Test Methodology & Setup
Most of the hardware for NAS testing isn’t an important factor when it comes to benchmarks, most of it comes down to the network infrastructure. I am using 10 GBASE equipment which means that I should max out any Gigabit ethernet connections with ease and I got a second port to aggregate with, in case one isn’t enough. The benchmarks will be performed through a 10GBASE managed switch which should give us some great benchmark results.
As part of the testing, the NAS is connected through a D-Link DXS-1210-12TC managed 10GBase switch and then to our test bench to give the best real world setup test that we can and the NAS itself is packed with Western Digital’s 6TB RED NAS drives. Intel’s NASPT software does require us to drop the memory down to 2GB, as using any more would lead to data caching and skew the results.
I will be testing the NAS box performance under each of the RAID options that it has available as well just a single drive. Full volume encryption and shared folder encryption will also be tested whenever possible, to check what impact it has on the performance. Other tests include file format comparisons and iSCSI connections over shared folders. Each of these tests runs five times after which the best of the five results in each category is selected for use in the charts.
Test system:
- Supermicro C7Z97-OCE
- Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3
- Exceleram EP3001A 2GB PC3-10666
- Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
- Sapphire R7 240 2GB
- be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
- Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer C
- Lian Li PC-T60
- Windows 10 Pro
Disks in Product:
Network Setup:
We would like to thank our sponsors for supplying us with the components needed for the test system as well as drives.
Software used:
With a device of this sort having so many different applications, Intel’s NASPT software covers all the bases and also gives us a set of results that we will be able to utilise and compare those against other similar systems.
Intel NASPT (Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit) performs its test by transferring varying sizes and quantities of data to and from the device based on twelve different scenarios.
Was there any testing or investigating into what the 2.5 hard drive connector in the top of the unit can be used for?
I bought one of this for half price on the chance the 5th drive connector was usable: and it is! You can use it as a boot drive or a cache drive or for a parity check drive. You can also flash the in-built MMC drive with a different OS. If you buy one I strongly suggest doing so, as the OS from Thecus is an ancient bug-ridden under-developed barely-supported mess. No, really, the version in the box is Fedora 12, and there’s an upgrade to effectively Fedora 16. I recommend using OpenMediaVault instead.
Thanks for the confirmation that the 5th SATA part indeed is fully working.
Is it possible to use the display and the buttons with an alternative linux distibution like debian? Is it possible too, to control the fan (with fancontrol package)?
Thx
John,
I’m on my 3rd thecus NAS. The first was a W5810(windows storage server) which I could not get to work correctly; got an RMA then resold. the second was/is the N4810; same as before, it did not work correctly, got an RMA, but was not able to secure a reasonable (?) resale price. So, I’m keeping it.
Regarding the 5th drive, I was not able to access a connected drive installed in my initial N4810. Tech USA told me that that drive was not powered by the backplane since the 2 on-board SATA chips only supported two HDs each (only 4 of the 5 slots on the backplane -the ones directly accessable from the front bays). their info was that the 5th could be used only if powered by a separate Sata controller that connects to the DOM (MMC drive?).
So, my question(s) to you:
– how are you powering that drive (I guess as your new boot)
– where is the DOM (under the HD cage?) and is that the alternative power source for the 5th drive, and
– if you flash the DOM for another OS, is there any other way to power the 5th drive or force it to be read by the system?
Sorry to be so long, but still looking to see how best to use this machine. I agree with you in respect to it being under-developed.
Is it possible to use the display and the buttons with an alternative linux distibution like debian? Is it possible too, to control the fan (with fancontrol package)?
Thx
Hello,
I have the same questions to John like Thomas.
I am very interested in this NAS and would like to use the 5th SATA connector for a system SSD to boot a debian or ubuntu server linux.