In Thecus N2800 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report, I have mentioned if you need faster load time, get a Thecus device with a more powerful processor. Here is comes.
Processor, RAM, and Linux Difference
Thecus N7710-G has a powerful Intel Pentium Processor G850 at 2.9GHz. N2800, Asustor AS-602T and QNAP TS-269L all have an Atom D2701 at 2.13GHz; QNAP TS-251 is a Celeron 1800 at 2.41GHz burst to 2.58GHz; Thecus N2560 is a Intel CE5335 SoC at 1.6GHz; QNAP TS-119PII is a Marvell 88F6281 at 1.6GHz. Shuttle X50V2 is an Intel Atom D510 at 1.6GHz. Lenovo ThinkCentre Edge 72z is an Intel Pentium Processor G630 at 2.7GHz.
G850 has 3MB Smart Cache and 36-bit PAE. It may support up to 32GB RAM officially. D2700 is based on Cedar Trail with 1MB and 36-bit Physical Address Extension aka PAE. CE5335 is on Berryville with 512KB L2 Cache and 32-bit PAE. Both of them have 2 cores with hyper-threading technology. J1800 is based on Bay Trail with 1MB and 36-bit PAE. It has 2 cores and 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. Marvell 88F6281 has 32-bit instruction set. D510 is based on Pine Trail with 1MB and 32-bit PAE. G630 has 3MB Smart Cache and 36-bit PAE.
N7710-G comes with 4GB ECC memory and cannot mixed with non-ECC and ECC memory together. N2800 and N2560 come with 2GB while AS-602T, TS-251, and TS-269L are 1GB. Both N2800 and TS-251 is expandable to 8GB while TS-269L is 3GB. The 64-bit ThecusOS and QTS could manage RAM beyond 4GB. TS-119PII is fixed to 512MB. X50V2 is configured as 2.5GB and 72z is 16GB.
N7710-G and N2800 are running 64-bit ThecusOS 5 but N2560 is 32-bit ThecusOS 6. TS-269L and TS-119PII are running 32-bit QTS while TS-251 is 64-bit. AS-602T runs on 64-bit ADM. X50V2 is 64-bit Debian and 72z is 64-bit OpenSuSE.
ZurmoCRM use cache system to improve performance.
Alternative PHP Cache helps to execute faster by caching compiled codes and eliminating the overhead of compiling the same code again. It is supported in ADM, installable with apt-get in TurnKey Linux, and YaST in OpenSuSE.
For PHP 5.5.x, you will need APCu to enable compatibility by the new OPcache. They are supported in ThecusOS optional module. ADM provides an PHP 5.5.x package without APCu and won’t be benefit by PHP accelerator. They are both installable with apt-get in TurnKey Linux, and YaST in OpenSuSE but I didn’t test this configuration.
Running Memcache extension and memcached service together helps to cache database result and lower database loading in LAMP. It is supported in ThecusOS optional module, ADM, installable with apt-get in TurnKey Linux, and YaST in OpenSuSE.
Test Method
I connect NAS to computer directly. Because my Edge 72z only has a Gigabit Ethernet, the 10-Gigabit Ethernet cannot run with its full speed.
ZurmoCRM is installed and setup with build-in demo data. There are 28 different contact records provided from ZurmoCRM demo data.
Here is the reference list I used for ThecusOS and ADM:
- Prerequisite Before you Install ZurmoCRM on Thecus NAS running ThecusOS 6 (It is applicable to ThecusOS 5, too)
- Prerequisite Before you Install ZurmoCRM on Asustor NAS running ADM 2.1
For QTS, I manually edit Qthhttpd.sh to increase memory_limit from 128M to 256M with one exception: I keep everything as default in TS-251. You may use “QNAP QTS Configuration and Executable Files” to find the path.
For X50V2, I setup with ISO image from TurnKey Linux Zurmo and edit php.ini in Debian to increase memory_limit from 128M to 256M. I also install Alternative PHP Cache and memcached service to test different configurations. You may use “TurnKey Linux Configuration and Executable Files” to find the path.
For 72z, I copy ZurmoCRM to web directory and edit php.ini in OpenSuSE to increase memory_limit from 128M to 256M. Alternative PHP Cache and memcached service are both installed. You may use “OpenSuSE Configuration and Executable Files” to find the path.
All unnecessary background process and programs are disabled.
N7710-G is configured with HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB * 2 as RAID 1. Others are listed in comparison table.
According to my MTU test, I keep it to use default 1500.
Firefox is used for browsing.
