I thought transferring files this quickly was years away.
Remote jobs are a fairly new idea in the world. Even 10 years ago, there weren’t many jobs available where you could live in a city different than the company you worked for. Cultural and societal changes played a role, but advancement in technology is one of the biggest factors that made remote jobs even possible. I personally think it makes a lot of sense for a lot of roles and companies. Why spend thousands of dollars on a giant building when it is often far more desirable and convenient for people to work at home? Sure, it doesn’t make sense in all cases, but for tech companies, it often does.
Some of you may know that I am a remote employee. I started my role with JB&A as a Business Development Manager, and it was pretty perfect for a remote position because most of my job was making emails and phone calls. There isn’t a lot of data being pushed or pulled around with those, so all I really needed was a mid-tier laptop.
Towards the end of 2023, my role shifted to Digital Content Producer, and I started to produce videos and media. JB&A didn’t have a remote media role before, and we quickly found out that this would pose a challenge. See, video content is oftentimes some of the biggest files people will ever work with. A standard 1080p file isn’t too huge, but once you have multiple 4K files that are 10 minutes or longer, you can fill up a terabyte fast. For a project that relies on one individual, it isn’t too bad. You can send the files once, and once they are finished, they can upload the finished product.
The biggest problem comes with collaboration. If two people are trying to work on the same project, they will need to have the same assets and a way to access a project file at the same time or send it to each other quickly. The workflow we had settled on was using a NAS to sync files overnight and then relinking everything when one of us wanted to take control of a project. This “worked,” but it left a lot to be desired with speed and convenience. Then we found Suite Studios.
Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t be in two places at the same time”? Well, what if your hard drive could be? That is the basic concept of Suite. Suite is software that mounts a “virtual drive” to your computer and shares it with your whole team. This way, everyone has access to it at the same time, and everyone can use it simultaneously. Best of all, it is super-fast. When you upload a file to the drive, it is available for everyone to use in seconds, even if it is a large video file. It sounds like magic, but the theory behind it is simpler than you’d think.
Suite has a clever “cache” that it stores on your computer. The cache saves pieces of the files that it thinks you will need and then loads the rest when you want to access them. This ensures the files are available to you quickly but aren’t fully downloaded. Suite Studios describes it as “CLOUD STORAGE WITH INSTANT LOCAL ACCESS.” Even 5 years ago, I wouldn’t have seen this as technology that was feasible, but Suite really made something magical.
If instant storage wasn’t good enough for you, Suite also has some other features that are very handy. First is Time Machine, which allows you to roll back time and access previous versions of files in case of accidental deletion. Next is Suite Connect, which allows you to collaborate with people outside of your Suite team and let them upload files directly to your drive. These are both useful features to have, and Suite Studios is a young company with lots of potential, so we expect more innovation to come from them in the future.
Suite Studios has really impressed me. If I ran a trade show and gave out awards, they would get my 2024 Product of the Year. Never have I needed a product more that showed up at the perfect time. They have solved one of my biggest headaches for working with content, and I am grateful for that. This reminds me of one of those shower time ideas that you say someone stole from you. “Hmm, I’ll make storage that is shared across multiple people, and it is instant, so you can work off it! Nahhh, that’s impossible.” But not for Suite Studios! So, go check out Suite Studios at suitestudios.io and fix your remote editorial workflow!
