Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

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ghobish
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Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by ghobish »

(This seemed the most appropriate Motunation forum for this issue, let me know if it needs to be moved. Thanks.)

I need to distribute sets of large files to multiple recipients- video and audio. A typical folder of such files will contain 4-6 video files (different camera angles of a live musical performance + an audio file with a master mix) and can easily total 9GB or even larger in aggregate.

We would prefer a solution that will link to a folder rather than a single zip file. While the zip file has the advantage of assuring the recipient will receive all of the associated files, that single zip file is bigger than some people can handle. Folder access allows for downloading component parts of smaller size, but runs the risk that they won't download the full set of files.

Dropbox has proved to be useless because most of the recipients do not have accounts with that much space; we have tried zipping the folder and sending a link to our dropbox, but:

a) the resulting zip file is, as I said, 9GB or higher (some longer songs would result in a zip file over 20GB) and this wreaks havoc with being able to do a complete download for people who have slower DSL connections;

b) some Windows recipients are reporting they can't unzip the files. I suspect they are trying to unzip files which have not completed downloading yet and reporting it as a problem; and

c) when clicking on the link to a shared folder, Dropbox only allows either downloading to your Dropbox account- problems noted above- or "downloading as a .zip file" which also has problems as noted above.

(I find it really strange that some Windows users are reporting that they can't open .zip files; I don't have a PC but am running Windows 7 under emulation and unzipping smaller files (larger file under investigation) is no problem at all, it works just like it should).

While we have a Dropbox Pro account which allows us to keep all the files (original and zips) in the cloud, we'd appreciate suggestions that will allow us to distribute these files easily to all users, Mac and Windows, including the technically challenged amongst us.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Gary Hobish
A. Hammer Mastering & Digital Media
San Francisco, Ca
http://ahammer.com/mastering

Mastering: Mac Studio M1 MAX 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 32-core GPU, OS 12.6; DP 11.22, Waves, Izotope RX10 Advanced, Alloy, Nectar, PSP stuff, Plug-In Alliance, Metric Halo ULN-8 MkIV, Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix, Presonus Central Station, and (still) no air conditioning (but at least now there is airflow)

Annex: Mac Pro 2010 5,1 3.33GHz 12-core, 80GB RAM, 10.14.6, DP 11.22, Metric Halo ULN8 MkIV, MOTU 2408III
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wylie1
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by wylie1 »

MacPro 3.2 ghz 8 core 12gig,DigimaxFS, 2408mk3,8Pre,828mk3,Ozone5,MachFive3, BFD2, Sampletank2,DP8.+,Sampletron,Nectar,Central Station,D5s,Q10s.plus stuff.
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Nibiru
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by Nibiru »

+1
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ghobish
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by ghobish »

wylie1 wrote:I use hightail https://www.hightail.com

Will Hightail allow us to send download links to non-Hightail subscribers? (I suspect yes- this is the old YouSendIt, right?)

Do they have a protocol that allows for downloading individual files from a folder?
Gary Hobish
A. Hammer Mastering & Digital Media
San Francisco, Ca
http://ahammer.com/mastering

Mastering: Mac Studio M1 MAX 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 32-core GPU, OS 12.6; DP 11.22, Waves, Izotope RX10 Advanced, Alloy, Nectar, PSP stuff, Plug-In Alliance, Metric Halo ULN-8 MkIV, Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix, Presonus Central Station, and (still) no air conditioning (but at least now there is airflow)

Annex: Mac Pro 2010 5,1 3.33GHz 12-core, 80GB RAM, 10.14.6, DP 11.22, Metric Halo ULN8 MkIV, MOTU 2408III
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ghobish
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by ghobish »

I am also investigating running an FTP server on my system
Gary Hobish
A. Hammer Mastering & Digital Media
San Francisco, Ca
http://ahammer.com/mastering

Mastering: Mac Studio M1 MAX 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 32-core GPU, OS 12.6; DP 11.22, Waves, Izotope RX10 Advanced, Alloy, Nectar, PSP stuff, Plug-In Alliance, Metric Halo ULN-8 MkIV, Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix, Presonus Central Station, and (still) no air conditioning (but at least now there is airflow)

Annex: Mac Pro 2010 5,1 3.33GHz 12-core, 80GB RAM, 10.14.6, DP 11.22, Metric Halo ULN8 MkIV, MOTU 2408III
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wylie1
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by wylie1 »

ghobish wrote:
wylie1 wrote:I use hightail https://www.hightail.com

Will Hightail allow us to send download links to non-Hightail subscribers? (I suspect yes- this is the old YouSendIt, right?)

