Need a large file/folder distribution solution (long)

[Joey Cupcakes]

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.

[Joey Cupcakes]

I am also investigating FTP options.

[jdc]

Can you break them up into individual pieces?

So instead of one file with 4-6 in it, 4-6 files instead?

If you are stuck with slower DSLs, at least a 1 GB file might be easier to take in. But with any online solution, you are alwasy going to have to come back to the lowest common denominator, the slow DSL people.

A simple web site with links to the files (even if they are on DB) would only take a few minutes to setup, just need a domain and host.

Sure, you could load the files to an FTP, but if its already in DB, not sure of the point.

[Joey Cupcakes]

jdc wrote:
Can you break them up into individual pieces?

So instead of one file with 4-6 in it, 4-6 files instead?

If you are stuck with slower DSLs, at least a 1 GB file might be easier to take in. But with any online solution, you are alwasy going to have to come back to the lowest common denominator, the slow DSL people.

A simple web site with links to the files (even if they are on DB) would only take a few minutes to setup, just need a domain and host.

Sure, you could load the files to an FTP, but if its already in DB, not sure of the point.

Don't have to break it into smaller parts, just have access to the individual files. Dropbox is out of the picture, it is too unreliable for large file downloads. The website idea is a good one and probably the direction we'll go in. Thanks.

[jdc]

Not sure what the issue may be with DB, but I use it with at least 10 clients all over the country sending hundreds of MBs of files on a farily regualr basis.

Yeah, its not GBs in one shot, but over the course of a couple of weeks each of them will end up sending close to 2 GB of data total.