SNS EVO Shared Storage for Video Editing & Media Workflows
Studio Network Solutions (SNS) EVO is purpose-built shared storage for professional video production, post-production and creative media teams.
Gibb Technology designs and integrates SNS EVO shared storage solutions across the UK, Ireland and EMEA, helping organisations centralise high-resolution media, enable multiple editors to work from shared storage, manage growing content libraries and build faster, more efficient production workflows.
EVO combines high-performance shared storage with the EVO Suite, providing ShareBrowser media asset management, Slingshot automation and transcoding, Nomad remote workflow tools and integrations with leading creative applications.
Whether you are replacing individual editing storage, expanding an existing post-production environment, supporting more simultaneous users or developing a complete on-premise, hybrid or cloud media workflow, GT can design an SNS solution around the way your team actually works.
What Is SNS EVO Shared Storage?
SNS EVO is a high-performance shared storage platform designed specifically for professional media production.
Instead of storing projects across individual workstations, portable drives and disconnected storage systems, EVO provides a central storage environment that authorised editors, producers, colourists, audio teams and other creative users can access simultaneously.
Media can be ingested once and made available across the production team without repeatedly copying the same files between workstations.
EVO is designed around the demanding I/O requirements of applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer, supporting workflows from compressed editorial formats through high-resolution 4K, 8K, RAW and finishing workloads.
The result is not simply more storage capacity. It is a shared production platform designed around how professional media teams create, edit, manage and protect content.
Why Media Teams Need Purpose-Built Shared Storage
Video production places very different demands on storage infrastructure from normal office files.
A single production can include high-resolution camera originals, proxies, graphics, audio, project files, renders, image sequences and finished masters. Multiple users may need to read and write this content simultaneously while ingest, transcoding, editing and export operations happen in parallel.
A storage system can therefore have plenty of available capacity while still becoming the bottleneck in the workflow.
SNS EVO is engineered around media workloads where throughput, latency, concurrent streams, network bandwidth and predictable performance matter alongside capacity.
Edit Directly From Central Storage
Editors can work with media held centrally on EVO rather than continually copying projects to local drives.
This reduces unnecessary duplication and helps create a more controlled workflow where the production team is working around shared media and project resources.
Collaborate Across the Production Team
Editorial, motion graphics, colour, production and other departments can access the same central media environment according to their permissions.
This can make it easier to move a project between different stages of production without transferring entire datasets between departments.
Scale the Workflow as Requirements Grow
Shared-storage design is not only about determining how many terabytes are required today.
The system also needs to consider future editors, higher-resolution formats, additional simultaneous streams, new applications and long-term media growth.
GT designs EVO environments around both current requirements and realistic expansion.
Designing SNS EVO Around Your Media Workflow
There is no single storage configuration that is right for every production team.
A four-person corporate video department working primarily in ProRes has very different requirements from a post-production facility carrying out simultaneous 4K finishing, VFX and RAW workflows.
GT therefore starts with the workflow rather than simply specifying a storage capacity.
Key considerations include:
Number of simultaneous editors and creative users
Offline versus online editing
Camera formats and codecs
Colour grading and finishing requirements
HD, UHD, 4K, 6K or 8K resolution
RAW and image-sequence workflows
Expected number of simultaneous video streams
Ingest requirements
Proxy generation and transcoding
Existing network infrastructure
Required storage protection
Backup and archive strategy
Remote-working requirements
Current media library size
Expected annual data growth
Future expansion
This information allows GT to determine the appropriate storage platform, drive configuration, network connectivity and wider workflow design.
Storage Capacity Is Only Part of the Design
Buying shared storage based only on the number of terabytes required can result in an environment that has enough space but not enough performance.
Video storage needs to deliver the required data rate to multiple users at the same time.
For example, several editors working with compressed HD media may place relatively modest demands on the storage compared with multiple 4K RAW streams, high-resolution DPX or EXR sequences and finishing workflows.
SNS publishes performance data against real media formats and stream counts rather than relying only on headline sequential transfer speeds.
GT can use the expected codecs, resolutions, frame rates and concurrent workflows to help determine the level of storage and network performance required.
HDD or SSD Shared Storage?
SNS EVO systems are available in HDD and SSD configurations depending on the model and required performance.
HDD Storage
Enterprise HDD configurations can provide an effective balance between capacity, performance and cost for many editorial and collaborative production environments.
