production operation.
Editors want to spend time in their NLE, not in the media asset manager. Editors want to edit. That’s why integration with editing apps (Known as NLEs, non-linear editing applications) is critical. EditShare provides panels in both Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. These panels allow you to spend more time in your NLE so that you aren’t leaving your native environment. If you use a different NLE, EditShare is still perfectly compatible with any NLE (but Premiere and Resolve getting in-app panels sure is nice).
Integrate your workflow from pitch to prep to post
Post-production can feel like its own little world. It doesn’t have to be that. EditShare EFS now integrates with MediaSilo. An integration resulting in an end-to-end workflow. When you are shooting, Atomos recorders will deliver your footage right to the cloud via MediaSilo when you are shooting. Then your project can go through post on EFS and then get securely delivered to outside stakeholders via MediaSilo. This is an unprecedented level of integration and security from script to screen.
Conclusion
Deploying an EditShare EFS shared storage solution will revolutionize your post-production workflow, solve problems for your team, and deliver the foundation for scale. Reach out to an EditShare rep today to learn more.
