Hedge for Mac 1.3 – Checksum File Transfer as Fast as the Finder?

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by Olaf von VossJune 1^st, 2016

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What is the one thing you don’t have when it comes to backing up your footage securely? That’s right, it’s time. You certainly don’t want to waste time staring at progress bars while doing checksum file transfer on set. That’s why the guys over at Hedge for Mac found a neat way to make things faster. A lot faster, actually. Their tool is now transferring files securely at the speed of the Finder.

Hedge for Mac 1.3 update

Remember the inital review on Hedge for Mac Nino did a couple of months ago? It turned out that the team behind Hedge for Mac have heard the concerns about their subscription model, and have introduced a one-time purchase model for $99 instead.

Now they have pushed things even further with the release of version 1.3 of their data transfer management software, which enables some pretty nice features such as fast lane transfers.

Free vs. paid version

A company has to increase sales somehow, which is why certain features are only available on the paid version of Hedge for Mac. The free version supports up to two simultaneous transfers, queuing  all other transfers automatically. After finishing 2 transfers, you are prompted to click a button to continue with the next 2 transfers.

However, the $99 premium 1.3 version is capable of doing some amazing things, namely fast lane transfers. This feature will speed up the checksum file transfer process by at least a factor of 2.5. So your verified transfers get as fast as a standard non-verified Finder copy/paste. I created a quick comparison for reference:

comparison between Finder, Hedge for Mac and Red Giant Offload

Note: This is just a quick test, not a real life scenario. But as you can see, the fast lane feature really fulfils expectations here. It’s like copy/paste with a checksum verification that is so fast you don’t even notice it. Very nice! The team behind Hedge for Mac has compiled its own comparison chart, which you can check out here.

Conclusion

There are other solutions for the old problem of the digital age: keeping your footage files safe. As Nino mentioned in his review, Pomfort’s Silverstac is the de-facto standard for professional DITs, but it’s quite expensive and therefore maybe not the perfect tool for your needs. ShotPut Pro and Red Giant Offload are at par with Hedge for Mac in terms of pricing, but ShotPut Pro comes with a quite dusty UI and Offload only allows two simultaneous transfers.

Hedge has you covered: support for multible backup disks, NAS and RAID

The killer argument for Hedge for Mac version 1.3 is its blazing speed, that’s for sure. I really like the Red Giant Offload UI but in terms of speed it can’t compete with Hedge’s fast lane feature.

You will have to try for yourself to see which transfer management solution suits your needs best, but this update is well worth a look!

Check out their website for all the details and get 10% off with this link.