QNAP TS-451 Bay Trail NAS Performance Review
by Ganesh T S on July 28, 2014 9:00 AM ESTLinux Client Performance - CIFS and NFS
A CentOS 6.2 virtual machine was used to evaluate NFS and CIFS performance of the NAS when accessed from a Linux client. We chose IOZone as the benchmark for this case. In order to standardize the testing across multiple NAS units, we mount the CIFS and NFS shares during startup with the following /etc/fstab entries.
//<NAS_IP>/PATH_TO_SMB_SHARE /PATH_TO_LOCAL_MOUNT_FOLDER cifs rw,username=guest,password= 0 0
<NAS_IP>:/PATH_TO_NFS_SHARE /PATH_TO_LOCAL_MOUNT_FOLDER nfs rw,relatime,vers=3,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2, sec=sys,mountaddr <NAS_IP>,mountvers=3,mountproto=udp,local_lock=none,addr=<NAS_IP> 0 0
The following IOZone command was used to benchmark the CIFS share:
IOZone -aczR -g 2097152 -U /PATH_TO_LOCAL_CIFS_MOUNT -f /PATH_TO_LOCAL_CIFS_MOUNT/testfile -b <NAS_NAME>_CIFS_EXCEL_BIN.xls > <NAS_NAME>_CIFS_CSV.csv
IOZone provides benchmark numbers for a multitude of access scenarios with varying file sizes and record lengths. Some of these are very susceptible to caching effects on the client side. This is evident in some of the graphs in the gallery below.
Readers interested in the hard numbers can refer to the CSV program output here.
The NFS share was also benchmarked in a similar manner with the following command:
IOZone -aczR -g 2097152 -U /nfs_test_mount/ -f /nfs_test_mount/testfile -b <NAS_NAME>_NFS_EXCEL_BIN.xls > <NAS_NAME>_NFS_CSV.csv
The IOZone CSV output can be found here for those interested in the exact numbers.
A summary of the bandwidth numbers for various tests averaged across all file and record sizes is provided in the table below. As noted previously, some of these numbers are skewed by caching effects. A reference to the actual CSV outputs linked above make the entries affected by this effect obvious.
| QNAP TS-451 - Linux Client Performance (MBps) | ||
| IOZone Test | CIFS | NFS |
| Init Write | 67 | 69 |
| Re-Write | 69 | 74 |
| Read | 34 | 125 |
| Re-Read | 34 | 125 |
| Random Read | 21 | 62 |
| Random Write | 62 | 71 |
| Backward Read | 21 | 49 |
| Record Re-Write | 788* | 1317* |
| Stride Read | 32 | 106 |
| File Write | 68 | 79 |
| File Re-Write | 69 | 80 |
| File Read | 24 | 89 |
| File Re-Read | 24 | 92 |
| *: Number skewed by caching effect | ||
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DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
@Ganesh This question is asked in some form on almost every NAS review. Would you consider addressing it by adding a build vs buy page to the base review template?ganeshts - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Yes, that is a good idea. Let me add it to the template in the concluding remarks section.DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Thanks. Will it be showing up as an update to this review; or in the next one?ganeshts - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
I think you already have a great set of points above, maybe I will just reserve it for the next article :)DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Those were off the cuff and need some cleanup (if nothing else I switched wording halfway through) and the DIY section probably needs expanded; but feel free to use them as a starting point.zodiacsoulmate - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Ok I donno that cause in previous NAS review I didn't see anyone mentioning that, and this NAS is a little pricier than other ones...BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
if you are going to do that then you better cover the less linked type of base kitfor instance
http://www.xcase.co.uk/rackmount-server-systems/mi... 4 hot swap custom itx case for £118.80 Incl. VAT
just add a http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.as...
ASUS P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L Mini ITX Green and Space-Saving Server Board DDR3 1333/1600 ECC/Non-ECC UDIMM 4 x MiniSAS connector(Marvell 88SE9485 x 2)
(up to 16 SAS/SATA 6G HDD connections)
want to go larger then put that in something like the
http://www.xcase.co.uk/rackmount-cases/2u-rackmoun...
X-CASE RM 208 2U WITH 8 HOTSWAP BAYS AND RAILS £107.94 Incl. VAT
http://www.xcase.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache...
if you need more later then go for something like the X-CASE RM 212 PRO, 12 BAY HOTSWAP SERVER CASE £238.80 Incl. VAT
or even the more generic NORCO RPC-4224 4U Rackmount Server Case with 24 Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS Drive Bays £253
see ,it easy to build to a given price if you forget the toy dual core antiquated Marvell ARMADA™ 370 soc and you even get far more for less than this crazy £591.60 for an ugly looking steel box and generic single board computer without any hard drives installed...
BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
oc thats a mind bending 1004.77 US Dollar at current rateshttp://www.span.com/product/Qnap-Desktop-NAS-TS-45...
Qnap Desktop NAS TS-451 4-Bay, JBOD/RAID 0/1/5/6 , empty case for £591.60
OC you could always go the conservative view and still end up with a better data throughput
usng something like the GA-J1900N-D3V Built-in Intel® Celeron™ J1900 (2.0 GHz) quad-core processor and dual gigabit Ethernet ports and pci slot to ...£61.17
DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Honestly, the hardware you're suggesting looks like DIY enterprise architecture more than a typical DIY NAS build. AT does do an occasional article on big enterprise boxes; but 8+ bay boxes are only a very small portion of the NAS coverage here. If we do get a DIY NAS article I'd expect it to be done with inexpensive hardware and at most a 6 drive configuration in addition to a 4 drive one. The 4 drive config would IMO be mandatory for comparison purposes since most of the existing reviews are for systems with that config.BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
if its good enough for www.servethehome.com and http://forums.nas4free.org/http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/istarusa...
http://forums.nas4free.org/viewtopic.php?f=60&...
then its more than good enough for .anandtech to cover these options on a regular basis, after all readers want to know and be informed about the current options available to them, the options i mentioned above were based on the fact you can get HOTSWAP able hardware cases for far less then these ripoff consumer empty steel box's and SBC that cast them pennies on mass, and yet if you look you the enc consumer can actually find new and better kit such as the mentioned GA-J1900N-D3V Built-in Intel® Celeron™ J1900 (2.0 GHz) quad-core for far less to build than the lesser dual core Celeron™ J1800 that the qnap-ts451 uses....
if you dont need/want 4-in-1 Trayless Hot-swap Backplane then just use the available generic £25 pc box's etc.... OC the ASUS P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L Mini ITX gets a special mention as its an all in single board computer you the end consumer can get behind if you feel you will need/want tp add sas to sata cables and drives as you see fit over a longer time frame.....
a one off cost that's more expandable as you add data to your LAN devices etc....