And paying for it either in speed (spinning HDDs that can't keep up with high-bitrate RAW) or in cost (portable SSDs that run out of space after two projects). Professional editing workflows separate storage into three tiers based on how frequently data is accessed and how fast it needs to be: hot storage for active sequences, warm storage for current projects, and cold storage for the archive. Understanding these tiers. And how NVMe caching fits a NAS into a Mac editing workflow. Is what separates a setup that works from one that is always the bottleneck.
For a full overview covering hardware, setup, and workflow planning, see our complete NAS video editing guide.
In short: Hot storage is fast and small. For what you are actively cutting. Warm storage is moderately fast and larger. For current client projects. Cold storage is slow and large. For the archive. A NAS can house both HDD and NVMe storage, but whether SSD cache can serve as a hot editing tier depends on the NAS model, cache policy, project workload and connection bandwidth. The goal is to stop paying SSD prices for footage you haven't touched in six months.
Why Single-Tier Storage Fails at Scale
When you are starting out, one type of storage makes sense: a fast portable SSD for everything in progress, and cheap external HDDs for everything finished. This works until the footage volumes grow faster than the SSDs can hold, and the HDDs become too disorganised to navigate quickly.
The problem is not just speed. It is cost per TB and workflow friction. Current Australian pricing for 2TB portable SSDs varies materially by model, retailer and market conditions; check live prices before comparing storage costs. Australian pricing for 4TB NAS-grade HDDs varies by drive model and retailer; use current advertised prices when comparing cost per TB. Applying one across the board means either spending too much or tolerating too much lag. Professional studios solve this by using different storage technologies for different stages of a project's lifecycle. And a NAS makes this practical without requiring a dedicated IT setup.
The Three Storage Tiers. What Each One Does
The three tiers map directly to how footage moves through a production workflow:
Hot storage is where active editing happens. This needs to be fast. Fast enough to handle whatever codec you are cutting without dropping frames or causing lag. Required ProRes 422 HQ storage throughput depends on resolution, frame rate, stream count and overhead; a blanket 500 MB/s minimum is not justified. For H.264 or H.265, 100-200 MB/s is usually sufficient. Hot storage is typically NVMe SSD: the fastest available, the most expensive per TB, and intentionally small because only active sequences live here.
Warm storage is where live projects and current client work sits. Footage that is being accessed regularly but not necessarily being cut every hour. SATA SSD or high-performance HDD works here. Speeds of 100-400 MB/s are adequate for most workflows. This is the middle tier: large enough to hold several concurrent projects, fast enough to not be a bottleneck during active work.
Cold storage is the archive. Completed projects, raw footage that has been delivered, footage retained for contractual purposes. Speed here is almost irrelevant; capacity and cost per TB are what matter. NAS-grade spinning HDDs (IronWolf, WD Red Pro) in a RAID array are the standard solution. They are slow relative to SSDs, but accessing archived footage is a rare enough event that the speed penalty is acceptable.
How NVMe Caching Fits a NAS Into This Architecture
A traditional NAS is a cold and warm storage device. Spinning HDDs accessed over a network or Thunderbolt connection. The throughput limitation is real: NAS throughput varies with the enclosure, drive count, RAID layout, filesystem, protocol and connection; 7200rpm drives and a 10GbE or Thunderbolt link alone do not establish a 200-400 MB/s result., which is adequate for many 4K workflows but starts to strain under ProRes 4444 or high-bitrate RAW.
NVMe caching changes this by adding a fast SSD cache tier inside the NAS itself. SSD-cache behavior depends on the NAS operating system and selected cache mode; it generally caches blocks rather than whole files, and large sequential video I/O may be bypassed. So repeated reads hit SSD speeds rather than HDD speeds. A cached NAS can accelerate cache hits, but effective editing speed depends on cache mode and hit rate, the underlying array, protocol and link bandwidth; it should not be assumed to approach local NVMe performance.
