Thecus N2560 File Transfer Performance Report

Thecus N2560 is the first Intel Atom SoC CE5335 I have test. Although Atom D2701-based NAS may expand to 3GB RAM, they always come with only 1GB while N2560 provides non-expandable 2GB build-in. It should be enough for me and also saves my time looking for compatible RAM.

On my last post Thecus N2310 with Firmware 743 File Transfer Performance Report, I am impressed with its performance. Will N2560 outperform N2310? Let’s see.

Processor and RAM Difference

N2560 has CE5335 SoC at 1.6GHz, TS-112 is based on Marvell 88F6282 SoC at 1.2GHz, TS-119PII and TS-212P are Marvell 88F6281 at 1.6GHz and 2.0GHz respectively, TS-269L is Atom D2701 at 2.13GHz, and N2310 has a single core APM86491 running at the lowest 800MH.

CE5335 SoC is based on Berryville which based on Cedar Trail as D2700. It has 2 cores with hyper-threading technology. I cannot find useful information about the internal design and spec. Running cat /proc/cpuinfo shows me it has 512KB L2 Cache and supports 32-bit physical addressing. On the other hand, Atom D2701 has 2 cores with hyper-threading but double the cache size (1MB vs 512KB) and support 36-bit physical addressing. APM86491 is based on Power465 with FPU and has 64KB L1 cache with 256KB L2 Cache. Marvell 88F6282 SoC and Marvell 88F6281 both have 32-bit instruction set.

RAM is 2GB in N2560 which is 4 times than TS-119PII and TS-212P, and double to TS-269L. TS-112 just has 256KB.

Test Method

I connect NAS to computer directly, use the same test sample in File Transmission with Different Sharing Solution on NAS, and use Linux command mount for better performance.

Two protocols are used in this test: Samba and NFS. You may learn more about how to setup the test with NFS and Samba to do your own test.

N2560 is configured with WD Red ( WD10EFRX) 1TB * 2 as RAID 1

According to my MTU test, I keep it to use default 1500.

I also add test result from following as reference:

1. File Transmission with Different Sharing Solution on NAS
2. Performance Comparison on Backup Linux Files to QNAP TS-212P
3. QNAP TS-119PII File Transfer Performance Report
4. QNAP TS-269L File Transfer Performance Report
5. Thecus N2310 with Firmware 743 File Transfer Performance Report

Performance

File transfer performance on Thecus N2560 via Samba with mount command.

File transfer performance on Thecus N2560 via NFS with mount command.

Analyze

N2560 is close to N2310 on Samba and NFS. About 2% slower on reading but 7% faster on NFS writing and 30% on Samba.

But N2560 is slower to TS-269L on NFS and Samba writing, faster on Samba reading. It is a pity that I cannot setup Seagate SV35 7200rpm 2TB as RAID 1 in N2560 or we shall know whether it is due to different hard drive or the real difference.

There is no question that N2560 is faster than two-bay  TS-212P and other 1 bay devices.

Final Thoughts

If you just need a NAS to share network storage, N2310 is the best best budget device with fast read/write on Samba and NFS. But if you need to run other applications like ZurmoCRM, N2560 is a better investment. You may read Thecus N2560 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report to learn how fast it could be running LAMP software.

There is not double that Thecus is the most powerful NAS platform compared to Asustor, QNAP, and Synology. You may find many useful tools in Third party modules in Thecus forum. If you don’t mind dirty hands, it’s the most completely LAMP environment on NAS I have ever seen.

If Thecus could fine tune its ThecusOS for ease-of-use and better integration of App Center in the near future, it would be more welcome to consumer.

Reference

1. AppliedMicro APM86491
2. Asustor
3. Connect NAS to your Computer Directly
4. File Transmission with Different Sharing Solution on NAS
5. Intel Newsroom: Intel Launches System-on-Chip Storage Solution Designed for Simple Video Transcoding and Streaming
6. Intel: New Storage Solutions Based on the Intel® Atom™ Processor CE5300 Series Simplifies HD Content Sharing and Delivery Between Mobile Devices and Smart TV
7. Intel Atom Processor D2700
8. Marvell: Marvell 88F6281 SoC with Sheeva Technology
9. Marvell: Marvell 88F6282 SoC
10. Maximum MTU doesn’t mean Best Performance
11. Performance Comparison on Backup Linux Files to QNAP TS-212P
12. QNAP
13. QNAP TS-112
14. QNAP TS-119PII
15. QNAP TS-119PII File Transfer Performance Report
16. QNAP TS-212P
17. QNAP TS-269L
18. QNAP TS-269L File Transfer Performance Report
19. Seagate Surveillance HDD
20. Synology
21. Thecus
22. Thecus Forum: Third party modules
23. Thecus N2310
24. Thecus N2310 with Firmware 743 File Transfer Performance Report
25. Thecus N2560
26. Thecus N2560 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
27. Use BFNP Framework to Optimize your NAS File Transfer Performance
28. Using Microsoft Networking via Samba with QNAP TS-112 and LevelOne GNS-1001
29. Using Network File System (NFS) Service with QNAP TS-112
30. WD: WD Red ( WD10EFRX)
31. Wiki: Hyper-threading
32. Wiki: Instruction set
33. Wiki: LAMP (software bundle)
34. Wiki: List of Intel Atom microprocessors: CE SoCs: Dual-Core CE SoCs
35. Wiki: Network File System
36. Wiki: Samba (software)
37. Wiki: Standard RAID levels: RAID 1
38. ZurmoCRM