They are particularly useful where teams need substantial central capacity while still requiring predictable multi-user media performance.
SSD Storage
SSD configurations can provide considerably higher performance for workloads such as high-resolution finishing, colour grading, image sequences and other applications requiring very high throughput or low latency.
The correct decision is therefore not simply SSD is better than HDD.
GT considers the actual workload and can design HDD, SSD or multi-tier storage environments based on where additional performance provides a meaningful benefit.
10GbE, 25GbE and 100GbE Media Networks
The storage is only one part of a high-performance editing environment.
The network between EVO and the editing workstations also needs to support the required workflow.
SNS EVO can be configured with multiple Ethernet connectivity options including 1GbE, 10GbE, 25GbE and up to 100GbE, depending on the EVO platform and configuration.
Some workstations can connect directly to EVO, while larger environments may use a suitably designed high-performance Ethernet switch.
GT considers:
Required bandwidth per workstation
Number of editors
Existing network switches
Direct-connected versus switched architecture
10/25/100GbE uplinks
Workstation network adapters
Copper versus fibre connectivity
VLAN and network design where appropriate
Future workstation expansion
Correct network design is particularly important because installing high-performance shared storage behind an underspecified network simply moves the bottleneck somewhere else.
SNS EVO Shared Storage Models
EVO 16 Bay
EVO 16 Bay is designed for larger and more demanding multi-user media environments.
Current configurations extend from high-capacity individual systems into multi-petabyte deployments, with HDD and SSD options and high-speed Ethernet connectivity available.
EVO 16 Bay can be particularly well suited to post-production facilities, broadcast environments, large internal production teams and organisations working with high-resolution multi-user editing, colour grading, finishing, VFX and motion graphics. It also provides a scalable platform for organisations expecting substantial growth in their media-storage requirements.
SNS currently offers EVO 16 Bay configurations up to approximately 480TB per server, with expansion to around 2.4PB depending on configuration.
EVO 8 Bay
EVO 8 Bay provides high-performance shared storage for small and medium production teams while retaining expansion options.
It can be a strong fit for creative agencies, in-house video departments, corporate production teams, smaller post-production facilities, education environments and sports media departments, including teams working collaboratively with 4K content.
Current EVO 8 Bay systems extend to approximately 240TB per server, with expanded configurations reaching around 720TB.
A short-depth configuration is also available for environments including DIT carts, mobile production systems, flypacks and locations where conventional rack depth is limited.
EVO Prodigy
EVO Prodigy brings EVO storage and workflow capabilities to smaller teams and compact production environments, with desktop and rack-mounted options available depending on the required configuration.
Prodigy can provide an effective entry point for small production teams, internal marketing departments, independent studios, growing creative businesses and smaller editing workgroups. It can also help organisations move away from workflows based around individual editing drives and towards centralised collaborative storage.
Current Prodigy configurations range from compact systems through approximately 96TB, depending on model and drive configuration.
MOD Powered by EVO
MOD Powered by EVO is a compact SSD-based shared-storage system designed for mobile and remote production.
Its compact format makes it particularly suitable for DIT workflows, location production, travelling production teams, mobile editing, temporary production environments and cloud-edge workflows where professional shared-storage performance is required outside a conventional machine room.
MOD combines portable storage with EVO workflow functionality and high-speed 10GbE connectivity.
EVO Nearline
Not every piece of media needs to remain on the highest-performance production storage.
EVO Nearline provides a secondary storage tier for completed projects, reference libraries, older production media, content awaiting archive and larger media repositories that no longer require primary editorial performance.
Moving less-active content away from primary production storage can free capacity for current projects while keeping media accessible within the wider production workflow.
Current EVO Nearline configurations can scale into multiple petabytes.
EVO Cloud
EVO Cloud provides a cloud-based shared media environment for remote, hybrid and distributed production teams. It combines centralised cloud storage with EVO workflow tools including ShareBrowser, Slingshot and Nomad, allowing authorised users to work with media and projects across different locations.
GT can assess whether on-premise EVO, EVO Cloud or a hybrid architecture is the most appropriate approach based on media volumes, users, connectivity, security and workflow requirements.
ShareBrowser Media Asset Management
As a shared-storage environment grows, simply organising media into folders may no longer be enough. Teams need to understand what content they have, where it is located and how to find it without manually searching through increasingly large directory structures.
