File Sharing / Storage / Sync

[Fyshy]

Hello,
I am searching for a new service. Looking for simple reliable service. Don't need lots of extras. Prefer smaller American company (trying to avoid the typical big corporate politics these days... google, microsoft, dropbox, etc).
Thanks for your comments and input.
Neal

 

[PDL]

My first thought was just a simple FTP site which is something you or your IT people could easily setup.

My second thought goes contrary to your criteria but could be a great solution for you. It’s Esko’s Share and Approve web-based solution. It offers secure file exchange, drag and drop uploads, automatic email notifications, version tracking, and the ability for your customers to view, comment, and approve your files online with only access to a web browser needed.
You and your employees could easily search for, find, and download files as needed and upload any changes back as S&A keeps track and versions and revisions. By default only the latest version is downloadable however you can have access to all previous versions
You can also apply your company’s branding to the site with your logo and information. It’s easy to setup yourself (Esko provides plenty of online videos and documentation for this) and you can give it a try for free.

Here’s the free trial link —> Share and Approve Free Trial

PS - a lot of the documentation refers to the packaging and label market but S&A does support multi-page PDFs as well. Best of luck.

 

[Stickman42]

Are you looking to Share/Store/Sync internally only, or with your clients too?

 

[Fyshy]

Are you looking to Share/Store/Sync internally only, or with your clients too?

Actually just internally.

 

[Fyshy]

My first thought was just a simple FTP site which is something you or your IT people could easily setup.

My second thought goes contrary to your criteria but could be a great solution for you. It’s Esko’s Share and Approve web-based solution. It offers secure file exchange, drag and drop uploads, automatic email notifications, version tracking, and the ability for your customers to view, comment, and approve your files online with only access to a web browser needed.
You and your employees could easily search for, find, and download files as needed and upload any changes back as S&A keeps track and versions and revisions. By default only the latest version is downloadable however you can have access to all previous versions
You can also apply your company’s branding to the site with your logo and information. It’s easy to setup yourself (Esko provides plenty of online videos and documentation for this) and you can give it a try for free.

Here’s the free trial link —> Share and Approve Free Trial

PS - a lot of the documentation refers to the packaging and label market but S&A does support multi-page PDFs as well. Best of luck.

Thanks I will check it out.

 

[Stickman42]

Actually just internally.

Then I can't see the need for a paid service. I'd second the earlier recommendation - "a simple FTP site which is something you or your IT people could easily setup."

 

[Fyshy]

Maybe I was not clear. I am looking for a method or service to do the following.
1. Back up files.
2. Store Print files (Active and Archived)
3. Be able to share large files witH clients for proofing. Smaller files are usually emailed.

thanks

 

[Stickman42]

Maybe I was not clear. I am looking for a method or service to do the following.
1. Back up files.
2. Store Print files (Active and Archived)
3. Be able to share large files witH clients for proofing. Smaller files are usually emailed.

thanks

Keeping it as low-cost as possible, could you set up an FTP site for 1. and 2., then provide links to your clients to retrieve proofs from the same FTP site?

We use a NAS for storage of original and print files. IDrive for offsite backup (I highly recommend this service). We are in the final stages of setting up a Switch workflow that uses their PDF review module to handle proofing. Prior to this, we were using DropBox or WeTransfer. Enforces is not a US company, but they do have a product that works very well for us.

 

[Joe]

Agreed on setting up an FTP site. If you use something like CrushFTP ($70 for 50 concurrent connections or $100 for unlimited concurrent connections) you can set it up with a nice web interface and customers can access the site with just a web browser instead of having to use an FTP client.

 

[Fyshy]

Thanks guys. I think I am learning!
I like the idea of having FTP upload.

 

[Alith7]

If you are just looking at working internally, my IT guys set me up with a Synology system late last year and it has been great!

Synology Inc.

Synology uniquely enables you to manage, secure, and protect your data – at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world.

www.synology.com

We have it tied in with our server running Hyper-V currently for the boosted RAM and processing power, but we use this to back up everything and tie it all together. It also has a great secure VPN tunnel set-up for remote access for work from home, and backs up to my IT company's cloud servers.
It's not super expensive, but not cheap. Monthly maintenance is tolerable.

A slightly cheaper and easier setup is a Drobo NAS system.

Home - Drobo

Drobo Products Drobo solves the three major storage challenges in one device – data protection, capacity adjustment, and ease of use. View More Drobo Solutions Learn More About Your Drobo View More

www.drobo.com

This is what we use in our prepress department for a searchable back up of old files. Old school burn to DVD for redundancy.

FTP is ok for sharing to a point, but make sure you are duplicating it locally. if you are ever having internet problems, you will lose all access to your files if you only keep it in the cloud.

For online file uploading we use Encodable's Filechucker and Userbase website plugins, however I just went to get the link and he has decided to close. Which is very sad. There is a slight (very slight) chance if you are interested in it that I can get you his email and he might still let you purchase it.

 

[Puch]

CrushFTP is a great and affordable solution, if you still want to use FTP these days. You can have as many shares as you like, you can send out time-limited, encrypted links which point to defined assets on your server. You only need an oldish PC or a minimally specced VM to run it.

A free solution is Nextcloud, which is a bit more work to get online, but has all the bells and whistles you might need today. The best thing is that it's free. You need a stronger machine for that, though.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

If you are just looking at working internally, my IT guys set me up with a Synology system late last year and it has been great!

Synology Inc.

Synology uniquely enables you to manage, secure, and protect your data – at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world.

www.synology.com

We have it tied in with our server running Hyper-V currently for the boosted RAM and processing power, but we use this to back up everything and tie it all together. It also has a great secure VPN tunnel set-up for remote access for work from home, and backs up to my IT company's cloud servers.
It's not super expensive, but not cheap. Monthly maintenance is tolerable.