QNAP supports NVMe caching on many of its units via M.2 NVMe slots built into the enclosure, including several Thunderbolt-equipped models designed for Mac-based creative workflows. The cache is transparent to the editing software. DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere Pro all interact with the NAS as normal storage; the caching layer operates below the filesystem. You set it up once and it works automatically.
A QNAP can host separate NVMe SSD and HDD volumes in one enclosure and expose them through 10GbE or Thunderbolt Networking; whether SSD cache alone is sufficient as the active-editing tier must be validated for the specific workload. For most solo editors and small studios, this eliminates the need for separate devices for each tier.
Proxy Workflows and NVMe Cache: The Connection Editors Miss
Many editors working with high-bitrate RAW formats (Blackmagic RAW, ARRI RAW, RED RAW) use proxy workflows. Lower-resolution versions of the footage for editing, with the full-resolution originals used only for final export. DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro all support proxy workflows natively.
NVMe cache on a NAS integrates cleanly with this workflow. Proxy data may benefit from SSD cache, but caching is not guaranteed merely because the files are accessed frequently; behavior depends on the NAS, cache policy and I/O pattern. The full-resolution originals sit on HDD storage in the same NAS, accessed only at export time. A NAS can combine proxy and original-media capacity, but proxy performance remains dependent on cache behavior, storage layout and connection bandwidth and should not be assumed to equal a local SSD. From the same device, without managing two separate storage systems.
This workflow is particularly well-matched. Whether BRAW can be edited from HDD RAID depends on resolution, frame rate, compression ratio, stream count and the measured array throughput; compression ratio alone is not sufficient to decide whether NVMe storage is needed.
Mapping the Tiers to Your Actual Workflow
A practical mapping for a Mac-based solo editor using a QNAP NAS with Thunderbolt and NVMe cache:
- Active timeline assets may benefit from NVMe cache, but cache residency and performance are not guaranteed; for predictable hot-tier performance, use a supported NVMe SSD volume and validate the end-to-end connection speed.
- Current projects (footage for jobs in production, current month): On the NAS HDD RAID, accessed over Thunderbolt. 200-400 MB/s is adequate for most 4K workflows; Whether H.264, H.265 or BRAW 12:1 edits comfortably depends on the exact recording mode, stream count, workstation decoding performance and measured storage throughput.
- Recent archive (last 12 months, occasionally accessed): On the NAS HDD RAID, accessed on demand. No speed requirement for archived review; capacity is the priority.
- Cold archive (older than 12 months, data retention obligations): On the NAS HDD RAID or offloaded to external drives stored offsite. For footage held purely for contractual retention with no expected client access, external HDDs as a cold tier are cost-effective.
As a studio grows to two or more editors with simultaneous network access, the 10GbE tier becomes relevant. Each editor accessing the NAS over a 10GbE switch rather than direct Thunderbolt. This is the point at which network infrastructure (a 10GbE switch, 10GbE NICs in editing workstations) becomes part of the budget. For sizing help on drives and capacity, the storage capacity planning guide covers codec-by-codec requirements.
AU note on cloud cold storage: US-based NAS content frequently recommends cloud services (AWS S3, Backblaze B2) as the cold storage tier. On Australian NBN connections, upload speed varies materially by plan and access technology, restoring 4TB can take many hours or days depending on download speed, provider throughput and transfer overhead. Cloud cold storage is viable as an offsite backup copy. Not as a working retrieval tier. Plan your cold storage architecture accordingly.
Related reading: our NAS buyer's guide.
For a complete hardware and software overview of NAS for video editing in Australia, see our NAS for Video Editors guide.
Our File Transfer Speed Estimator calculates LAN throughput for moving video projects between hot and cold storage, and our RAID Calculator shows usable capacity for each tier's drive configuration.
Use our free NAS Sizing Wizard to get a personalised NAS recommendation.
See also: our complete QNAP NAS Australia guide.