ShareBrowser is SNS's media asset management platform included with EVO for unlimited users.
It creates a searchable view of media and project content and can index not only EVO storage but supported storage elsewhere within the production environment.
Users can search and organise assets using information such as filenames, tags, comments, custom metadata, codecs, resolution, frame rate, modified dates and project information, making large media libraries easier to navigate and understand.
Find Media Faster With AI
SNS continues to develop AI tools around media management.
ShareBrowser can use an AI connector to analyse selected video and automatically create searchable metadata, reducing the amount of repetitive manual tagging required from production teams.
AI-assisted workflows can include speech transcription, translation, content summarisation, facial and voice recognition, scene classification, speaker identification, object and activity recognition, logo identification and automated metadata generation.
The objective is not to replace the creative team. It is to reduce repetitive media-analysis tasks and make large content libraries easier to understand, search and reuse.
AI services and functionality should be selected according to the organisation's workflow, security requirements and preferred deployment model.
Slingshot Workflow Automation & Transcoding
Media teams repeatedly carry out tasks that do not always require somebody sitting in front of a workstation.
Slingshot is SNS's automation and transcoding engine included with EVO. It can automate recurring processes such as file transfers, media replication, scheduled backups, cloud backups, file synchronisation, proxy generation and media transcoding.
Rather than relying on someone to remember to copy, back up or process a set of files at the end of each day, suitable workflow tasks can be configured to run automatically.
Automated Proxy Creation
High-resolution camera originals are not always necessary for every stage of editorial.
Slingshot can generate lighter proxy versions of high-resolution source media, including supported ProRes and H.264 workflows.
These proxies can then support editorial, remote production and other workflows where transferring full-resolution camera originals would be inefficient.
Options can also include burnt-in information such as timecode and watermark graphics where required.
Nomad Remote Video Editing
Remote editing does not necessarily mean transferring an entire high-resolution media library to every remote editor.
Nomad provides a proxy-based workflow for remote and offline editorial. High-resolution source media can remain on EVO while lightweight proxies are generated and made available to approved users.
Editors can obtain the media they require while connected to the production environment and then continue working with those proxies remotely or offline. This can substantially reduce bandwidth requirements compared with transferring complete high-resolution datasets to every editor.
Remote access can also form part of a wider secure workflow using solutions such as SNS Cloud VPN.
When designing a Nomad workflow, GT considers the number of remote editors, available internet connectivity, source-media size, required proxy formats, security policies, project-file workflows, turnaround requirements and the process used to relink completed edits to the original high-resolution media.
GT can therefore design remote workflows as part of the wider storage environment rather than treating remote access as a separate problem.
Editing Applications & Workflows
SNS EVO is designed around the creative applications used by professional video production and post-production teams.
By centralising media on high-performance shared storage, EVO allows editors and creative users to work with common project resources without continually copying large media files between individual workstations.
ShareBrowser adds another layer to the workflow, providing integrated media search, preview, organisation and metadata tools within supported editing applications.
Adobe Premiere Pro Shared Storage
SNS EVO provides a highly integrated shared-storage workflow for Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, allowing multiple Adobe users to work with media held centrally on EVO.
The ShareBrowser panel for Adobe applications allows editors to search, preview and import media directly from the shared storage environment without leaving Premiere Pro. Tags, comments and other ShareBrowser metadata can also follow media into the editing workflow.
EVO can support collaborative Adobe Productions environments where multiple editors and production users need reliable access to shared projects and high-resolution media.
GT can size the EVO storage, network connectivity and workstation infrastructure around the number of Adobe users, media formats, resolutions and simultaneous streams required.
DaVinci Resolve Shared Storage
DaVinci Resolve workflows can place significant demands on storage, particularly when moving beyond compressed editorial into high-resolution colour grading, finishing, RAW media and image sequences.
SNS EVO provides central shared storage for Resolve-based production environments, allowing editors, colourists and other creative users to access common media resources across the workflow.
ShareBrowser also integrates with DaVinci Resolve Studio, allowing users to search, preview and manage media from within the Resolve environment.
For more demanding finishing workflows, GT can assess whether SSD storage, higher-speed Ethernet connectivity and additional storage performance are required.
Final Cut Pro Shared Storage
SNS EVO supports collaborative Apple Final Cut Pro workflows, allowing Mac-based creative teams to work with media held centrally on shared storage rather than relying on separate local editing drives.
