Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1547041
ata storage is a key element in modern content creation, editing, distribution and reception. Data capacity and communication speed increases while form factors change. The growing familiarity with digital editing, digital intermediates and various forms of digital distribution are key components in the continued growth and development of entertainment. However, in 2025 and 2026, the prices of all digital storage and memory technology increased due to the massive build out of data centers for AI training and inference. This led to signif- icant increases in storage prices, which are changing the way digital storage is used. In particular, NAND flash, and thus sol- id-state drive (SSD) prices per TB, have increased considerably. While hard disk drive (HDD) prices per TB have also in- creased, the difference in $/TB has increased to over 10x for SSDs versus HDDs from about 5x in early 2025. HDD and SSD vendors report that their production is contracted out into 2027 or later. As a consequence of these shortages, many M&E facilities are resorting to changes in their storage choices. For instance, using HDD rather than SSD storage, when possible. At last April's NAB show, LTO tape system vendors said that even though magnetic tape prices have also increased, custom- ers were buying tape storage systems and moving data to tape to avoid paying higher prices for new HDD storage. Because of the large file sizes required for high-resolution and multi-camera images, there is increasing demand for high-capacity storage devices, as well as high-performance storage. The entire value chain of content creation, editing, archiving and distribution, as well as consumer electronics content reception devices, pro- vides an accelerating, feed-forward mechanism. In addition, the rising use of data analysis and various artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the media & entertainment industry favors new mixes of various storage and memory technologies. These factors drive growth in data storage for all entertainment content applications. There also has been a slowing of the growth in the use of storage resources in the cloud, with some repatriation of data from the cloud to local storage or private clouds for various reasons, including cost controls and controlling content access. For many archiving and distribution applications, where content is relatively static, low-cost/high-capacity HDD storage, optical discs and magnetic tape-based storage libraries will dominate, with some flash memory used for caching and metadata. Note that many active archive systems may also be hard disk drive-based and will often include magnetic tape and use SSDs for caching. Hard disk drives, as well as SSDs, are also used in some high-performance storage applications, where storage cost factors must be balanced with performance requirements. For applications requiring rugged field use or fast playback response, flash memory either, as cards or solid-state drives, are now standard fare. Mobile applications and SSD caching are also starting to drive the use of various emerging, non-volatile memories. From February through July of 2025, Coughlin Associates conducted a survey of professional media & entertainment professionals on various digital storage topics. The survey was broken down into several segments: content capture, editing & post production, and content delivery, as well as archiving and digital preservation. Results from that survey, as well as the 2026 Coughlin Associates report on Media & Entertainment Storage, will be used to provide some illustrations in this article. Content creation & acquisition Figure 1 shows the percentage of various recording media used by the 2025 survey participants in professional video cameras. Flash memory and HDDs dominated the responses. Nobody reported using film, optical discs or magnetic tape in video cameras. About four percent was recorded directly to the cloud. We also note that in the survey, while 66 percent reported capturing two to five hours for an hour of completed video, 34 percent captured six to 50 hours of content for an hour of completed video. AI is increasingly being used in video projects, as well as large screens, to avoid having to build sets or travel to locations for special shots. These technologies could reduce the time and costs for video production, enabling more creative content cre- ation and perhaps higher employment in the industry. Post production storage demand Post storage demand is increasing with more multi-camera, 360-degree projects; higher resolutions; more bits-per-frame; and higher frame rates. This drives overall storage requirements, as shown in Figure 2. The chart shows a growth in cloud storage that will be larger than local network storage, but overall, more content remains local rather than in the cloud. A.I. OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES BY TOM COUGHLIN PRESIDENT COUGHLIN ASSOCIATES, INC. WWW.TOMCOUGHLIN. COM MODERN MEDIA WORKFLOWS CHALLENGE PERFORMANCE, LATENCY & CAPACITY D STORAGE www.postmagazine.com 24 POST SEPT/OCT 2026 Figure 1: Percentage of recording media in professional video cameras. Figure 2: Post storage capacity annual demand.