How to Solve Large File Transfer Challenges

The sheer amount of data generated by companies and individuals today is staggering: While 2013 saw just nine zettabytes of data created worldwide, 2024 is expected to see nearly 150 zettabytes generated.

In the media and entertainment (M&E) space, video assets just keep getting bigger every year. Workflows have also become more and more complex, and remote work is here to stay.

Traditional file transfer alternatives such as an FTP server, shipping hard drives, or consumer-grade file sharing tools such as Google Drive or Dropbox transfer just can’t keep up. And on-prem managed file transfer services still suffer from significant challenges, including complexity and scalability issues.

But those challenges can be solved. Read on to find out how.

• What Are the Main Large File Transfer Challenges?
• Bandwidth Limitations
• Latency and Network Congestion
• Security
• Ingesting and Moving Large Files Quickly
• Efficiently Receiving and Storing UGC
• File Integrity and Error Handling
• Accessibility and Usability
• How MASV Helps You Overcome Large File Transfer Challenges

What Are the Main Large File Transfer Challenges?

Large file transfer has become a must-have across a number of industries, from M&E groups sending huge 4K or 8K files, to energy companies sending large datasets from remote locales, or healthcare clinicians sharing high-res medical images or genomic sequencing datasets.

But transferring such weighty files presents several challenges. Here are some of the biggest potential problems associated with large file transfer, and how they can be addressed.

Bandwidth Limitations

Why is it an issue?

Transferring large files of several terabytes requires significant internet bandwidth. The fact of the matter is, modern networking infrastructure has not kept up with how quickly datasets have grown.

From M&E groups sending huge 4K or 8K files, to energy companies sending large datasets from remote locales, or healthcare clinicians sharing high-res medical images or genomic sequencing datasets, the demand for bandwidth is huge. The average person easily produces terabytes of data, with many professional environments already dealing in petabytes.

Large file transfer sucks up a lot of bandwidth, which will negatively affect other network activities—potentially causing other applications to slow down when you want to transfer files. Enterprise-grade networking infrastructure is required to support large datasets, which is why so many consumer-grade file sharing services such as Google Drive or Dropbox intentionally limit their bandwidth to save on infrastructure costs.

How to solve it?

Upgrade bandwidth capacity. While this does come at an additional cost, many network providers offer 1 Gbps speeds at affordable prices. Many professional facilities have already made the jump to 10 Gbps.

Choose a file transfer platform that leverages your existing bandwidth, unlike the consumer-platforms mentioned above, which don’t guarantee acceleration.
Invest in channel bonding software. Not everyone can upgrade their home or office internet. But almost everyone has a phone, which can be paired with satellite and Wi-Fi/Ethernet connections to bring in more bandwidth to support larger file transfers.

Use the fastest possible internet connection. For the fastest possible turnaround time with the least disruption you should ideally use a fiber line, which can achieve speeds 3X that of cable.

Choose file transfer software that uses a dedicated file transfer app, which lets you avoid topping out at the maximum speed of your web browser.

You can test your current bandwidth at Speedtest.net.

Latency and Network Congestion

Why is it an issue?

While a lack of bandwidth can cause large file transfer challenges, in many cases latency is the more likely culprit.

Latency can be caused by many things; we already mentioned the potential performance issue with web browsers. The size of the assets being transferred and the distance between servers also make an impact.

In a large number of cases, however, latency is primarily driven by network congestion, which is when performance slows to a crawl even though you may have a ton of bandwidth. There are several possible causes of network congestion, including:

• A single, standard broadband internet connection.
• Multiple users or devices (especially older devices) on the network at the same time.
• Interference with WiFi signals (such as from a microwave oven, which shares the same 2.4GHz frequency as your WiFi signal).

How to solve it?

• Reduce the number of users and devices on your network.
• Use a hardwired connection instead of WiFi.
• Use a smart router with quality of service protocols (or at least replace your old router).
• Keep your cables as short as possible
• Use an accelerated file transfer service with tools to help improve latency, including file transfer scheduling, speed limits, and transfer priority.

Security

Why is it an issue?

Large file transfers usually involve sensitive or confidential information and intellectual property (IP). Ensuring the security of this data during transit and at rest is crucial, but cybersecurity issues continue to escalate.

Global ransomware attacks, for example, surged in 2023 and the [average ransomware payout](https://www.varonis.com/blog/cybersecurity-statistics) increased to more than $1.5M. Phishing and spear phishing to gain stolen credentials, data leaks, and supply chain attacks against those with on-premises systems continue to rise.

