10GbE Shared Storage & NAS Networks for Video Editing

1. The 1GbE Bottleneck vs. 10GbE Bandwidth

Standard enterprise office networks run on 1-Gigabit Ethernet (1GbE). The maximum theoretical throughput of a 1GbE connection is 125 Megabytes per second (MB/s), with real-world sustained speeds hovering around 100 to 110 MB/s. While sufficient for office documents and web browsing, 110 MB/s cannot sustain multi-stream 4K ProRes 422 HQ (about 88 to 111 MB/s per UHD stream at 24 to 30 fps, by Apple's figures) or high-framerate RAW editing.

A 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) network increases throughput tenfold, delivering up to 1,150 to 1,200 MB/s of sustained read/write bandwidth to every connected edit suite. At 1,150 MB/s, an editor can scrub 8K REDCODE RAW, edit 10-camera multicam sequences in real time, and render VFX composites without copying files to local internal storage.

2. Physical Networking: SFP+ vs. 10GBASE-T Copper

Post-production facilities deploy two primary 10GbE physical cabling standards:

• SFP+ (Direct Attach Copper & Optical Fiber): SFP+ uses modular transceiver cages. Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cables are thick twinax cables with integrated transceiver heads, suited to short rack distances. Cisco sells passive DAC in lengths of 1 to 5 meters, rated at 0.1 W, and active DAC at 7 and 10 meters, rated at 1 W. For longer runs between machine rooms and edit bays, multi-mode fiber with 10GBASE-SR modules (1 W each) reaches 300 meters on OM3 and 400 meters on OM4.
• 10GBASE-T (RJ45 Cat6a / Cat7 Copper): Uses standard modular RJ45 patch cables. Intel and Lenovo list unshielded Category 6a or Category 7 for runs up to 100 meters on Intel's X550 adapters, and Category 6 for up to 55 meters. While convenient for building installations, 10GBASE-T draws far more power than SFP+. Cisco rates its 10GBASE-T SFP+ module at 2.5 W and up to 30 meters, and Lenovo gives 11.2 W typical for Intel's dual-port X550 card as a whole.

To reduce network latency and packet fragmentation, configure Jumbo Frames (MTU 9000) across all network switches, NAS network interface cards (NICs), and client editing workstations.

3. Storage Topology: RAID 6, RAID 10 & ZFS Pools

A single enterprise mechanical spinning hard drive (7200 RPM SATA/SAS) reads data at up to roughly 215 to 285 MB/s on its outer tracks, by Seagate's figures for its Exos drives, and slower toward the inner tracks. To saturate a 10GbE network pipeline and support multiple concurrent editors, drives must be configured into an engineered storage pool:

An NVMe SSD cache can help with small file operations, but on ZFS the two cache roles are narrower than they sound. A separate log device (SLOG) only speeds up synchronous writes, the ones an application asks to be on stable storage before it carries on. A cache device (L2ARC) only speeds up reads, most of all random reads of content that does not change. Neither speeds up ordinary asynchronous saves.

4. Protocol Performance: SMB v3 vs. NFS for macOS & Windows

Selecting the right network file sharing protocol determines whether video editing feels snappy or sluggish:

• SMB 3.1.1 (Server Message Block): The modern standard for mixed macOS and Windows editing environments. With SMB Signing disabled on isolated private networks and SMB Multichannel enabled, SMB saturates dual 10GbE connections efficiently. On macOS clients, configure /etc/nsmb.conf to disable packet signing and prevent Finder directory enumeration stalls.
• NFS v4 (Network File System): Highly efficient protocol with lower CPU overhead than SMB, widely used in Linux-based VFX and render farm clusters.

5. Collaborative Multi-Editor Project Locking Workflows

Shared storage solves file access, but editing the exact same project file simultaneously requires project locking architecture:

• Adobe Premiere Productions: Replaces giant monolithic .prproj master files with a modular production folder structure. Each scene, reel, or bin is its own lightweight project file. When Editor A opens "Reel 1", Premiere locks that project with a read-only badge for Editor B, allowing both editors to work simultaneously without overwriting timelines.
• DaVinci Resolve Project Server (PostgreSQL): Uses an enterprise PostgreSQL database hosted on the NAS or a central server. Multiple colorists, sound designers, and assistant editors can work inside the identical timeline simultaneously with live bin locking and instant change notifications.

Checked: the link speeds, jumbo frames, and what a ProRes stream costs

We checked section 1's figures on 2026-09-30. The link rows are arithmetic from Ethernet, IP and TCP header sizes. The stream rate was measured with FFmpeg 8.1.2's prores_ks encoder, in the HQ profile, on a 3840 by 2160 test pattern with noise at 29.97 frames per second, from the file size. No network, NAS or disk was involved, and other content gives other ProRes rates.

