Upgrading Our Video Editing Suite With the Kingston DC3000ME 3.8TB U.2 SSDs

Peter Donnell May 11, 2026Last Updated: May 11, 2026

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When it comes to content creation, data management is king. While for many creators, shooting on your phone, editing in TikTok, and uploading straight to the internet may be all you need, our workflow here at eTeknix is far from that simple. Typically, in the studio we’re shooting at 12K resolution, using the latest BlackMagic cameras. Our workflow involves having multiple editing computers for video editing, audio mixing, colour and graphical workflows. This means we can have staff members that need to work around the office, and sometimes even remotely. Not to mention when we’re shooting on phones, or something like the DJI Osmo Pocket 4 for events, then uploading data to the cloud. Regardless of what we’re doing, it usually boils down to moving many gigabytes of data on a daily basis and having that data available to multiple systems and computers… It’s a hassle, but one that any production team and editing suite has to deal with on a daily basis.

So what’s the ideal solution? Instead of relying things like card readers and external SSDs to offload the data to one computer at a time, or in some cases, any number of cloud storage solutions, as there’s plenty to pick from. How about creating your own network storage solution that is accessible to the camera equipment, the editing computers, and if needs be, remote users? Well, that’s what we’re doing right now!

Using the latest Kingston DC3000ME PCIe 5.0 NVMe U.2 SSDs from Kingston, we’re able to build a NAS solution that not only maxes out what today’s NAS hardware is capable of, but also build in a level of future proofing that any tech enthusiast would desire. This is made possible by the latest TS-h1290FX from the network storage masters at QNAP.

The DC3000ME drives are no joke, featuring data center technology, they come equipped with the latest high-speed PCIe 5.0 NVMe interface and utilise 3D eTLC NAND for flagship performance in 2026. They’re built to handle extreme workflows such as AI, HPC, OLTP, databases, cloud infrastructure, so dealing with our video editing suite should be the SSD equivalent of a holiday. That being said, having their massive I/O capabilities and low-latency performance is king, especially when you want to edit video and have a smooth and consistent workflow and access time, even more so with multiple users using the same files simultaneously. Plus, the DC3000ME are available in 3.84TB, 7.68TB, 15.36TB and 30.72TB capacities, so there’s something here to suit any workflow, although we’ll be making do with a couple of the 3.84TB drives ourselves for today’s testing.

Kingston DC3000ME Key Features

Enterprise PCIe 5.0 Performance: Utilizes a high-speed NVMe Gen 5 x4 interface to deliver sustained speeds of up to 14,000MB/s read and 2,800,000 read IOPS for consistent I/O delivery.
Optimal Storage and Efficiency: High-capacity options ranging from 3.84TB up to 30.72TB, specifically optimized for AI, HPC, cloud infrastructure, and software-defined storage.
On-board Power Loss Protection (PLP): Features hardware-based power caps to safeguard data and prevent corruption during ungraceful power failures or sudden outages.
Advanced Data Security: Secure sensitive enterprise information with AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption and TCG Opal 2.0 management support.
Data Center Reliability: Designed for 24/7 server workloads with 1 Drive Write Per Day (DWPD) endurance over five years and a 2-million-hour MTBF.
Enterprise Diagnostics: Supports comprehensive telemetry monitoring, media wear tracking, and temperature health reporting to ensure system stability.

As for the TS-h1290FX, this is one of the more affordable U.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4/SATA SSD NAS solutions at the moment. Yes, we do mean Gen4, despite having Gen5 drives, it’s just kind of where the market is right now. Kingston didn’t make a Gen4 version of the DC3000ME, and there’s no realistic Gen5 NAS solution on the market that makes sense for the consumer or the professional market in terms of scale and cost. But what you do get here is an all-flash NAS, and depending on your RAID configuration, speed most certainly isn’t going to be an issue; and still leagues ahead of traditional HDD equipped NAS solutions, of course. While it comes with an AMD EPYC 16 core 7302P/8 core 7232P processor and built-in 25GbE connectivity, we’ll be using an add-in 10GbE network card, as that’s more compatible with our own office network, but also still offers more than enough headroom to max out what these drives can do on a Gen4 interface.

TS-h1290FX Key Features

25GbE Connectivity: Accelerate file access and sharing with two built-in 25GbE SFP28 ports and two 2.5GbE RJ45 ports.
Four PCIe Gen 4 Slots: Install network cards, graphics cards, and other PCIe Gen 4 cards to boost application performance and system functionality.
Data Integrity: QuTS hero’s self-healing ensures data integrity and reliability. Write Once, Read Many (WORM) is also supported.
Optimized SSD Performance: Maximize SSD performance and lifespan with inline data deduplication, compression, Pool Over-provisioning, and TRIM.
Easy Expansion: The scalable design allows for growth by connecting TR-002, TR-004, TL-D800C, or TL-D800S enclosures to reach petabyte-scale storage.
Supercharged Graphics: Supports NVIDIA® graphics cards for high-end video processing or GPU-passthrough to virtual machines.