“Since the station started, eight years ago, we have produced thousands of programmes, across a huge range of subject matter, many of which are still relevant and of interest to the community.  We couldn’t just store them away never to be heard again.  We want the show makers and public to be able to access them on-demand, so we needed an IT solution that could store a large amount of data (audio files), provide multiple user access, high speed, strong security, that worked on Wi-Fi and was low cost.”

After investigating several options and taking into consideration the legal requirement to use an onshore based solution to meet their Recording NZ contract requirements, they were able to discount ‘free’ solutions like SoundCloud; and other more expensive offshore managed cloud-based options. With the additional challenge of not having fibre to the station, they also needed something that would ‘talk’ to their website over Wi-Fi at high speed.

After speaking to Rob and Rory in the Staples Rodway BCS team and learning that Primo Wireless could improve their existing Wi-Fi capability so that it would work with and be hosted easily on their website (Smokey Lemon), they were impressed with the simplicity of the NAS box option and more so the fact it was a totally Taranaki based solution. As a dedicated file storage system, it enables multiple users and a range of devices to retrieve data from a centralised disk. NAS generally handles ‘unstructured data’ such as audio, video, websites, text files or MSOffice documents.

“We didn’t know what a NAS box was, but the Staples BCS team came and explained it all simply and now we’re convinced of its value and have been espousing its worth to others who might have a large volume of data.” Access Radio are only using a small portion of the NAS box’s capability and as they expand their offering into the digital video and photo space, they will be able to store and access that data safely also.

With 6TB capacity and 2 drives (one acts as a mirror and back up of the other), Access Radio are uploading thousands of archived radio shows many of which are gradually being made available on their new website.

From an administration viewpoint, uploading the data to the NAS box is relatively easy.

“Due to past inconsistencies in the way shows have been labelled and saved, the most time-consuming part if the job is re-labelling and re-formatting the audio files.  Once that is done, uploading the files only takes a couple of clicks.”

Anne and the team at Access Radio are proud of what they’ve achieved over the last eight years. Building a space that allows the diverse and talented voices of the Taranaki region to be heard. Voices of experience, of community, of innovation all have a home at Access Radio and now those voices will continue to be heard for generations to come.

Like Access Radio, if your organisation has a vast amount of data that should be stored locally and remain accessible, consider a NAS box solution. Rob and the Baker Tilly Staples Rodway Business Computing Services team are happy to come and chat about your current storage problems and help you identify the right solution for your business.