I measure time to load 1 and 5 contacts in a single login session. The 5 contacts are loaded in different tabs on the same Firefox instance. Therefore, it uses only one thread and won’t begin to load the next until finish. If you are confused or interested in the relationship of LAMP, thread, multi-core processor, hyper-threading, “How Multi-Core Processors Accelerate your LAMP Applications” provides detail explain in plain English.
I also add test result from following as reference:
- QNAP TS-269L as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Asustor AS-602T as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Thecus N2560 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- QNAP TS-251 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Thecus N2800 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
Performance
Analyze
N7710-G is the fastest among all NAS. It is faster than 72z but slower than Salesforce.
Final Thoughts
Although N7710-G is still slower than Salesforce, 5 contacts within 6 seconds in a single thread is much faster than Atom D2701 models. I think this should be enough for daily business. It is a real server appliance for workgroup or small office as I described in “Why NAS is Getting More and More Popular”!
Reference
- Apache
- APCu
- Asustor ADM Configuration and Executable Files
- Asustor AS-602T as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Asustor: ADM
- Asustor: AS-602T
- Connect NAS to your Computer Directly
- Debian
- HGST: Ultrastar 7K4000
- How Multi-Core Processors Accelerate your LAMP Applications
- Intel: Celeron Processor J1800 (1M Cache, up to 2.58 GHz)
- Intel Newsroom: Intel Launches System-on-Chip Storage Solution Designed for Simple Video Transcoding and Streaming
- Intel: New Storage Solutions Based on the Intel® Atom™ Processor CE5300 Series Simplifies HD Content Sharing and Delivery Between Mobile Devices and Smart TV
- Intel: Atom Processor D2700
- Intel: Atom Processor D510
- Intel: Pentium Processor G630
- Intel: Pentium Processor G850
- Intel: Products (Formerly Bay Trail)
- Lenovo: ThinkCentre Edge 72z
- memcached
- Marvell: Marvell 88F6281 SoC with Sheeva Technology
- Maximum MTU doesn’t mean Best Performance
- Mozilla: Firefox
- MySQL
- MySQL: 4.2.3.3 Using Option Files
- OpenSuSE
- OpenSuSE Configuration and Executable Files
- OpenSuSE: YaST Software Management
- Optimize Asustor ADM for ZurmoCRM
- Perishable Press: Improve Site Performance by Increasing PHP Memory for WordPress
- PHP
- PHP: Alternative PHP Cache
- PHP: OPcache
- PHP: PHP Manual: Appendices: php.ini directives
- PHP: PHP Manual: Appendices: php.ini directives: memory_limit
- PHP: PHP Manual: Function Reference: Other Services: Memcache
- Prerequisite Before you Install ZurmoCRM on Asustor NAS running ADM 2.1
- Prerequisite Before you Install ZurmoCRM on Thecus NAS running ThecusOS 6
- QNAP TS-251 File Transfer Performance Report
- QNAP QTS Configuration and Executable Files
- QNAP: App Center (QPKG)
- QNAP: TS-119PII
- QNAP: TS-251
- QNAP TS-251 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- QNAP: TS-269L
- QNAP TS-269L as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- QNAP: QTS
- QNAP: Virtualization Station
- Salesforce
- Seagate: Desktop HDD
- Shuttle X50V2 Datasheet
- StackOverflow: Is the more the better for PHP memory_limit? [closed]
- Thecus
- Thecus: N2560
- Thecus N2560 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Thecus: N2800
- Thecus N2800 as a ZurmoCRM Application Server Performance Report
- Thecus: N7710-G
- TurnKey Linux
- TurnKey Linux: Zurmo
- TurnKey Linux Configuration and Executable Files
- WD: WD Red ( WD10EFRX)
- Why NAS is Getting More and More Popular
- Wiki: 10-gigabit Ethernet
- Wiki: ECC memory
- Wiki: Gigabit Ethernet
- Wiki: Hyper-threading
- Wiki: Instruction set
- Wiki: Operating system
- Wiki: LAMP (software bundle)
- Wiki: Linux: Desktop
- Wiki: Linux on embedded systems
- Wiki: List of PHP accelerators
- Wiki: Multi-core processor
- Wiki: Physical Address Extension
- Wiki: PHP accelerator
- Wiki: Server appliance
- Wiki: Session (computer science)
- Wiki: Standard RAID levels: RAID 1
- Wiki: Thread (computing)
- Wiki: uname
- Zurmo: Zurmo Cache System Explained
- ZurmoCRM