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Facilis Technology designs and builds shared storage solution servers for collaborative production networks. Our unique Shared File System is included with all Facilis systems and easily manages the most complex, multi-platform network environments and enables collaborative workflow among diverse applications and file formats. Whether your job is 4K color grading, VFX compositing or HD craft editorial, working with Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro Creative Cloud, Apple FCPX, DaVinci Resolve or Avid Pro Tools, Facilis HUB is a shared storage solution that provides the performance and collaboration so that you can create with confidence.
Facilis Technology’s shared storage for video editing has 5 features that make it stand out from its competitors. The first is virtual volumes. Facilis has a unique way of creating virtual disks on demand that look and act like basic hard drives but are evenly distributed across a much larger drives set. This ensures that every virtual drive created has the same performance, no matter if the system is empty or full. The second, is the Facilis Shared File System. In SANs for video editing, there’s always a management layer that’s responsible for protecting the base file system from damage by people writing to the same place at the same time. Our file system was developed exclusively for video and audio content. It changes what’s old, clunky, and inefficient about TCP-IP network file systems but keeps the scalability and reliability that they’re known for. The 3rd feature is the Fibre Channel & Ethernet in Perfect Harmony. Facilis does both seamlessly even on the same client workstation. We know the benefits in high-bitrate workflows, and we’re advocates of ethernet for its lower-cost scalability and performance. Our 4th feature that improves storage for video editing is the web console management that comes with our shared storage servers. It is a user-facing representation of the Facilis Shared File System and virtual volume management. Volumes of any size can be created, size can be changed on the fly, and permissions can be managed with either total simplicity or ultimate security. Lastly, we have our FastTracker. It is a media indexing application that runs on the Facilis video storage server and tracks all the files entering the system. When working in Adobe, the FastTracker Adobe Panel gives the editor direct access to all the files on the server through catalogs that can be secured to certain user accounts. The Desktop Panel can be used to access media when in Avid, FCPX or Resolve among others, and preview media outside the creative applications.
We are not a generic NAS (Network Attached Storage) device that relies on standard network protocols and has OS dependencies. Our SAN storage for video many unique features that set us apart.
“Previously a lot of our programmes, such as talk shows, needed only one editor, but we started bringing in more factual entertainment programmes that required multiple editors working simultaneously on the same material. We had two suites connected with a NAS but no project sharing, and the rest was standalone storage, so we began looking at a suitable collaborative storage replacement.”
“We’ve stuck with Facilis over the years because of the great flexibility and performance the system affords us. Service is great and our support contract lets us get in touch with a knowledgeable Facilis rep in under 5 minutes, if needed. Support reps can even remote-in and take care of any issues if they crop up, which means a lot to us,”
“We frequently shoot on ARRI Alexa Mini at 4K or on Red cameras at 5 or 6K. We’re able to edit the footage natively, without transcoding or making proxies on the Facilis system, which saves lots of time. With 8GB Fibre Channel connections to each workstation, we get about 500MB/sec on each workstation, it’s like having an internal SSD. When we’re pushing around 4 or 6K content, it makes it really seamless to edit, move around the timeline, and copy files. We have multiple editors working at the same time and we’ve never run into a bottleneck,”
“The Facilis system was installed quickly and it’s super-fast. We really like it,” comments White. “The 4K footage plays back smoothly and it’s really going to revolutionize the way we edit at BrandStar.”
“Even at this time, the Facilis system was extremely reliable, high performance and flexible. Especially the access to material on a cross-platform and cross-application basis was one of the main reasons for adopting the TerraBlock system.”
“We got to the point last year where we were bringing in so much data and everyone wanted to shoot in 4K because of the quality and flexibility it gave us in post-production,”
Jim McKenna
Facilis Technology is a software company that designs turn-key network shared storage solutions. Most of the software development at Facilis is focused on improving the performance, efficiency, and compatibility of our products' major feature, the Facilis Shared File System.
It's a common misconception that any storage attached through a network is "Network Attached Storage". NAS is better defined as storage accessed through a set of generic network file systems, regardless of the physical connection. These file systems, like SMB (a generic server-client communication protocol), CIFs (a popular type of SMB), and NFS (a little better than CIFs and SMB but not as widely compatible) are the basis for traditional NAS architecture in enterprise environments. Most network attached storage in the world is Windows and Linux based, more Linux for internet hosting, more Windows for in-facility NAS. The vast majority of networking technology is developed for enterprise environments, not for media and content creation workflows.
Facilis was highlighted on an episode of Inside the Blueprint which aired on Fox Business Channel (November 18th 5PM EST) Watch it here.
