Thecus Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 is slow with OSX but how about ThecusOS 6? It’s based on Linux and perform well in my previous tests. Maybe it is a better alternative solution if you preferred Thecus. Let’s see how it compete with others.
Thecus N2520 with ThecusOS 6
Thecus N2520 uses an Intel Atom CE5315 which is a 1.2GHz dual-core SoC based on Berryville. It has 512KB L2 Cache , 32-bit PAE, and 1GB DDR3 RAM.
I install two Seagate Barracuda Desktop HDD as RAID 1 in it.
ThecusOS 6.1.17.1 for N2520 is a 32-bit Linux used in this test.
Mac Mini Late 2012
I have upgrade my Mac mini to 16GB RAM and use a Seagate Laptop SSHD 1 TB which spins at 5400rpm and comes with 8GB MLC cache build-in to replace the slow hard drive.
Test Method
It is detail explained in Prepare Your NAS File Transfer Performance Test with Mac OSX Client. I test both Samba and NFS.
I also add test results from Thecus w5000 and QNAP TS-119PII with OSX.
- Thecus W5000 with Mac OSX File Transfer Performance Report
- QNAP TS-119PII with Mac OSX File Transfer Performance Report
Performance
* Numbers in green means informal test.
Analyze
N2520 is faster on reading but slower on writing to W5000 in Samba. It catch up with TS-119PII in NFS, less than 10% difference. TS-119PII is top performer on all tests.
According to these numbers, Thecus WSS and ThecusOS 6 are slower than QTS when accessed by OSX via Samba.
These green numbers indicate no significant improvement with different Samba options in ThecusOS 6.
More Thoughts
TS-119PII has a 2.0GHz Marvell 88F6282 SoC with single drive while N2520 is a 1.2GHz Intel Atom CE5315 in RAID 1. It’s not fare to conclude ThecusOS 6 has Samba compatibility issue with OSX. I need more test with different models.
Reference
- Apple: Mac mini (Late 2012) – Technical Specifications
- Apple: OS X
- Intel: New Storage Solutions Based on the Intel® Atom™ Processor CE5300 Series Simplifies HD Content Sharing and Delivery Between Mobile Devices and Smart TV
- Linux.org
- Marvell: Marvell 88F6282 SoC
- Prepare Your NAS File Transfer Performance Test with Mac OSX Client
- QNAP TS-119PII
- QNAP TS-119PII with Mac OSX File Transfer Performance Report
- QNAP: QTS
- Samba
- Seagate Barracuda Desktop Datasheet
- Seagate Laptop SSHD Datasheet
- Thecus
- Thecus N2520
- Thecus W5000
- Thecus W5000 with Mac OSX File Transfer Performance Report
- Thecus Windows Storage Server 2012 R2
- ThecusOS 6
- Wiki: Multi-level cell
- Wiki: Network File System
- Wiki: Physical Address Extension
- Wiki: Standard RAID levels: 2 RAID 1
- Wiki: System on a chip