More on Thecus N2100 2.1.01.4 beta firmware performance
September 10th, 2006 by ktula
When i did my previous two performance tests (SMB and AFP) on the new beta firmware version 2.1.01.4, the hard drives in my N2100 were configured in RAID0. I was told that if the N2100 was “re-RAID” with the new beta firmware, the performance would even be better.
I spent the previous few days migrating the more than 400 GB of data on my N2100 to all my available storage (two external firewire drives and the internal storage on my PowerMac Cube). In addition to validating the beta firmware re-RAID performance claim, i wanted to test the new firmware in all possible configurations (JBOD, RAID0 and RAID1). I also tested the performance under Windows XP since the gigabit ethernet card in my IBM notebook is the only device i have in my possession that supports Jumbo Frame.
All the tests were done with stripe size of 64 kbyte. For some strange reason, when i configured the N2100 to use JBOD, it asked for the stripe size. It’s my understanding that the stripe size is only used when the drives are being configured in RAID0. When the drives are configured in RAID1, the “stripe size” option is greyed out. I attempted to test the JBOD configuration with stripe size of 256 kbyte but IOzone kept breaking the network connection between my Windows XP-based IBM Thinkpad (i had to disconnect and reconnect the crossover patch cable to reestablish connectivity between the N2100 and the Thinkpad).
Test configuration:
- Powerbook G4 17″ 1 GHz 1 GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.4.7
- IBM Thinkpad R51 1.70 GHz 1 GB RAM running Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
- Network: Direct crossover patch cable
- Thecus N2100 configuration: 2 400-GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 3.0 Gbps, with stripe size of 64 Kbyte for JBOD and RAID0
JBOD:
N2100 beta firmware 2.1.01.4 JBOD test (PDF)
Ignoring the read transfer rate of more than 30 meg/s for XP, which was most likely caused by the memory cache as i was not able to utilize the option in IOzone to unmount the share folder after each operation in Windows XP, the read and write transfer rates for SMB in Mac OS X are very similar to XP in Jumbo Frame mode. I had thought that having the ethernet card in Jumbo Frame mode would make a big difference but it does not appear to be the case in the JBOD test.
AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) has the slowest read and write transfer rates.
RAID0:
N2100 beta firmware 2.1.01.4 RAID0 test (PDF)
Again, ignoring the 30 meg/s transfer rate for XP, transfer rates for SMB in Mac OS X is only slightly slower than the transfer rates SMB in XP with Jumbo Frame enabled.
AFP has the slowest read and write transfer rates.
RAID1:
N2100 beta firmware 2.1.01.4 RAID1 test (PDF)
AFP has the slowest write transfer rate but in the RAID1 test, but its read transfer rate is comparable with SMB in both Mac OS X and Windows XP (Jumbo Frame disabled).
To be able to tell which disk drives configuration in the N2100 offers the better overall performance, i plotted the AFP and SMB test results for Mac OS X in two separate graphs:
N2100 beta firmware 2.1.01.4 SMB comparison (PDF)
N2100 beta firmware 2.1.01.4 AFP comparison (PDF)
As i have expected, when the drives are in the RAID1 configuration, the write transfer rate is the slowest. If i am correct, the processor has to wait for the write to both disk drives to complete before continuing on with the next block of data waiting to be written. What surprises me is that the RAID1 read transfer rate is also the slowest. Prior to the test, i had expected the RAID1 read transfer rate would be the higher than JBOD or RAID0. During the read transfer test for RAID1, i noticed that, based on the lights in front of the N2100, it seemed to alternate the reads between the two disk drives.
I had also expected disks configured in RAID0 would have the fastest read and write transfer rates. Surprisingly, the JBOD configuration has comparable transfer rates (JBOD has a slightly better read transfer rate in AFP).
Prior to these extensive tests on the N2100, my N2100 had always been configured in RAID0. The reasons why i went with RAID0 instead of JBOD or RAID1:
- I thought the performance of RAID0 would be better than JBOD.
- If i had two bigger disk drives, like 750 GB or more, i probably would have chosen the data security offered by RAID1 at the expense of performance.
The surprising results for configurations in RAID0 or RAID1 seem to indicate that the CPU in the N2100 is underpowered to perform RAID operation. Other than hacking into the N2100, there does not appear to be an easy way to determine the CPU utilization for the N2100 during the tests.
Now that the test results are showing me that JBOD has comparable results with RAID0, when i have completed all my tests, i am seriously considering using JBOD on my N2100. I believe JBOD has a better MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). For RAID0, the MTBF is inversely proportional to the number of disk drives. So for a 2-disk drives RAID0 array, since the data is striped across the disk drives, it has the reliability of half a disk drive. If i lose one of the two disk drives, there is very little chance of recovering the data in the remaining good disk drive.
The N2100 re-RAID using the new beta firmware seems to have better performance for SMB in Mac OS X, in comparing with the preliminary test i did earlier. The gain is about 2 - 3 meg/s in both read and write transfer rates.
During the tests, i forgot to disable the iTunes service (it was configured to rescan every minute). In my next post, i will add more Mac OS X-specific test results.
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Fran
Says
I only get around 6MB/S on my N2100 connected to a Gigbit Ethernet, am i doing something wrong here? You’re getting 30MB/S???
Dec 15th, 2008 at 02:02