Challenge
Rapidly growing data stored on multiple storage devices was causing version control issues and inefficiencies.
Solution
A new QNAP NAS storage system was installed, featuring Western Digital WD Red® Pro 24TB¹ hard drives to provide a centralized storage system with sharable capacity.
Key Results
- Unified storage infrastructure with the capacity to handle exponential data growth.
- Sharable data that streamlined collaboration and increased efficiency, enabling projects to be completed faster and with less stress.
- Flexibility to easily upgrade to higher capacity and/or more performance in the future by simply upgrading to higher-capacity HDDs.
Visual Engineering Creates Exploding Cheeseburgers
Visual engineering marries creativity, photography, cinematography, and cutting-edge technology to produce breathtaking imagery—from deconstructed doughnuts to exploding cheeseburgers. One of the world's foremost visual engineering firms pushes the boundaries of CGI and VFX for film, advertising, and digital media. Yet despite their talent and advanced tools, they faced a familiar blocker: runaway data.
Growing Success Led to Growing Data and New Challenges
With each new mind-blowing imagery created, the company's reputation grew, as did demand for their services. As the business expanded, they encountered a challenge they didn't know how to solve: too much data spread out on too many devices located in too many different places. Footage, assets, renders, and audio files were scattered across dozens of USB drives and external HDDs. It was common to have project components stored on more than a dozen different hard drives. Teams frequently moved drives between editing suites, sound studios, and color-grading bays. This was an extremely inefficient storage method, leading to version control issues, preventing simultaneous access to data, and increasing the risk of lost or corrupted files.
Sneakernet is Not an Advanced Technology
For a company that prided itself on leveraging the most advanced technologies to solve complex visual engineering problems, it was ironic and impractical that their primary method for moving and sharing data was "sneakernet"—physically transferring data via USB flash drives or external hard drives between computers.
The Solution: Centralized QNAP NAS and WD Red Pro
Partnering with Western Digital, the company transitioned to a centralized data storage architecture featuring these core components:
- QNAP TVS-h1688X NAS storage system: A 12-bay chassis capable of housing up to 288 TB raw capacity, equipped with two QXP-T32P expansion cards installed in the PCIe Gen 3 x4 slots to provide quad-port Thunderbolt™ 3 connectivity.
- QXP-T32P Thunderbolt™ 3 Expansion Cards: Four Thunderbolt ports connected four Thunderbolt-equipped high-performance workstations, enabling greater teamwork efficiency in 4K editing, rendering, and data sharing.
- WD Red® Pro 24TB HDDs: Enterprise-grade hard disk drives engineered for 24×7, multi-user NAS workloads. These drives delivered a unified storage pool, high throughput for simultaneous users, and ample headroom for future growth.
WD Red Pro Drives Engineered for Powerful NAS Performance and Capacity
Western Digital WD Red® Pro drives were engineered to handle high-intensity workloads in 24×7 multi-user NAS environments. The WD Red Pro drives provided the performance, scalability, and dependability the visual engineers required to store, share, and collaborate on the large volumes of data generated by their computer-generated imagery and visual effects.
Results: Efficiency, Collaboration, Scalability Streamlined Video Production
Since deployment, the studio has realized dramatic improvements in workflow efficiency:
- Faster Turnarounds: Editors and VFX artists access source files instantly, slashing project handoff times.
- Streamlined Collaboration: Multiple teams work concurrently on the same project data without conflict.
- Simplified Management: Centralized snapshots and RAID monitoring replace manual backups and drive swaps.
This approach also provided the flexibility to easily increase capacity in the future by upgrading to larger Western Digital HDDs or adding an extension box. Most importantly, this solution enabled the team to focus on what mattered most: creativity.
"Having source files in one reliable and centralized NAS system makes production tasks faster and easier than ever imagined."
Leveraging Innovations in Cinematography and Data Storage
Visual engineering relies on innovations in high-speed cameras, drones, specialized rigging, lighting, and editing software to enable filmmakers to create more dynamic and visually compelling content. In essence, visual engineering is about using technologies and techniques to solve problems.
Similarly, Western Digital, a pioneer in the HDD industry, continues to push the limits of density and capacity with innovations such as HelioSeal®, Triple Stage Actuator, ePMR, OptiNAND™, UltraSMR, and 11-disk technologies. These advancements enable Western Digital to meet customer needs with the highest-capacity readily-available HDDs on the market today.
Product Image Description
A Western Digital WD Red Pro 3.5-inch NAS HDD with 26TB capacity, featuring OptiNAND technology.
Background Image Description
A rack of professional video production equipment, suggesting a high-tech creative environment.
Contact and Further Information
Ready to Learn More? Storage specialists are available to help find the right solution to solve your data challenges.
Western Digital
5601 Great Oaks Parkway
San Jose, CA 95119, USA
www.westerndigital.com
Footnotes
¹ One TB equals 1,000GB (one trillion bytes). Actual user capacity may be less due to operating environment.
² Based on internal testing; performance may vary depending on host environment, drive capacity, logical block address (LBA), and other factors. The location of the max rate is at approximately 10% into the capacity of the HDD. One MB equals 1,000,000 bytes.
Legal and Trademark Information
Western Digital, the Western Digital design, the Western Digital logo, HelioSeal, OptiNAND, and WD Red are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. QNAP is a registered trademark of QNAP® Systems, Inc. and its affiliates in the USA, Taiwan (R.O.C.) and/or other countries. Thunderbolt is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. References in this publication to Western Digital products, programs, or services do not imply that they will be made available in all countries. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. August 2025.