The link figures are consistent. A 1GbE link carries 125 MB/s on the wire, and after Ethernet, IP and TCP headers, with TCP timestamps, a single stream can deliver at most 117.7 MB/s at the standard MTU, so the page's "100 to 110" sustained figure is what is left after protocol and file sharing costs. 10GbE tops out at 1177 MB/s at that MTU, inside the page's 1,150 to 1,200 range, and the top of that range is a little above what headers allow, so it is a best case. Jumbo frames raise the ceiling to 1238 MB/s, 5 percent more, mainly by cutting per-packet overhead, a real gain and a small one. The page says jumbo frames reduce "latency and packet fragmentation", which was not tested.

The ProRes figure depends on the picture. FFmpeg's HQ profile wrote a clean UHD test pattern at 33 MB/s and the same pattern with added noise at 115 MB/s, against the page's roughly 92. So the page's number sits inside what one encoder produced for different content, and a real project can be above or below it. On the page's 92 MB/s a 1GbE link carries 1.3 streams and a 10GbE link about 13, and at 115 MB/s about 10, before any file sharing overhead. The page used to give about 92 MB/s per stream, which is Apple's figure for UHD at 25 fps, and now gives Apple's 88 to 111 MB/s for 24 to 30 fps. Its disk, cable length and power figures are not part of this check. They were checked against the documents under Sources on 2026-10-05 and 2026-10-06 and corrected.

Reference. Header arithmetic, and a ProRes rate measured 2026-09-30 with FFmpeg 8.1.2 on a synthetic UHD pattern. Real transfers add SMB, encryption and disk costs. No network, NAS, RAID or cable was tested.

Working Vocabulary

Key post-production storage and networking terms introduced in this guide:

• Network Attached Storage (NAS). A dedicated file-level storage server connected to a local area network, providing shared data access to heterogeneous clients.
• 10GBASE-T. The standard for delivering 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections over twisted-pair copper cables using standard RJ45 connectors up to 100 meters.
• SFP+ (Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus). A modular optical/copper transceiver standard used for high-speed 10GbE and 25GbE data center interconnects.
• Jumbo Frames (MTU 9000). Network Ethernet frames with a payload size of 9,000 bytes (compared to standard 1,500 bytes), reducing CPU load and packet overhead during high-bandwidth media transfers.
• RAID 6. A disk array configuration with block-level striping and two distributed parity blocks, capable of withstanding two simultaneous drive failures.
• Premiere Productions. Adobe's multi-project management framework that enables bin locking, shared metadata, and collaborative timeline editing across shared storage.

Sources

Read 5 and 6 October 2026. The Cisco, Intel and Lenovo pages and the OpenZFS manual were read on 6 October in a browser or directly, the rest on 5 October. Not checked: the SMB and NFS section, Premiere Productions and the Resolve Project Server, and the 8K REDCODE RAW example.

• Apple ProRes White Paper (April 2022). Target data rates for ProRes 422 HQ at 3840 x 2160: 707 Mb/s (88 MB/s) at 24p, 737 (92 MB/s) at 25p and 884 (111 MB/s) at 30p.
• Cisco 10GBASE SFP+ Modules Data Sheet (updated 1 July 2026). 10GBASE-SR reaches 300 meters on OM3 and 400 meters on OM4. Passive twinax comes in 1 to 5 meters at 0.1 W and active twinax in 7 and 10 meters, the SR module is rated at 1 W, and the 10GBASE-T module at 2.5 W over up to 30 meters of Cat 6A or Cat 7.
• Intel Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X550-T2, specifications. Cabling: RJ45 Category 6 up to 55 m, Category 6A up to 100 m.
• Lenovo Press, Intel X550 10 Gb Ethernet 10GBASE-T Adapters (LP0097, updated 10 October 2024). 10GBASE-T over UTP Category 7 or 6a to 100 m and Category 6 to 55 m, and power for the card of 11.2 W typical and 13.0 W maximum.
• Seagate Exos 7E10 data sheet (DS1957-6M-2104US) and the current Exos portfolio data sheet (DS2046.1-2512). Maximum sustained transfer rate at the outer diameter: 215 to 263 MB/s for the 7E10 and 240 to 285 MB/s for 16 to 32 TB Exos drives. Inner tracks are slower, and no figure is given for them.
• OpenZFS, zpoolconcepts(7). Raidz is a distributed parity layout, and raidz2 survives two device failures. The intent log serves synchronous transactions, and cache devices help most with random reads of mostly static content.

Further Reading

• Storage Offload & Transfer Time Estimator
• DaVinci Resolve Node Tree Architecture & Color Workflows
• Blender 3D Camera Tracking & Live-Action VFX Pipeline
• The Visual Cinema Masterclass: Full Syllabus