raining ktula

More on the performance (or lack of) of Thecus N2100

April 27th, 2006 by ktula

“more capacity to store their videos, movies, and photos”
“allowing users unlimited access to their digital media”
“lightning-fast file transfers”

The above are quoted from the product page for the N2100 on Thecus website. To test the N2100 as a device for videos and movies, i ripped The Lord of War movie and stored it on the N2100. I then mounted the SMB folder onto my Apple G4 Powerbook. The DVD playback of The Lord of War was horrendous. The movie paused every few seconds. To be certain that this was not a Mac OS X issue, i repeated the same test on an IBM notebook running Windows XP Professional. The results were disappointingly similar. During the DVD playback, the CPU utilization stayed between 80-95 %, a rather disturbing number considering the fact that the data transfer rate requirement for a smooth DVD playback is probably in the order of 2-3 MB/s.

“We’ve designed the YES Box N2100 to be not only powerful but easy to use – a great way for users to experience the advantages of a dedicated network file server. By making the technology as transparent as possible, the YES Box N2100 reinforces our commitment to enhancing the digital lifestyle.”

Thecus CEO Edwin Lin

To be certain that the culprit was not my gigabit ethernet network, i connected my Powerbook directly to the second gigabit ethernet port on the N2100 using a crossover cable. The DVD playback was just as hiccupy as my previous tests. The Thecus N2100 as a digital media storage server that enhances the digital lifestyle? Definitely not in this current state.

The N2100 comes with a 128 MB of PC3200 400MHz RAM module. To see if replacing the RAM with a higher capacity one would make a difference, i got myself a 512 MB RAM module of similar specifications. Transferring a 448 MB file from the N2100 to my Powerbook took even longer than with the original memory module. The DVD playback was just as crappy as before. So adding more memory to the N2100 does not help.

“The Intel® 80219 processor provides both the performance and bandwidth necessary for applications such as sharing digital media throughout a home or office network as demonstrated by the YES Box N2100.”

Mike Wall, General Manager, Intel, Storage Components Division.

I am guessing that either the 600 MHz Intel 80219 Processor in the Thecus N2100 is way under-powered to perform any RAID operation (i have not tested the JBOD disk configuration yet) or Thecus has not configured RedBoot properly. I am hoping it is the latter because that can be easily fixed by a firmware upgrade. Initially, the thought that somehow Thecus might have misconfigured SMB on the N2100 appeared but that went away when i enabled FTP on the N2100 and found that the FTP file transfer rate is no different from those using SMB. On average, i am only getting about 7.5 MB/s of transfer rate. Is this the “lightning-fast file transfers” proudly claimed by Thecus?

The setup:

• Thecus N2100 with two Seagate 400 GB 3.0Gbits/s SATA drives in RAID 0 configuration. The firmware in the N2100 is v2.0.00. Internal RAM: 128 MB / 512 MB.
• Gigabit ethernet network (through two gigabit switches / direct connection using crossover cable).
• Apple Powerbook G4 17″ running Mac OS X 10.4.6 with 1 GB of RAM.
• IBM Thinkpad notebook running Windows XP Professional with 1 GB of RAM.

Yesterday, i sent yet another email to the tech support at Thecus regarding the meager performance of the N2100, also asking if changing the disk configuration from RAID 0 to JBOD is going to improve the performance. So far, i have not heard back from anyone.

Update 04/27/2006 2258
Talk about a fast response. Less than 10 minutes after publishing this post, i received an email from Thecus tech support regarding the performance issue. I was asked if i am willing to test the new beta firmware that should improve the performance. Hell ya!

Update 04/28/2006
While i was working with the helpful tech support from Thecus to resolve the performance issue of the N2100, i found out that the gigabit ethernet adapter in my Powerbook does not support Jumbo Frames. I am not sure about the actual bandwidth limitation of the gigabit ethernet without Jumbo Frames but i doubt it is less than 15 MB/s. I also realized that one of the two gigabit ethernet switches (D-Link DGS-1005D) between the test computers and the N2100 does not have Jumbo Frame support. Damn it…should have bought the Netgear switch instead. I only got the D-Link because it was onsale at the Fry’s store in San Jose when i was there last week for a business trip.

I installed the beta firmware (v2.0.02). According to the support personnel, the difference between the beta and the latest public release one is the “removal of NAT between LAN1 and LAN2″. I don’t know how this would help me because i am only using LAN1. The support personnel also sent me a Bit Torrent module to play with. With the intent on getting the performance issue resolved, i can’t say that i will be spending any of my time with the BT-module, but i installed it anyway.

After installing the beta firmware, i repeated the same 448 MB file transfer tests. As i expected after finding what was in the beta firmware but wished that i was wrong, there was no difference in the test results. I tested the Jumbo Frame support of the IBM Thinkpad by connecting it directly to the N2100 using a crossover cable. The transfer rate increased to 10.4 MB/s. So even with Jumbo Frame enabled, the best that i could squeeze out of the gigabit network (or the N2100) is only 10.4 MB/s. That is way lower than the numbers obtained by Tom’s Networking in their review of a Netgear gigabit switch. In the tests they performed, they were able to get a minimum transmit/receive rate of 50 MB/s without using Jumbo Frames.

In testing the DVD playback from a video_ts folder on the N2100, i found out that different DVD programs behave differently. The DVD Player that comes with Mac OS X appears to cache very little, if any, of the DVD files during the DVD playback. That explains why i was able to get a smooth playback using VLC on my Powerbook and InterVideo on the IBM Thinkpad. During the playback on both VLC and InterVideo, the CPU utilization of the N2100 remained between 6 - 12 % and every so often, the CPU utilization would go up between 90 - 100 % momentarily (i suspect this is when the DVD programs are reading a big chunk of the DVD file). For the playback using Mac OS X’s DVD Player, the CPU of the N2100 remained between 85 - 100 % utilized at all time. The question now is why is the constant reading of the DVD files maxing out the CPU on the N2100?

Update 5/5/2006
I tried to use the Bit Torrent module but on both Safari and Firefox (on Mac OS X), clicking on the “OK” button did nothing.

Update 10/12/2006
I am happy to say that the latest firmware (2.1.01) from Thecus has bumped up the file transfer rates significantly for both SMB and AFP. The iostat test results are here.

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