the bottom line here is - the more disks you have, the faster the system will go. So if you are doing 4K video, you need a certain speed of all of these disks working together, to achieve these speeds. You cannot get 1000 MB/sec using 4 SATA drives. Add more drives, get more speed. Caching will not help you, and more RAM will not help you. And once you start adding additional users (more client computers) - the bandwidth requirements will increase. So with an 8 drive NAS, you can have 3 - 4 people working at full res video, but now, if you connect 5 - 6 people, and they are not using low res proxy media - then you will start to see stuttering playback, and slow performance. SO - how do you solve this problem ? You add more drives - you buy a bigger QNAP. So for 5 - 6 users, you use a 12 drive system. What if you have 8 - 10 users ? Now you need an enterprise NAS with 16 drives. What if you have 16 - 18 users - now you need a 24 drive NAS. What if you have 30 editors ? Unless you are using proxy media, you cannot have 30 editors on a single NAS - even if it is a 24 bay QNAP NAS. You now need MULTIPLE NAS SERVERS to split up the load. So one TV episode or commercial or film would be done on one server, and the other TV episode would be on another server. And you have a big 10G switch system that would allow multiple QNAP’s and 30 people to connect to anything they want.
The same applies to multi clip or multi cam editing. Even if you are a single user, if you have a shoot that has 10 cameras (like a sporting event, or a parade) - that is 10 streams of FULL RES VIDEO - and you are now pushing the limits of what a single 8 drive NAS can do. So you create low res proxy media, cut your multi camera job with the proxy footage, and now conform the show back to the full res media with a single stream of video.
This is a typical workflow for Davinci Resolve, or Adobe Premiere, or AVID Media Composer. Davinci Resolve now gives you a proxy generator for FREE, because this is a critical, and very common workflow.
I do not know what your business is - but doing professional video for TV shows and movies, is very different than doing wedding videos, and music videos for your friends bands. Doing professional video editing on a NAS has very demanding requirements, and requires professional high end equipment. It’s like saying “I want to cut this video in 4K, or 8K, but I cannot afford a 10G card in my computer or in my NAS” - well, then you CANNOT WORK in 4K or 8K with your equipment.
Bob Zelin