When a video team outgrows its hard drives, shared storage is usually the next step. This puts all of the media in one place, which speeds up handoffs, simplifies management, and helps prevent lost files. This guide walks through some key questions to help you start off in the right direction.
Things to think about
- Editors play several streams of video at once. That takes fast, responsive systems with low latency.
- This is an infrastructure investment, so plan on a 3–5 year purchase.
- This purchase will take many meetings.
- Bring in your in-house IT team (the people who handle computers, networks, and wifi). They know what works in your environment, and most importantly, they know the secrets of the fire swamp.
Storage
- Buy enough space for the media you have now, what you’re currently working on, and what you will need for the next 3-5 years.
- Don’t overbuy. Plan for what the numbers show plus 5–10%.
- Purchase a system that can be expanded if needed. For example, if you begin to create twice the amount of content or begin using bigger file sizes.
- The total size of needed space will be shocking once you factor in the cost of storage. This is where we introduce ’tiers’ of storage.
Tiers
- Tiered storage is an excellent way of seamlessly using different levels of Fast/Expensive to Slow/Cheap storage. This can reduce the total cost while protecting all media.
- Think in tiers:
- Active: the fast, expensive storage editors work from.
- Nearline: slower drives that stay connected and searchable. Too slow to edit from, but can quickly be restored from.
- Archive: usually LTO tape, cartridges on a shelf. Cheap per terabyte, slow to get back.
- If using tiers with automation: assets automatically move from Active storage based on a policy ( file is X days old, storage is X % full, etc ).
- If using tiers without automation: This requires someone to Archive a project once it is complete.
Network
- Storage is only as good as the network that supports it.
- Fibre Channel is a dedicated fibre network built for storage. It was the standard for years.
- Ethernet is the same kind of network most offices use, just faster. Ethernet is now common for video storage.
- The network speed of Fibre and Ethernet perform differently. In practice an 8G Fibre Channel may be as fast as a 10GbE Ethernet network.
- What matters is whether the whole path (storage, switches, and each workstation) delivers the streams your editors need without dropped frames.
- Ethernet is usually cheaper and easier to support, and much easier when someone moves offices.
Processes
- List everything that touches storage. Not just edit stations but any other computers, servers, and devices. Each one adds load. Plan for it.
- Capture Devices recording live services
- Transcoding servers that convert files into other formats (for example, Telestream Vantage)
- A media asset manager (MAM) that catalogs and tracks your media
- Backup jobs
- List everyone that interacts with the media
- Production teams, volunteers, producers, designers, audio team, AI Agents, etc.
- Approvals from marketing, ministry, or leadership often mean another transcode and another system.
- Remote Editors: contractors, work from home, etc.
- Review all generations of a piece of content: source files → masters & versions → multiple distribution. Be aware of any extra copying, moving, uploading, downloading, transcoding, etc. All of these steps take time and space.
- Can everyone access the media from a single location? Nope. YouTube won’t play a video on your account from your storage, it will need to be uploaded.
- Cut steps first, then speed up the machine steps (transcoding, moving) with faster or better-connected equipment.
- Decide who gets access to what. Most teams give everyone access to everything, but volunteers may not need it all, and clear access helps internal teams grab the right version of an asset.
- You won’t control every step, but you can make it easier for everyone who touches the files.
Training
- Editors and producers: how to connect, where projects and media go, how to name things, and what to do when a project is done.
- System Admins: users and permissions, free space and system health, moving projects between tiers, checking backups, and what to do when something fails.
- Write your procedures down so they don’t live in one person’s head.
- Ask each vendor what training they include.
Support
- Who is your main support person or company for the long haul?
- What’s the escalation path when a problem needs the vendor?
- Do you need weekend coverage? For churches it can matter, though storage is usually less critical than live systems.
How to buy
- You don’t have to pick one company up front.
- Write down your requirements, take them to two or three vendors, and ask each for a proposal. Compare what they offer and what they charge, and go from there.
- Most vendors come from one of two paths:
- A reseller or integrator. A reseller sells other companies’ products. An integrator designs the system and sets it up. Most do both. KeyCode Media is an example of a reseller and integrator.
- A vendor that does it all. They make the product and handle specs, setup, and support themselves. One company instead of several. DigitalGlue is an example.
Determining Capacity
Current
- How much new media do you create each year?
- Determine how much you created in the past 12 months. Was this a standard 12 months?
Future
- What will each of the next 3–5 years add?
- Count planned changes: more cameras, more services or events, higher resolution.
- You will not know everything but a realistic guess is important.
Historical
- How much media do you have now, and how much will you have by install day?
- List every drive with its size, how full it is.
- Note any footage that exists on multiple drives.
Trimming
Before you add it all up, look for what you don’t need to keep on new storage:
- Finished projects that won’t be reused: keep the master, and consider letting go of the source files.
- Render and cache files: Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and After Effects can usually rebuild them. Do you need them at all?
- Multiple versions: keep the master and anything released to the public. Internal revisions may or may not matter.
- Duplicates: the same files copied to several drives.
Check with leadership before deleting anything. Some content may be intellectual property you need to keep.