Ingest infrastructure

A dock for files that break other tools

Dropdock takes multi-terabyte deliveries from cameras, render farms and partners, verifies them on arrival, and hands them to whatever runs next. Built for the transfers where a browser upload gives up at 4 %.

No object size limit S3-compatible Checksums on arrival
18.4 PBingested this year
40 Gbit/sper dock uplink
4docks: FRA, HEL, AMS, PAR
0silent corruptions since 2023
What it does

Arrive, verify, hand off

Dropdock is deliberately not a workspace, a player or a review tool. It is the part of the pipeline where bytes land intact and something else picks them up.

Transfer

Parallel multipart with real resume

Objects are split into parts and pushed on up to 32 streams. A dropped link resumes from the last acknowledged part, not from zero — a 40-hour delivery survives a router reboot.

Integrity

Checksums computed at both ends

Each part carries a BLAKE3 digest computed by the sender and re-computed on write. A mismatch fails the part immediately instead of surfacing three weeks later in a grade.

Access

Send links for people without accounts

A partner or a DIT on location gets a signed upload URL with a prefix, a size cap and an expiry. They drag a folder into a browser; you see it arrive under the right project.

Automation

Events when something lands

A webhook fires per object or per completed manifest. Kick off transcoding, sync to your NAS, or file a ticket — Dropdock does not care what runs next.

Lifecycle

Rules instead of cleanup days

Move a prefix to cold storage after 30 days, delete proxies after 90, keep masters forever. Rules are declarative and dry-runnable before they touch anything.

Locality

Pick the dock nearest the shoot

Four European docks with 40 Gbit/s uplinks. Data can stay in the dock it landed in, or replicate to a second one on a schedule you set.

Interfaces

If it speaks S3, it speaks Dropdock

Point an existing tool at the endpoint and it works. When you need more than S3 gives you, the native API adds manifests, signed upload links and lifecycle rules.

rclonesync and mount
aws-clidrop-in endpoint
Resolvevia mounted bucket
Nuke / Deadlinerender output path
Hedge / Silverstackoffload target
WebhooksJSON, HMAC signed
Terraformbuckets and rules
Prometheusper-dock metrics
rclone — offload a card
# one-off endpoint, no config file
rclone copy /Volumes/A001 \
  :s3:ingest/prod-zk/day12 \
  --s3-provider Other \
  --s3-endpoint https://fra.dropdock.pro \
  --transfers 16 --checksum
API — signed upload link for a partner
POST /v1/upload-links
Authorization: Bearer $DD_TOKEN

{
  "prefix": "prod-zk/vendor-vfx/",
  "max_bytes": 2199023255552,
  "expires_in": "72h",
  "webhook": "https://pipeline/dd"
}
Pricing

Per terabyte, no ingest fees

Uploading is always free — you should never hesitate before sending us data. You pay for what sits on disk and what leaves.

Dock
€9 /TB/mo
from 1 TB
  • S3-compatible endpoint
  • Free unlimited ingest
  • Egress €6 per TB
  • One dock region
Start
Terminal
€7 /TB/mo
from 50 TB
  • Everything in Dock
  • Cold tier at €2 per TB
  • Signed upload links, webhooks
  • Cross-dock replication
  • Egress €4 per TB
Start
Private dock
talk to us
from 500 TB
  • Dedicated hardware and uplink
  • Custom retention and audit
  • Named engineer, 1 h response
Contact
FAQ

Questions we actually get

Is there really no object size limit?

Not a practical one. Multipart uploads go up to 100,000 parts and a part can be 5 GB, so a single object can exceed 400 TB. The largest thing anyone has stored with us so far is a 61 TB EXR sequence delivered as one manifest.

What throughput can one machine reach?

With 16 parallel streams from a well-connected European host we routinely see 6–8 Gbit/s to the nearest dock. A single stream tops out around 1.2 Gbit/s because of TCP round-trip behaviour, which is why the client parallelises by default.

Do you charge for failed or resumed uploads?

No. Ingest is free on every plan, including parts that are retried. You are billed for stored bytes measured hourly and for egress, nothing else.

How does the cold tier behave?

Objects stay listed and their metadata stays hot. The first byte of an archived object arrives after two to four minutes while it is staged back; after that it reads at full speed for 24 hours. There is no per-request retrieval fee.

Can we keep everything in one country?

Yes. Replication is opt-in per bucket, so a bucket created in Helsinki stays in Helsinki until you say otherwise. The console shows the physical location of every prefix.

Send us a terabyte and see

Accounts start empty and free. Ingest costs nothing, so the first real test can be an actual delivery rather than a demo file.

Open the console