Remember the Simple Solutions

If you are an Indie Filmmaker with loads of new 6K RAW media to move on and off of multiple computers, if you are working on a large budget project and find yourself in a pinch, or even if you have robust shared storage and need to move between workspaces, remember, you can do a lot with simple tools, and good strategy that can save you time.

You thought it was going to be a simple file copy. Sure, it was a lot of data, but you do this every day, right. "It will be done in the morning." .......next day. "File Copy Failed" 14 hours wasted.

File system copies often fail leaving you to try and figure out what got copied. Then, the moment one copy changes the others are out of sync. As a result, you find yourself constantly monitoring them or worried that you will miss something.

You already know all of this, but sometimes we forget about the simple tools we have, so before you drag and drop those files, consider a more reliable alternative.

Networking and Syncing is a reliable way to get data from one place to another, and it is much more efficient and accurate than drag and drop file copies. Computer to Computer, Computer to Drive, Computer to Cloud or Computer to NAS copies and ongoing synchronization can all be done easily using inexpensive tools.

Sync tools like Allway Sync allow you to use the connectivity and speed you already own more efficiently and effectively, and they cost little to no money.

Sync tools increase efficiency in many ways.

• Working in the background while you do other work.
• Resuming transfers when the connection fails.
• Syncing in both directions.
• Running multiple jobs simultaneously.
• Comparing copies to ensure no data is lost.
• Monitoring for changes and automatically updating.
• Often cost little or no money.

I use this one from Botkind, but there are many for Windows, Mac, and Linux and you can even find some with checksum if you need them. DaVinci Resolve clone tool can be used for this as well.

Most recently, I used it to efficiently shuffle RAW 6K source footage, Digital Source Masters, and DCP outputs between my super-fast M.2 SSD storage on a Windows workstation and 120 TB of NAS storage on a Mac Pro to do color, finishing, and output for 25 short films.

https://allwaysync.com/

If this little reminder was at all helpful, if you would like more of these thoughts from time to time, or if you want more details about this workflow, let me know in the comments.

Robert Racine