Dropbox alternatives for video editors: Why Suite is the forward-thinking storage solution for post production studios
Dropbox is making changes to its software that will remove the ability to store files on external drives on Mac OS, affecting thousands of post production studios and creative teams.
In bombshell news quietly distributed through developer forums earlier this week, Dropbox is set to roll out massive changes to its product that will affect all Mac OS users in the near future. The widely used file storage software will soon no longer provide compatibility for Mac users storing their Dropbox files on external hard drives, causing massive disruptions for creative teams utilizing the product to store and sync files across multiple devices and collaborators. The update (and all of its side-effects) is a result of Dropbox choosing to adopt Apple’s new API, which, in turn, limits ability to store files externally. It appears that OneDrive and some other file storage software companies will also be implementing the same changes.
Here’s the scoop—teams currently using Dropbox store terabytes of footage across multiple external hard drives, which syncs automatically through Dropbox’s interface. However, in the very near future, this ability to share large-scale files will no longer be possible, effectively eliminating Dropbox and other storage products as viable enterprise solutions for post production companies. This leaves post production studios who rely on Dropbox in a devastating bind—without access to flexible file storage solutions it’s impossible to operate a business centered around media sharing.
In short, the coming changes to Dropbox will be universal across small to midsize production companies and post studios who depend on the product to manage their media. Even worse, it doesn’t seem that there will be a potential workaround to the problem. So, what’s a post production company to do next? Is it possible to act quickly and find a flexible file storage solution that can scale and provide easy access to media files between collaborators?
This is where Suite enters the conversation. “With Suite, your data lives in the cloud and you read it as you need it,” explains Chief Technology Officer, Michael Hering. “When you’re editing through Suite’s cloud-based workstations, you can access everything instantly. You can forget about syncing files between separate hard drives because every file lives in one place for your entire team to access and start using directly inside their projects. Everything is truly at your fingertips and all you need to do is login.”
Suite’s cloud-based storage and computing solutions completely null-and-void the headaches of the Dropbox update—and we’ll even go as far to say that our workstations and storage solutions are the ideal alternative for studios reacting to the news. Our platform provides instant, company-wide access to all of your media entirely through the cloud. In simple terms, that means your studio can drag-and-drop files as you would on your local device(s) and immediately provide your team access to edit everything in one place. With Suite, there’s no need to download or transfer files between computers or personnel—you’ll experience intuitive media storage and cloud-based editing access that puts creatives back in the driver’s seat.
If you’re a production studio curious to learn more about Suite’s effective and cost-saving cloud-based solutions, reach out to our team here. This news is just another bump in the road—and we’re here to get you back to creating as quickly as possible.
