Sure.... transcode before you bring into the editor and then youre files are 150 times the size that they need to be for editing. Having filled up about 5 dfferent 4tb drives even after media manager, I'm done with that. How does a 64gb memory card filled turn into 450 gb when logged and transferred? It's too much.
NAS is related to distributed processing because you can't simply expect your Mac's to efficiently access a drive simply because it's shared.
For example, I have a 12tb G-Speed drive... the fastest connection I can provide to that drive is a Firewire 800 from my MacPro. That means that everyone is limited to that connection speed, as opposed to having the ability to connect directly to the data with a 1gb ethernet connection... wayyyyyyyyyy faster. That's multiple computers with a dedicated lighning fast connection, instead of everyone sharing one single moderate connection.
Additionally, if my editor is working and I restart my computer with the shared drive... media disconnect for him. I'm essentially tied to his activities. Beyond that, even if we share a project, you have to reconnect media from every computer you use because the path of referenced media is changed... instead of:
/gspeed/media being the source for media (if I saved it on my home computer), everyone needs to reconnect to:
macpro/shared/gspeed/media... this is a huge headache when multiple people are working on projects.
The NAS drive allows the absolute fastest, uninterruptable connection to data... my transcoding time has been cut down to about a FIFTH of what it was. You can do this through a normal shared folder, but depending on the hardware involved in your network, you might find yourself incredibly limited.