QNAP TS-251 with Firmware 0612 and 8GB RAM File Transfer Performance Report

Last time, I test QNAP TS-251 with Firmware 0605 and only one hard drive. Here, I am going to run the same test again but with Firmware 0612, two hard drives as RAID 1, and 8GB RAM. I can see the 64-bit QTS is capable to identify 8GB RAM without any problem.

Anyway, let’s see if it could outperform other Intel Atom processors on file transfer!

Processor and RAM Difference

TS-251 has a J1800 at 2.41GHz burst to 2.58GHz; N2560 has a CE5335 SoC at 1.6GHz; TS-112 is based on a 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; N2310 has a single core APM86491 running at the lowest 800MH.

J1800 is based on Bay Trail which is part of the Atom family. It has 2 cores but without hyper-threading technology which means it may serve only 2 threads concurrently. The 1MB cache size is still the same to D2700 but officially support for 8GB RAM which is double to D2700. CE5335 SoC and D2700 are based on Berryville and Cedar Trail respectively. Both have 2 cores with hyper-threading technology. The former has 512KB L2 Cache and supports 32-bit physical addressing while the latter has 1MB and supports 36-bit. 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.

Both TS-251 and TS-269L come with 1GB. TS-251 is expandable to 8GB while TS-269L is 3GB. The 64-bit QTS could manage RAM beyond 4GB. TS-119PII, TS-212P, and N2310 are fixed to 512MB;  N2560 is 2GB; TS-112 is just 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.

TS-251 is configured with Seagate Desktop HDD 500GB * 2 as RAID 1 and with 8GB and 1GB configurations. Others are listed in comparison table.

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
6. Thecus N2560 File Transfer Performance Report
7. QNAP TS-251 File Transfer Performance Report

Performance

File transfer performance on QNAP TS-251 with FW0612 and 8GB RAM via Samba with mount command.

File transfer performance on QNAP TS-251 with FW0612 and 8GB RAM via NFS with mount command.

Analyze

TS-251 with RAID 1 and 8GB RAM reads much better than single drive on both Samba and NFS transfer. On the other hand, RAID 1 writes are faster with 1GB than 8GB RAM. It seems RAID 1 helps on reading but more RAM is not always good on writing.

TS-251 with RAID 1 is significantly faster on reading than TS-269L. But TS-251 with RAID 1 and 8GB RAM is slower on writing than TS-269L, while TS-251 with RAID 1 and 1GB RAM is faster on Samba and almost the same on NFS.

Except for TS-269L, TS-251 with RAID 1 is faster than any other devices on every item.

Other Thoughts

It seems you better use RAID 1 than single drive with TS-251. More RAM is not always better on writing tests.

During 40 tests, the mount drive lost connection without any reason nor warning once. I have to reconnect and run the test again. Because I cannot repeat this issue, I have no ideas what happen.

For file transfer, if you need more reading speed, get more RAM and use RAID 1 on TS-251!

Reference

1. AppliedMicro APM86491
2. Asustor
3. Connect NAS to your Computer Directly
4. File Transmission with Different Sharing Solution on NAS
5. Intel: Celeron Processor J1800 (1M Cache, up to 2.58 GHz)
6. Intel Newsroom: Intel Launches System-on-Chip Storage Solution Designed for Simple Video Transcoding and Streaming
7. Intel: New Storage Solutions Based on the Intel® Atom™ Processor CE5300 Series Simplifies HD Content Sharing and Delivery Between Mobile Devices and Smart TV
8. Intel: Products (Formerly Bay Trail)
9. Intel: Atom Processor
10. Intel Atom Processor D2700
11. Marvell: Marvell 88F6281 SoC with Sheeva Technology
12. Marvell: Marvell 88F6282 SoC
13. Maximum MTU doesn’t mean Best Performance
14. Performance Comparison on Backup Linux Files to QNAP TS-212P
15. QNAP
16. QNAP TS-119PII File Transfer Performance Report
17. QNAP TS-251 File Transfer Performance Report
18. QNAP TS-269L File Transfer Performance Report
19. QNAP: QTS
20. QNAP: TS-112
21. QNAP: TS-119PII
22. QNAP: TS-212P
23. QNAP: TS-251
24. QNAP: TS-269L
25. QNAP: Virtualization Station
26. Seagate: Desktop HDD
27. Seagate Surveillance HDD
28. Synology
29. Thecus
30. Thecus Forum: Third party modules
31. Thecus: N2310
32. Thecus N2310 with Firmware 743 File Transfer Performance Report
33. Thecus: N2560
34. Thecus N2560 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
35. Thecus N2560 File Transfer Performance Report
36. TurnkeyLinux
37. Use BFNP Framework to Optimize your NAS File Transfer Performance
38. Using Microsoft Networking via Samba with QNAP TS-112 and LevelOne GNS-1001
39. Using Network File System (NFS) Service with QNAP TS-112
40. Why NAS is Getting More and More Popular
41. Wiki: Hyper-threading
42. Wiki: Instruction set
43. Wiki: LAMP (software bundle)
44. Wiki: List of Intel Atom microprocessors: CE SoCs: Dual-Core CE SoCs
45. Wiki: Network File System
46. Wiki: Samba (software)
47. Wiki: Secure Shell
48. Wiki: Standard RAID levels: RAID 1
49. Wiki: Thread (Computer)
50. Wiki: top (software)
51. Wiki: uname
52. Wiki: Virtual machine
53. Wiki: Virtualization
54. Wiki: x86 virtualization: Intel virtualization (VT-x)
55. ZurmoCRM