NAS (Network Attached Storage)
A NAS holds several drives in one box and serves them over the local network, so every editor in a studio can mount the same volume and work from shared media. For teams in one building it offers fast access and a single source of truth, which is why post houses have relied on NAS and its faster cousin the SAN for years.
The limits show up with remote work and growth. A NAS is tied to its physical location, so an editor at home reaches it only through a VPN or a slow tunnel, and capacity means buying and maintaining more hardware. Off-site backup, drive failures, and power all become the studio's problem. Cloud storage trades local speed for reach and managed redundancy, which is the gap a streaming workflow tries to close.
Examples
- •A five-seat edit suite mounts a NAS volume for shared project media
- •A Synology or QNAP NAS serves footage over 10-gigabit ethernet
- •A remote editor struggles to reach the studio NAS over a home connection
In Sanbila
Sanbila offers an alternative to a NAS for distributed teams: originals live in cloud storage, each editor streams or proxies what they need, and there is no physical box to mount, back up, or expand.
Frequently asked questions
How is Sanbila different from the proxy generator built into my NLE?+
Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro and Avid all generate proxies locally, but they keep the original full-resolution files on the same SSD — so the disk fills up twice. Sanbila stores the originals in the cloud (Cloudflare R2) and keeps only the lightweight proxies on your machine. At export, Smart Relink streams the originals back via a local WebDAV mount, so you finish at full quality without ever downloading the source files.
Does Sanbila work offline?+
Yes for editing — once a proxy is cached on your SSD, you can cut, trim, color and arrange your timeline without an internet connection. You only need network access for the initial import (uploading originals to the cloud) and for the final export (streaming originals back via WebDAV).
How much cloud storage does the free plan include?+
The free plan includes 5 GB of cloud storage and one project, with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $49 per month for 2 TB and 50 projects, going up to 25 TB on the Enterprise plan with overage billing for teams that need more.
What upload speed do I need to use Sanbila?+
Any broadband connection works for the initial upload — Sanbila chunks files into 50 MB parts and uploads in parallel, so a typical 100 Mbps fiber line uploads 1 hour of 4K H.264 footage in about 6 minutes. After upload, day-to-day editing happens on local proxies, so your connection speed only matters again at export time when originals are streamed.
Which video formats does Sanbila support?+
Sanbila handles 22+ formats out of the box: MP4, MOV, MXF, R3D (RED RAW), BRAW (Blackmagic RAW), ARRI proxies, ProRes, DNxHR, DNxHD, H.264, H.265, plus WAV and AAC for audio. Both 4K and 8K sources are supported up to 200 GB per single file (URL imports have no size limit).
Related terms
Sources
- What is network attached storage · SNIA
- Shared storage for post-production · Blackmagic Design