Do they have a protocol that allows for downloading individual files from a folder?
Yes and Yes.
plus multiple different security options and transaction history.
I do FTP on my own domain as well but prefer hightail its a little more hassle free.
MacPro 3.2 ghz 8 core 12gig,DigimaxFS, 2408mk3,8Pre,828mk3,Ozone5,MachFive3, BFD2, Sampletank2,DP8.+,Sampletron,Nectar,Central Station,D5s,Q10s.plus stuff.
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

GoDaddy has a great Online Storage solution I use all the time to send giant sized files to multiple recipients. Of course you have to upload the file. Once you do, creating public links is a breeze (password protected if you prefer). They reside on the GD server until you delete. You can always change the password or remove the public link. I think the individual file size for uploads is stated at only 2GB but I've sent much larger files without a problem. I believe the capacity for my level of service is about 20GB that I can store on there at once. You can buy a bigger plan if you need more space.

https://www.godaddy.com/help/online-sto ... 0023#nav-2

(ps - uploads are better in Firefox. Safari doesn't display a progress bar so you don't know what's happening. Firefox shows exactly the download progress.)
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ghobish
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by ghobish »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:GoDaddy has a great Online Storage solution I use all the time to send giant sized files to multiple recipients. Of course you have to upload the file. Once you do, creating public links is a breeze (password protected if you prefer). They reside on the GD server until you delete. You can always change the password or remove the public link. I think the individual file size for uploads is stated at only 2GB but I've sent much larger files without a problem. I believe the capacity for my level of service is about 20GB that I can store on there at once. You can buy a bigger plan if you need more space.

https://www.godaddy.com/help/online-sto ... 0023#nav-2

(ps - uploads are better in Firefox. Safari doesn't display a progress bar so you don't know what's happening. Firefox shows exactly the download progress.)



Thanks, Mike. My partner's host is GoDaddy and we are trying this now, she bought a 100GB storage space and is now uploading to it so we shall see.

Do they have any bandwith quotas? There might be, for example, a song folder with 6-8 files that might easily total 10GB (in some cases, 3x that) and each folder might go to as many as 8 people so including uploads that's 90gb of bandwidth usage over a short amount of time.
Gary Hobish
A. Hammer Mastering & Digital Media
San Francisco, Ca
http://ahammer.com/mastering

Mastering: Mac Studio M1 MAX 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 32-core GPU, OS 12.6; DP 11.22, Waves, Izotope RX10 Advanced, Alloy, Nectar, PSP stuff, Plug-In Alliance, Metric Halo ULN-8 MkIV, Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix, Presonus Central Station, and (still) no air conditioning (but at least now there is airflow)

Annex: Mac Pro 2010 5,1 3.33GHz 12-core, 80GB RAM, 10.14.6, DP 11.22, Metric Halo ULN8 MkIV, MOTU 2408III
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

No bandwidth quotas AFAIK. They're pretty loose with the amount of drive space. The web hosting is basically unlimited with multiple sites on a single plan (if you're reasonably good in understanding HTML and file structures).
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ghobish
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by ghobish »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:No bandwidth quotas AFAIK. They're pretty loose with the amount of drive space. The web hosting is basically unlimited with multiple sites on a single plan (if you're reasonably good in understanding HTML and file structures).



I am but she is not. She'd rather keep these files completely separate, so if the Online Storage Solution doesn't end up running into bandwidth quota issues she'd rather do it that way.

The mistake she made when talking to her GoDaddy sales rep was telling him that she wanted it to work like Dropbox (which is not at all accurate) and he informed her that that was against their rules (which makes sense). But really all I wanted was to be able to have people go to an indexed web page so they could download the files. and it looks like the Online Storage solution makes that very easy. We'll try it out for thirty days, but when she realizes that my way would be free (as she has unlimited storage for her webwork, and barring any bandwidth quota issues) we'll probably switch over to that.
Gary Hobish
A. Hammer Mastering & Digital Media
San Francisco, Ca
http://ahammer.com/mastering

Mastering: Mac Studio M1 MAX 2TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 32-core GPU, OS 12.6; DP 11.22, Waves, Izotope RX10 Advanced, Alloy, Nectar, PSP stuff, Plug-In Alliance, Metric Halo ULN-8 MkIV, Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix, Presonus Central Station, and (still) no air conditioning (but at least now there is airflow)

Annex: Mac Pro 2010 5,1 3.33GHz 12-core, 80GB RAM, 10.14.6, DP 11.22, Metric Halo ULN8 MkIV, MOTU 2408III
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

The recipient doesn't get an index of all the files, only the ones they are sent links to. I like that. One client or collaborator can't see my other projects and visa versa. It's a pretty painless solution. I send all my scores sync'd to picture for several clients and it's just so easy this way. Even attachments that are bigger than about 5mb I'll send up to the server so my client doesn't have to sit thru an email download they don't want to necessarily retrieve at that moment at that device.
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Re: Need a large file/folder distribution solution-

Post by bayswater »

Have you looked into uploading RAR archives to your FTP site? IIRC, they can be self restoring, and they can be split into a set of smaller files that re-assemble themselves before they are restored. You can include redundant data blocks that will repair any download errors. RAR archives are often smaller than ZIPs -- hence their use by UVI and others to distribute large audio sample libraries.
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