A surprising pattern emerged in recent conversations with two organizations from very different industries (higher education and tax consulting). Both were struggling with the same IT challenge, despite their differences. Both needed a way to move and sync massive files and datasets quickly, reliably, and at scale without adding IT complexity. That’s where Resilio came in.
In both cases, fast access to critical information was mission-critical. Any delays or downtime directly impacted outcomes and productivity. Both organizations had tried legacy hub-and-spoke solutions, only to find them slow, fragile, and unable to meet their demands.
“When you’re working with big data, all other storage and syncing options are untenable. No other solution has been able to make our data accessible like Resilio.”
Dr. Alexander Shenkin, Assistant Research Professor at Northern Arizona University
It’s not enough to simply have data. You need the right data — accurate, fast, and accessible — delivered exactly where it’s needed. For organizations with distributed teams, multiple locations, or remote sites, data isn’t just a resource — it’s the currency that drives innovation, fuels AI and machine learning, and sustains competitive advantage.
But often, data is delayed, incomplete, or trapped in slow systems. And when your workflows depend on massive unstructured datasets — videos, images, CAD files, genomic data, or IoT logs — moving that data becomes a serious challenge.
Hub-and-Spoke vs. Peer-to-Peer Data Sync
To keep data flowing across locations, two main architectures dominate the market:
- Hub-and-spoke: All data routes through a central file server before being distributed to users and sites.
- Peer-to-peer (P2P): Every endpoint can sync and transfer data directly with others, creating a distributed mesh that eliminates bottlenecks and improves performance.
Hub-and-spoke systems remain the most common but also the most limiting. And with myths swirling around its alternative, many organizations underestimate the advantages of peer-to-peer data movement.
Let’s set the record straight by breaking down some of the most persistent myths.
Myth 1: Large unstructured files move just fine through a hub.
Reality: Multi-gigabyte video, CAD, or genomic files crawl through central hubs, where a single bottleneck slows everything down. Even with fast networks, the hub becomes a choke point that forces files to take the long way around. In an ESG Research survey, almost half of the IT teams reported that transfer times often take several hours to days for multi-gigabyte files when using centralized solutions. Peer-to-peer syncs large files directly between sites, using all available bandwidth for parallel transfers. That means massive datasets arrive in hours instead of days, projects stay on schedule, and global teams aren’t stuck waiting on outdated infrastructure.
Myth 2: Centralized systems handle millions of small files efficiently.
Reality: Hub-and-spoke architectures choke on millions of small files; every metadata lookup and sequential transfer compounds into delays. This is especially painful in software development, engineering, or life sciences industries, where small files can number in the millions. Gartner even estimated that 80% of enterprise data is unstructured, consisting of billions of files like emails, documents, logs, and tags. Peer-to-peer syncs file changes incrementally and in parallel, moving only what’s new or modified, rather than resending entire datasets. This efficiency keeps environments responsive, ensures accuracy, data integrity, and avoids the crawl that comes with centralized systems.
Myth 3: Edge and global teams don’t need real-time sync.
Reality: From IoT devices in the field to creative teams spread across continents, having the latest data instantly is non-negotiable. According to Statista, 28% of the global workforce now operates remotely. In fast-moving industries, delays of even a few minutes can derail workflows, compromise analytics, or stall collaboration. Peer-to-peer enables real-time data access across the globe, even in high-latency or low-bandwidth networks, ensuring that engineers, analysts, or editors are always working on the same version of the data, not a stale copy.
Myth 4: Central hubs give IT better security and control.
Reality: Centralizing unstructured data creates a single point of failure and risk, making the hub an attractive target for breaches or outages. In fact, 83% of businesses failed to encrypt at least half of their sensitive data in the cloud—a major security concern for centralized data systems. Meanwhile, users experience slower access and less flexibility. Peer-to-peer eliminates that chokepoint. It strengthens security with end-to-end encryption, role-based permissions, and data locality controls while giving IT teams fine-grained governance with data replication policies, file locking, and detailed audit logs. The result is security and control without compromising speed or user productivity.
Myth 5: Hub-and-spoke scales better as data grows.
Reality: With unstructured data growing annually, central hubs are forced into constant upgrades, including bigger servers, faster storage, and increased bandwidth, resulting in higher costs. According to a recent Dell survey, 43% of IT decision-makers fear their IT infrastructure won’t be able to handle future data demands. Peer-to-peer scales naturally: every site adds bandwidth and compute power, spreading the work across the network. This distributed approach ensures consistent performance, avoids bottlenecks, and provides a predictable growth path without the escalating expenses of scaling a single hub.
Myth 6: Large-scale data migration requires a central hub.
Reality: Hub-based migrations are notoriously slow, disruptive, and prone to downtime, especially when moving petabytes of unstructured data. The process often requires throttling users, shutting down systems, or accepting days of delays. IDC reported that Petabyte-scale migrations using hub-and-spoke can take weeks to months, while distributed parallel transfers can cut that to days. Peer-to-peer flips the model by enabling parallelized, high-speed migrations that maximize available resources across every site. Whether moving archives to cloud storage, seeding data into a new region, or performing a disaster recovery failover, peer-to-peer keeps migrations fast, efficient, and minimally disruptive.
The Bottom Line: Why Peer-to-Peer Wins for Unstructured Data
Unstructured data, the videos, images, models, and logs that power modern business, is too big, fast-growing, and widely distributed for outdated hub-and-spoke architectures.
Peer-to-peer sync unlocks:
- Faster data transfers for large and small files, with speed that increases as more endpoints are added
- Real-time global collaboration, even across high-latency networks and remote locations
- End-to-end secure file system synchronization with no central risk point
- Elastic scalability that grows with your data footprint for better data quality
- Resilience and offline access, ensuring work continues anywhere, anytime
- Cost-effective by leveraging existing infrastructure without surprise cloud egress fees or extra storage hardware
- Seamless cloud-based and on-premises use cases that optimize workflows
“Resilio was up and running in an hour and has been completely reliable ever since — syncing millions of files without issues. It lets us ‘set it and forget it,’ giving peace of mind and enabling growth no matter the network or acquisition.”
Frank Brants, Head of IT at Quatro Tax
For enterprises built on unstructured data, the old hub-and-spoke model is more than inefficient; it’s a liability. Peer-to-peer data synchronization delivers the speed, scale, and security that modern organizations demand. And as unstructured data continues to surge, the companies that adopt peer-to-peer today will be the ones that innovate faster, collaborate better, and stay ahead tomorrow.
Schedule a time to chat with our experts on how you can adopt peer-to-peer in your IT infrastructure.
