Moving from drives to shared storage.
A shelf of drives holds years of work and nobody wants to be the person who loses a project during the move. We do it in stages: count, copy with verification, run both for a while, then retire the old drives.
Quick answer
Moving from loose drives to shared storage works best in stages: list every drive and what is on it, set a folder structure, copy with verification, run old and new side by side on a live project, then cut over and retire the drives. Copy time is arithmetic: 10 TB at 100 MB/s takes about 28 hours.
Why the move gets postponed.
- 01
Nobody knows what is on the drives
Years of projects, duplicate copies, drives labeled with initials. Without a list, the migration has no end.
- 02
Which copy is the master
The same project exists on three drives with different edits. Merging them blindly can lose work, so a person has to decide.
- 03
Copying takes longer than expected
The arithmetic is plain: 10 TB at 100 MB/s is about 28 hours of copying, if nothing slows down. Many drives and slower interfaces stretch it. It has to run beside paid work.
- 04
Links break afterward
Editing projects point at media by path. Move the media and the project shows offline clips until it is relinked, and a planned structure turns the relink into a quick one.
- 05
Fear of the old drives
Drives that hold the only copy of finished work are the real risk. The move is how they get a second copy.
The stages
How we move a studio over.
- 01
Inventory the drives
Every drive, what it holds, how old it is and whether it is the only copy. We make the list with you, and flag drives that are already showing problems.
- 02
Decide the structure
A folder layout for projects, media and deliverables, with a naming rule. This is the part that makes relinking quick later.
- 03
Copy with verification
Files are copied to the new storage and checked afterward, using checksums where the tools support them, so a partial or damaged copy does not pass as a good one.
- 04
Run both side by side
One live project works from the new storage while the old drive stays untouched. Problems surface while the old copy is still there.
- 05
Cut over and relink
Editors switch to the new storage, projects are relinked once and the old drives are marked read-only.
- 06
Retire or archive the drives
After the backup of the new storage is verified, old drives are archived, wiped or recycled. We write down which.
What we do
Alongside your normal work.
The inventory and the structure
We build the list and the folder plan with you, so the decisions that need a person get made by a person.
The copy jobs
We schedule them for evenings and weekends and report which projects have been verified.
The network and the NAS
Hardware chosen for your footage, with the network set up so playback from the new storage holds up.
The backup of the new storage
A second and off site copy in place before any old drive is retired.
Before you hire anyone
What to ask any IT provider.
Ask us the same questions. A good answer is specific and can be checked.
What is your plan if a drive fails during the copy?
The old drive is never the only copy of anything, and failures are noted on the list.
How do you verify the copies?
A method, such as checksums, and a report of what was verified.
Will our editors have to stop working?
The plan keeps people working. The cutover is the only real interruption and it is scheduled away from deadlines.
What about drives we cannot read?
They say so, and suggest options, which may involve a data recovery service.
When can we retire the old drives?
After the new copy is verified and backed up. Not before.
Questions people ask
How long will the move take?
It depends on how much data there is, the drive interfaces and how much copying can run at once. We estimate from the inventory, and the copy time itself is arithmetic: size divided by real transfer speed.
Do we need to buy the new storage first?
Not before the inventory. It tells us how much you have and how much to plan for, so the purchase is informed.
What about projects with many versions?
We list them, you decide which one is the master, and we keep the rest as an archive. We do not merge them automatically.
Can the old drives stay as an archive?
Yes, as a second copy of finished work. Treat them as a stopgap, because drives that sit on a shelf can still fail, and put the archive in your backup plan.
Can you do this remotely?
Planning, configuration and monitoring can be remote. Physical drive handling and cabling need someone on site, which we do in Los Angeles.
Plug us in. Tell us what your studio runs on.
Tell us what you see on screen. A person on our production consulting team reads it and replies, usually with the first thing to check.
Keep reading
NAS, direct-attached and cloud storage compared for small creative teams, with the sizing arithmetic.
The 3-2-1 rule for footage and projects, off site copies, immutability and restore tests.
Shared storage, remote editors and tested backups for a small editing studio.
Premiere Pro shows media offline after you move a drive or rename a share. Here is how to relink in Link Media, why it happens, and how to stop it recurring.
A folder structure and naming convention for film and TV productions that keeps editors, assistants and post supervisors sane, with a ready-to-use template.
Ten signs that portable drives are holding your edit team back, what shared storage fixes, and when a single fast drive with backups is still the right answer.
Describe your studio and we will take it from there.
A real person on our team reads every request and replies within one business day.