The ShareBrowser extension for Final Cut Pro provides integrated media-management capabilities, helping editors search, preview, organise and access content from within their creative workflow.
This can be particularly useful for production teams where multiple Final Cut Pro editors need consistent access to shared media libraries and production resources.
GT can design the EVO storage and network infrastructure around the number of Final Cut Pro users, media formats and required production performance.
Avid Media Composer Shared Storage
SNS EVO has a long history of supporting collaborative Avid Media Composer environments, including shared media, projects and bin-based workflows.
This allows multiple Avid editors to work collaboratively around centrally stored production media rather than maintaining separate copies across individual editing systems.
Avid's requirements for third-party shared storage continue to evolve, so Media Composer versions, licensing and compatibility should be reviewed before making major upgrades to an established EVO environment.
GT can assess the existing Avid, EVO, network and editing infrastructure before designing a new system or planning significant changes to an existing production workflow.
Backup, Replication and Disaster Recovery
RAID protects against certain types of storage hardware failure, but RAID is not a backup.
Critical media should exist in additional protected locations according to the organisation's recovery requirements.
SNS EVO can form part of a wider data-protection strategy using Slingshot and other workflow technologies to copy or replicate content to another EVO system, EVO Nearline, supported network storage or cloud and object-storage services such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Wasabi, Backblaze and Dropbox.
GT can help separate production storage, backup, disaster recovery and archive into clearly defined parts of the media workflow.
This avoids the common mistake of treating one RAID-protected storage system as the only copy of valuable production media.
For organisations also managing long-term archive, LTO, cloud migration or data across multiple storage environments, explore StorageDNA DNAfabric.
Explore the wider relationship between shared storage, MAM, archive and AI in GT's Media Storage, MAM & AI Workflows guide.
SNS EVO Shared Storage FAQs
What is SNS EVO?
SNS EVO is a high-performance shared storage and media workflow platform designed for professional video production, post-production and creative teams. It allows multiple users to work from centralised media storage while supporting editing, media management, automation and remote workflows.
Is SNS EVO a NAS or SAN?
SNS EVO provides shared network storage designed specifically for professional media workflows. It combines SAN and NAS-style capabilities with Ethernet connectivity and workflow tools built around video editing, post-production and creative applications.
Can editors work directly from SNS EVO shared storage?
Yes. EVO is designed so multiple editors can work directly with centrally stored media rather than maintaining separate copies on individual workstations. The correct system configuration depends on the number of users, codecs, resolutions and simultaneous media streams required.
Does SNS EVO support 4K and 8K video editing?
Yes. SNS EVO can be configured for demanding 4K and 8K workflows, including multi-user editing, colour grading and finishing. Storage performance and network bandwidth should be sized around the codec, frame rate, resolution and number of simultaneous users.
Does SNS EVO include media asset management?
Yes. SNS EVO includes ShareBrowser, SNS's media asset management platform. ShareBrowser provides tools for indexing, searching, previewing, organising and managing media across the production environment.
Does SNS EVO work with Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve?
Yes. SNS EVO supports professional workflows using applications including Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer. Compatibility should always be checked when major application or operating-system upgrades are introduced.
Should I choose HDD or SSD SNS EVO storage?
The best option depends on the workflow. HDD configurations can provide high capacity and strong multi-user performance for many editing environments, while SSD storage can be better suited to high-bandwidth workloads such as RAW media, high-resolution finishing and image sequences.
GT can assess the required performance before recommending the most appropriate configuration.
Does SNS EVO support remote video editing?
Yes. SNS Nomad provides proxy-based remote and offline editing workflows, allowing high-resolution media to remain on EVO while editors work with lighter proxy files remotely.
Can SNS EVO automatically create proxies?
Yes. SNS Slingshot can automate transcoding and proxy generation, helping production teams create lower-bandwidth versions of high-resolution media for editing, review and remote workflows.
Can SNS EVO back up media to the cloud?
Yes. SNS EVO can form part of a wider backup and replication strategy using Slingshot and supported cloud or object-storage services. This can include platforms such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Wasabi and Backblaze, depending on the required workflow.
Does RAID mean I do not need a separate backup?
No. RAID can provide protection against certain drive failures, but it should not be treated as a complete backup strategy. Important production media should exist in additional protected locations according to the organisation's recovery and retention requirements.
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