Netgear ReadyNAS Duo Review - Performance

It doesn't matter if the ReadyNAS has a beautiful administrative interface, and supports every computer built since the IT Pliocene era (1995), if it's too slow to be useful. No-one really wants to wait for half an hour to copy a movie to their brand new network disk, when it takes 2 minutes to a disk inside their PC.

So how well does the ReadyNAS perform?

The tests use the following two data sets:

Small Files:

• 2144 files, in
• 311 directories, totalling
• 136,417,700 bytes (130.10 MB)

Large Files:

• 27 files, in
• 17 directories, totalling
• 783,609,012 bytes (747.30 MB)

The test client was configured as follows:

• Acer R510 Server (Intel 7320 Chipset)
• 2GB DDR-333 ECC RAM (2 x 1GB dual channel)
• 3.0GHz/800MHz Intel Xeon
• HighPoint RocketRAID 2210 PCI-X card in 64 bit, 133MHz slot
• 3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB drives in RAID 5
• Intel Pro/1000 MT Network Connection
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64

To understand whether the server itself would be a limit, the dataset was copied from one directory on the server to another on the same disk (a stress test). On the small file set the server averaged 26,930,343 bytes per second, or 1541.0 MB per minute. On the large file set, the server was faster at 64,884,409 bytes per second, or 3712.7 MB per minute.

All tests were conducted five times and the average taken after discarding any results that were obviously different from the rest. Tests using FTP were slower than Windows file/print sharing and thus the Windows results are shown here.

First the results with the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo configured with the single Seagate disk:

Stress Test

The same tests were then repeated after adding a Samsung HD502IJ 7200rpm disk so that the data on the NAS was protected using RAID 1. The tests were not conducted until after the device had reported that the synchronisation of the data was completed. Interestingly the NAS reported speeds of nearly 50MB per second (3000 MB per minute) while creating the mirror, about 4 times the best write performance seen over the network with a single disk.

Stress Test

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo comes with a single DDR-333 SO-DIMM, the same as used in many notebooks from a couple of years ago. A memory upgrade from 256MB to 1GB comes in at just $70 - so if it improves performance it's probably worth it. The tests on the mirrored disks are thus repeated with the memory upgraded from 256MB to 1GB:

Stress Test

Performance Graph

For ease of viewing this graph uses MB per minute as the horizontal axis:

The results of the performance testing are disappointing, to say the least. So strange were these last results, in fact, that I ran and re-ran the performance tests (especially those with the expanded memory) dozens of times instead of the usual 5. What I found was that despite being well optimised for disk activity (witness the 50MB per second at which the NAS rebuilds a disk), the embedded CPU is simply not powerful enough to run the disk and the network at full speed. In fact, while copying files to and from the NAS, the embedded CPU would often be running at 100%, and yet at other times would be idling while the test PCs were waiting for data.

• Add New

Comments (3)

• |123.211.45.xxx |2009-05-03 10:12:16 Goosefeather  - DNR2000 Installation
  I installed one of these bare bones systems yesterday. As the disk I bought required the Radiator 4.1.5 firmware upgrade (according to Netgear's approved hardware list), I was reticent to install disks before doing so.
  Unfortunately, with no disks on board the system does not initialise/get an IP address as per the documentation.
  After a 56 min call to support (lucky it was 1-300 as it was diverted to the US over our weekend), eventually got tech's advice to load a disk. Once disk on board, it booted up OK
  • 1
  • 1

  ReplyQuote

• |80.3.187.xxx |2009-05-04 21:20:05 tokaboy  - Readynas Duo performance figures
  Youre performance tests are wrong pal.
  No other eeview in the world complained about the Duuo's perfomance and it regularly sits in the top section of testing charts.
  SmallNetBuilder mentioned "excellent performance" in their review.....
  http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30462/75/
  • 0
  • 1

  ReplyQuote

• |150.101.192.xxx |2009-05-14 22:37:13 David Rawling  - Author
  Thanks for taking the time to comment.
  
  The graphs provided by SmallNetBuilder on page 7 of their review show almost identical performance to our tests - over 1000 Mbps Ethernet, the Duo topped out at 30 MBps reads and 15 MBps writes on both reviews, and I think this shows consistent results.
  
  We focus on repeatable results - we use the same tests with the same data sets on multiple devices (servers, virtual machines, other NAS and even PCs) and the results are repeatable and consistent, and we publish the highest results we achieve.
  
  Happy to discuss by email - djr (AT) pdconsec.net.
  
  Dave.
  • 1
  • 1

  ReplyQuote

Comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: Disable Email NotificationEnable Email Notification

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2