Additionally, a recent analysis by S&P Global Ratings showed that threat actors mostly target sectors with extensive customer data or that are highly public facing with more potential for reputational damage, such as telecommunications and M&E.

Video production workflows that typically involve large chains of custody with many (or most) people working on remote endpoints can be particularly risky if precautions aren’t taken.

How to solve it?

• Always be careful with a download link or attachment from unsolicited communications.
• Invest in a secure file transfer service that uses a secure file transfer protocol, encrypts data in-flight and at-rest, and enforces download controls around number of downloads (never unlimited) and file types (so you can restrict .exe files, for example).
• Ensure your file transfer service offers user authentication controls such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure bad actors don’t get access to your accounts or content.

Ingesting and Moving Large Files Quickly

Why is it an issue?

Although traditional file sharing techniques such as FTP theoretically have no file size limits, successfully moving terabyte-level data assets – or even hundreds of GBs – using this technology takes days (if the session doesn’t time out before it’s finished).

Many web-based file sharing solutions aren’t much better at handling a seriously big file. Most have a pretty modest file size limit and only handle smaller files. Even if the platform can handle larger files, you’ll often run into performance issues.

How to solve it?

• To support the movement of large files, a large file transfer service should allow users to easily upload and download several terabytes’ worth of data without sacrificing performance, reliability, or security.
• Large file transfer services should bypass the public internet and ride on its own dedicated, global, and accelerated content delivery network using a data center that’s closest to you
• Your file transfer solution should also offer performance features such as channel bonding (which combines multiple internet connections, like 5G and WiFi) for added bandwidth, and be optimized to handle super-fast fiber connections up to 10Gbps.

Efficiently Receiving and Storing User-Generated Content

Why is it an issue?

Receiving user-generated content from fans and influencers, or video from collaborators in the field, can be a cumbersome process with standard file sharing.

Most platforms require every user to have an account or seat, and many large file transfer services require complex IT configurations and are hard for those in the field to use – creating a significant barrier for casual users to submit video or other large files.

Using your audience’s videos without permission can also be a significant reputational and even financial risk—but individually asking permission from every creator is inefficient.

And getting a video file out of file transfer and into where it needs to reside – whether that’s on-prem or cloud storage, such as a NAS or SAN, or collaboration software – can be an extremely time-consuming, manual process.

How to solve it?

• An efficient large file transfer service should offer flexible, powerful file upload functionality that any of your users can use to submit a big file without needing training or an account.
• The file uploader should be easily shareable or embeddable in other software, integrate fully with multiple on-prem or cloud storage options, and offer automation features for uploads and sending to file storage.
• It should also offer upload and security controls such as terms of service/consent forms and file extension/size/naming restrictions.

File Integrity and Error Handling

Why is it an issue?

Ensuring the integrity of large files during transfer is challenging. Errors, corruption, or interruptions can occur, which can lead to failed transfers, frustration, and missed deadlines.

Effective error handling mechanisms are required to detect and recover from these issues. But many self-hosted file transfer services don’t re-send data packets if they arrive corrupted – or don’t arrive at all – leading to potentially significant reliability issues.

How to solve it?

• A reliable large file sharing service should share files in chunks instead of all at the same time, so if your transfer encounters problems or packet loss, the service only needs to resend a chunk (and not the whole file all over again).
• Other must-have reliability features include automatic checksum verification, which verifies that the file that’s reassembled on the recipient’s end is the same as what was sent, and automatic relentless retries of file transfers until they’re complete.

Accessibility and Usability

Why is it an issue?

One of the biggest complaints people have when is that their file transfer solution was a nightmare for IT to set up, the sales cycle took forever, and that it takes a great deal of time and effort to onboard staff, partners, and other collaborators.

That’s because self-hosted file transfer solutions require on-prem servers, complex software installations, network reconfigurations, and firewall and plugin tweaks to get things running smoothly. And that’s not even counting their interminably long sales cycles.

These solutions also typically require long training sessions for internal and external teams to get up to speed.

How to solve it?

• A cloud-based large file sharing solution requires no software installations or network changes.
• Your solution should feature a simple user interface that requires literally no training, so users can sign up and start sending files in minutes without an account or seat.
• Users can sign up and start using cloud-based file transfer services right away—no sales calls required.