A slightly cheaper and easier setup is a Drobo NAS system.

Home - Drobo

Drobo Products Drobo solves the three major storage challenges in one device – data protection, capacity adjustment, and ease of use. View More Drobo Solutions Learn More About Your Drobo View More

www.drobo.com

This is what we use in our prepress department for a searchable back up of old files. Old school burn to DVD for redundancy.

FTP is ok for sharing to a point, but make sure you are duplicating it locally. if you are ever having internet problems, you will lose all access to your files if you only keep it in the cloud.

For online file uploading we use Encodable's Filechucker and Userbase website plugins, however I just went to get the link and he has decided to close. Which is very sad. There is a slight (very slight) chance if you are interested in it that I can get you his email and he might still let you purchase it.

Synology is a good company. I recommend them.

 

[ikim86]

If you are just looking at working internally, my IT guys set me up with a Synology system late last year and it has been great!

Synology Inc.

Synology uniquely enables you to manage, secure, and protect your data – at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world.

www.synology.com

We have it tied in with our server running Hyper-V currently for the boosted RAM and processing power, but we use this to back up everything and tie it all together. It also has a great secure VPN tunnel set-up for remote access for work from home, and backs up to my IT company's cloud servers.
It's not super expensive, but not cheap. Monthly maintenance is tolerable.

Do you have any issues with your synology setup in a mixed (Windows/Mac) environment? Our speeds have gotten better using some tweaks but we still see considerably slower transfer and search speeds on our macs vs windows computers. I think some users have had to resort to using CIFS or SMB1 protocol to keep stable connections.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Do you have any issues with your synology setup in a mixed (Windows/Mac) environment? Our speeds have gotten better using some tweaks but we still see considerably slower transfer and search speeds on our macs vs windows computers. I think some users have had to resort to using CIFS or SMB1 protocol to keep stable connections.

I have encountered this as well. I feel like Mac is the culprit in the environment, as each update fixes a network issue and a new network issue crops up. Like whack-a-mole. APFS should fix a lot of these issues, however. I would confer with a Synology sales rep (or their tech department) about your set up rather than consulting someone that might have a setup with slightly different variables, because those variables usually do matter.

 

[Alith7]

I'm not sure on if the Synology would be any better or not. I gave up on trying to host Mac files on anything Windows years ago, so never tried with the new Synology.

I use two mirrored Drobo 5N's for storing searchable backups in additional to archiving everything on DVD. This is their current version of the NAS system: Drobo 5N2 I have ours setup up with max sized HDD's and a max sized SSD for caching.

Then for searching I use a little program called Fox Trot: Fox Trot Pro
It keeps a searchable database on the local machine with direct links to the NAS (or any other network connected machine), so you don't have any of the lag of a searching the files over the network, and you don't have to try to use the randomly functioning Spotlight. (see screenshot) We have our archives by year, and I set up a separate index for each year. That way it's only updating the active index. I also have it set to NOT archive full text and file information the databases get HUGE when you do that (maybe would be better if you were archiving photos) and can be a PIA. The program can get a bit snarky sometimes if it's interrupted when doing a scan, but the latest version has improved a LOT of the glitches.

Finally, we of course have minimum 4TB external drives on each machine for time machine back-ups, and use a small program called Time Machine Editor TME to set it to only back-up once a day so we don't bog the systems down with the constant logging.

I do have to add that we only have three in my department including myself, so we only use the NAS for archiving. One person works on a job start to finish, so we don't do a lot of sharing of live job files, and each tech stores their live jobs on their local machine.

 

[Alith7]

Oops, forgot the image, and it won't let me edit.

 

[ikim86]

...
I do have to add that we only have three in my department including myself, so we only use the NAS for archiving. One person works on a job start to finish, so we don't do a lot of sharing of live job files, and each tech stores their live jobs on their local machine.

Thanks for the useful software recommendations.

I know Adobe advises against it, but we usually have 3-6 people working live jobs on the server. We haven't done any in depth investigating, but I suspect that plays a part in our slowdowns. I would be interested to know how other small/mid sized companies might handle working live jobs that must be shared, copied, and moved constantly.

In any case, I guess we either have to learn to live with the issues or spend the cash to hire a professional.

 

[Alith7]

I don't use it, because it's not worth the added cost to us, so I don't really know how it works, but the Creative Cloud for Teams from Adobe might be something to look into. It includes 1TB of shared cloud storage per user too, but depending on your internet speeds, that might not help either. for the extra $28ish/month/user there's no benefit for my setup, but it might be worth looking into for yours.

*** Although I REALLY hate to suggest it because their salesmen are the most underhanded S&$(bag A$$*(&)'s I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. They kept trying to trick me into switching to teams, and when that didn't work, they tried tricking AP. I won't go into details, but it took me threatening them with a lawsuit if they called again to make them stop. But I do think it might be a solution for you to consider.

 

[ikim86]

I don't use it, because it's not worth the added cost to us, so I don't really know how it works, but the Creative Cloud for Teams from Adobe might be something to look into. It includes 1TB of shared cloud storage per user too, but depending on your internet speeds, that might not help either. for the extra $28ish/month/user there's no benefit for my setup, but it might be worth looking into for yours.

*** Although I REALLY hate to suggest it because their salesmen are the most underhanded S&$(bag A$$*(&)'s I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. They kept trying to trick me into switching to teams, and when that didn't work, they tried tricking AP. I won't go into details, but it took me threatening them with a lawsuit if they called again to make them stop. But I do think it might be a solution for you to consider.

Thanks, I'll look into it.

Though I absolutely despise Adobe, there's really no alternative. No competition = predatory business practices and $h1tty service.