How to choose the right storage solution for your profeional video files

There are a few factors to consider when selecting the best storage solution for your video files and the trick is to find the solution that offers the best balance between them.

These factors are all interlinked and each one will influence the others but, depending on how you want to use your archive, you'll find that some factors may be more important than others. So what do you need to be thinking about?

Cost It seems obvious but the first step is to identify how much you can afford to spend. There can be quite a difference in the cost of storage methods, and not just in terms of the initial investment in the equipment itself.

As well as the peripherals you might need, such as network switches or load balancers, you'll need to think about the costs associated with the ongoing support that might be needed and future upgrades. Also take into account the costs of extra media - discs, tapes, drives - that you'll need as your archive grows.

Capacity How much video will you want to store? Video files are big and you can easily build up terabytes worth of data so you will need to consider just how much capacity you realistically need. Also bear in mind how your needs might change - how much flexibility will you need? It could be that you'll only need a large amount of storage for a particular project. How easily can a solution be scaled up or down according to your needs?

Complexity What's your appetite for setting up and managing a complex solution? Are you IT savvy? Or do you have access to someone who is?

Ease of use Who will be using the system on a day to day basis? How often will they need to use it? How easy is it to add files to the system? If the end user finds a system hard to use, they will inevitably find shortcuts and not use it properly or, worse still, simply not use it at all. Consider issues like network and upload speeds too. You're dealing with big bits of data.

Security and reliability Obviously, you will need to make sure your assets are safe and secure. If you're looking at an in-house solution, you'll need to consider the issues around implementing a back-up system and making sure you have the right levels of security. Again, consider the costs associated with ongoing support and maintenance.

Accessibility How will you want to use your archive? Who is likely to need access to it? If you have more than one location, how will people in different places be able to get access to the footage they need? Will clients or other people outside your company need access? There are obvious security and technical implications for providing remote access to your archive. Solutions like burning DVDs and distributing them by courier can be time-consuming and costly; in this situation, utilising the Cloud ensures many of these issues become obsolete.

Searching and cataloguing To make the most of your assets you need to be able to organise them easily and find what you need as efficiently as possible. How will this work? Will you need to license and set up extra software? Who will ensure that footage is being catalogued correctly? Again, this can add complexity and involve added support costs. Alternatively, if you're using standalone media such as hard drives and DVDs to store your archive, how will you create and manage a system to catalogue these?

There are several ways of storing video files both in the short term and as a media archive. Which one is right for you depends on which of these factors are most important. Check out our eBook below for a more in-depth look at the different storage solutions on offer as well as the pros and cons of each solution.

LINK:	http://aframe.com/blog/2013/08/06/how-to-choose-the-right-storage-solu...
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