Do I need all three storage tiers, or can I get by with one?
You can get by with one tier, and most editors do until the limitations become painful. A single tier of NAS HDD RAID works for H.264 and H.265 workflows at 4K and below. Whether an HDD RAID struggles depends on drive count, RAID level, NAS configuration, connection speed, codec data rate and stream count; there is no universal 300-400 MB/s ceiling. If you are cutting ProRes 422 HQ or BRAW 3:1 directly on a HDD RAID NAS and experiencing dropped frames or sluggish scrubbing, adding NVMe cache or moving active sequences to a local SSD is the solution. A single NAS can contain both NVMe and HDD storage, but whether cache alone covers active, current and archive workloads must be assessed from the codec, stream count, cache policy and measured end-to-end performance.
What is NVMe caching and do I actually need it for video editing?
NVMe caching uses an NVMe SSD installed in the NAS to store frequently accessed data at SSD speeds. When you read the same files repeatedly. As you do during an edit. The NAS serves them from the NVMe cache rather than the slower HDD RAID. Whether you need it depends on your format: H.264, H.265, and BRAW at compressed ratios generally edit fine from HDD RAID via Thunderbolt or 10GbE. NVMe cache may help some editing workloads, but the benefit depends on cache mode, I/O pattern, cache hit rate and connection bandwidth; a dedicated SSD volume provides more predictable performance. QNAP's Thunderbolt-equipped units support M.2 NVMe cache drives; check the specific model's specification for cache bay count and supported SSD types.
How do I decide which files go in hot versus cold storage?
With NVMe caching, you generally do not need to decide manually. The cache tier is managed automatically by the NAS based on access frequency. If you are managing tiers manually (local SSD for hot, NAS for cold), the practical rule is: anything you are actively cutting this week lives on the fastest available storage; anything you have delivered and are done with moves to cold storage. Most editors find a monthly or project-completion workflow rhythm works well: close a project, archive footage to cold storage, clear the hot tier for the next job.
Can I use cloud storage as my cold storage tier in Australia?
As a backup copy. Yes. As a working retrieval tier. No, not practically on Australian NBN connections. Uploading 4TB at a sustained 17-20 Mbps takes roughly three weeks before protocol overhead. Restore time depends on download speed, cloud-provider throughput and transfer overhead and should not be assumed to match upload time. Cloud cold storage works well as the offsite copy in a 3-2-1 strategy (three copies, two media types, one offsite), but if you need to retrieve archived footage for a client request, you need a local copy. For most AU editors, cold storage means HDD RAID on a NAS or external drives stored offsite. Not cloud-primary.
Does Synology support NVMe caching the same way QNAP does?
Synology supports NVMe SSD caching on many of its units, and the cache mechanism works similarly. The key difference for Mac-based creative workflows is Thunderbolt: QNAP offers Thunderbolt Networking on select models for a direct peer-to-peer IP connection; actual speed depends on the NAS storage, protocol and host configuration and should not be assumed to match a local SSD. Synology does not support Thunderbolt, which means network (10GbE or 2.5GbE) is the only connection option. For editors who need direct-attach Thunderbolt speeds for high-bitrate RAW workflows, QNAP is the relevant brand. Synology supports NVMe caching on compatible models, but its cache behavior and benefits for sequential video workloads depend on DSM settings and should not be treated as identical to QNAP's implementation.
How does a proxy workflow interact with NAS storage tiers?
In a proxy workflow, you edit using small, compressed proxy files generated from your originals. DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro all support this natively. Proxy media may benefit from NVMe cache, but cache residency is not automatic or guaranteed, and editing applications may access full-resolution originals before export depending on the workflow. This can improve proxy performance while retaining HDD capacity, but actual speed depends on cache behavior, NAS configuration and connection bandwidth. The best of both tiers without a manual file management workflow.
Working out how much NAS storage your footage actually needs. By codec, hours per week, and retention period? The storage capacity planning guide covers exactly this.