network storage drives -confusion over speed

joedredd1joedredd1
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi,

I've been looking at standalone network storage hard-drives and I'm confused by how slow they seem.



i thought gigabit ethernet was rated at 1000 bits per second, firewire 800 was 800 bits per second and usb2 was 480 bps



but I've gone through dozens of reviews and even gigabit 1000 ethernet equipped drives seem to hover at around 7 megabytes per second write speed, as opposed to external firewire at 41 meg a sec and usb2 at 34 Mbs.



Can anyone explain where i'm going wrong in my figuring?



thanks

-step

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    I'm really not sure about the gigabit ethernet, but it may be explained by the difference between USB 2 and Firewire. (For USB and Firewire, at least) Those speeds listed are maximum possible speeds. USB has a much lower sustained read/write speed than Firewire, so Firewire is much faster than USB when it somes to sending a lot of data like you would see with hard drive use.



    Whether or not this applies to ethernet, I'm not sure.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I got around 23MB/sec over gigabit. 8-9 over standard ethernet. No USB stats at the moment.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    gwoodpeckergwoodpecker Posts: 367member
    joedredd1, the problem is not the kind of connection to the NAS drive, whether it is standard 10/100 ethernet or gigabit ethernet. The problem is that almost every sub-1000 USD NAS has crappy processors, mainboards and above all old and badly configured software installed. Those components simply can't deliver more speed (while writing to the hard drive inside). So in the end, there is no difference at all in speed between a gigabit or 10/100 NAS device.



    In short: all cheap NAS boxes suck in terms of performance! And don't believe the so-called "real" speed tests via FTP that those manufacturers publish on their product fact sheets.



    ---



    If you want an external storage device, get a good second-hand PC with 512 MB of RAM, processor speed is almost irrelevant, so even a Pentium III at 1 GHz would do, get a 500 GB harddrive (make sure the BIOS supports drives larger than 128 GB) and a cheap PCI Gigabit ethernet card.



    Then make a fresh installation of Windows XP Professional (not XP Home!) on that box. (If you don't connect that box to the internet, you could even forget about all the system upgrade stuff. Basic installation is fine for file sharing only). Then create some users (and groups, if needed) and enable file sharing for certain folders on your system. This will do for 10 users max and will cost you less than 500 USD.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    gwoodpeckergwoodpecker Posts: 367member
    Or get a second-hand G4 tower and install a PCI gigabit ethernet card plus an ATA-133 or SATA card in it and install the hard drive of your choice and size. Then do a fresh install of OS X 10.4.x and you're ready to go. Use SharePoints to set up users and groups (10 max).
  • Reply 5 of 7
    joedredd1joedredd1 Posts: 6member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gwoodpecker View Post


    joedredd1, the problem is not the kind of connection to the NAS drive, whether it is standard 10/100 ethernet or gigabit ethernet. The problem is that almost every sub-1000 USD NAS has crappy processors, mainboards and above all old and badly configured software installed.



    Hey thanks, guys...

    this makes total sense now.

    Heh, i wonder if this could be another apple tv hack
  • Reply 6 of 7
    zachpruckowskizachpruckowski Posts: 805member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gwoodpecker View Post


    Then make a fresh installation of Windows XP Professional (not XP Home!) on that box. (If you don't connect that box to the internet, you could even forget about all the system upgrade stuff. Basic installation is fine for file sharing only). Then create some users (and groups, if needed) and enable file sharing for certain folders on your system. This will do for 10 users max and will cost you less than 500 USD.



    You had me until Windows XP. It'd be $100 cheaper to try to work with something like FreeNAS or Linux. SaMBa on Kubuntu isn't that hard, and I can't imagine it would be on Xubuntu. Maybe 30% harder for $90 cheaper. On that budget, that's another HDD.



    And that brings me to the real genius of your idea, which I have been planning to implement when I need more storage: said repurposed el cheapo PC can be easily found in a tower with 4-6 bays and will have 2-4 ATA connectors. At worst, you shell out for $50 PCI (or PCIe) card to have enough connectors, but you have a lot more expansion space over regular NASes, which usually have 1-2 HDD bays at this price.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    gwoodpeckergwoodpecker Posts: 367member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski View Post


    You had me until Windows XP. It'd be $100 cheaper to try to work with something like FreeNAS or Linux. SaMBa on Kubuntu isn't that hard, and I can't imagine it would be on Xubuntu. Maybe 30% harder for $90 cheaper. On that budget, that's another HDD.



    And that brings me to the real genius of your idea, which I have been planning to implement when I need more storage: said repurposed el cheapo PC can be easily found in a tower with 4-6 bays and will have 2-4 ATA connectors. At worst, you shell out for $50 PCI (or PCIe) card to have enough connectors, but you have a lot more expansion space over regular NASes, which usually have 1-2 HDD bays at this price.



    Yep, I agree, but not everybody is able to set up a Linux server correctly. That's why I suggested XP. Personally, I use Ubuntu (server / command line version) and only set up the services I really need. No GUI, SSH access to the command line, SAMBA plus netatalk, squid web proxy plus one or two other things. That's it, works great and fast, plus the OS is free.
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