US 6,785,768 · Granted 2004-08-31

How Avid's Smart Storage Patent Powers Video Editing at Scale

Imagine you're downloading a giant video file, but instead of coming from one server, pieces arrive from multiple hard drives at once—and if one fails, your download doesn't break because backup copies exist elsewhere. This patent describes how to slice data into random chunks, spread them across many storage units with automatic backups, and keep everything moving at lightning speed even when thousands of requests pile up simultaneously.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a distributed storage system where incoming data streams are chopped into segments, randomly distributed across multiple storage units, with redundancy information (backup copies or error-correction data) also spread randomly across the same units. What's protected here is the specific method of load-balancing by processing requests from the storage unit with the shortest queue, and the technique of combining small files into larger logical blocks to improve efficiency. If someone built a competing system using this exact approach to divide data randomly, distribute backups independently, and route requests to the least-busy server, they'd likely infringe.

Why it matters

Avid is a dominant force in professional video editing and media production. This patent, filed in 2002 during the rise of digital video, solves a critical real-world problem: when editors and artists pull massive video files across networks, traditional storage systems bottleneck and fail. By spreading data and redundancy randomly, the system prevents any single storage unit from becoming a traffic jam and ensures that a failed drive doesn't lose irreplaceable footage. For a company managing thousands of hours of uncompressed video daily, this architecture is foundational to staying reliable and competitive.

Real-world use

Every time a video editor at a Hollywood post-production house imports raw 4K footage from multiple cameras simultaneously into an editing suite, that footage is likely being split across a network of storage drives using this kind of distributed, redundant architecture to keep playback smooth and safe.

Original USPTO abstract

Multiple applications request data from multiple storage units over a computer network. The data is divided into segments and each segment is distributed randomly on one of several storage units, independent of the storage units on which other segments of the media data are stored. Redundancy information corresponding to each segment also is distributed randomly over the storage units. The redundancy information for a segment may be a copy of the segment, such that each segment is stored on at least two storage units. The redundancy information also may be based on two or more segments. This random distribution of segments of data and corresponding redundancy information improves both scalability and reliability. When a storage unit fails, its load is distributed evenly over to remaining storage units and its lost data may be recovered because of the redundancy information. When an application requests a selected segment of data, the request may be processed by the storage unit with the shortest queue of requests. Random fluctuations in the load applied by multiple applications on multiple storage units are balanced nearly equally over all of the storage units. Small data files also may be stored on storage units that combine small files into larger segments of data using a log structured file system. This combination of techniques results in a system which can transfer both multiple, independent high-bandwidth streams of data and small data files in a scalable manner in both directions between multiple applications and multiple storage units.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,785,768
Filing date: 2002-05-14
Grant date: 2004-08-31
Assignee: Avid Technology, Inc.
Inventor(s): PETERS ERIC C., RABINOWITZ STANLEY, JACOBS HERBERT R.
CPC class: H04N21/8456

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