Page 7 - Performance and Power Consumption
It's NAS world here at APH Networks.
For our tests, the ASUSTOR AS-202TE is connected to our central home network with CAT5e wiring. Our test station is located two stories away from the NAS to simulate real world performance in a centralized networking environment. While this is not a very realistic installation, one OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SSD is configured to ensure there is no drive bottleneck in the performance benchmarks. For the power tests, we have installed one Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB in addition to the SSD. The client computer is configured with the following specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.50GHz
CPU Cooling: Thermaltake WATER2.0 Pro (Noctua NF-F12)
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws-X F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL 4x4GB
Graphics: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC
Chassis: Lian Li PC-B12
Storage: OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB; Western Digital Caviar Blue AAKS 500GB
Power: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 1200W
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi Bravura
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1
Compared Hardware:
- ASUSTOR AS-202TE
- QNAP TS-419P II
- QNAP TS-470
- QNAP TS-559 Pro II
- Thecus N2560
Equipped with the fast OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SSD, our ASUSTOR AS-202TE is ready to roll. From our experience in benchmarking, Intel Gigabit LAN adapters -- at least on the client side -- perform much better than their Realtek and Marvell counterparts. Therefore, to prevent any bottlenecks on the client side, our ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution motherboard is connected to the network via its integrated Intel 82574L Gigabit LAN adapter. We also conducted the above test on our OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB solid state drive on the client side to ensure there is nothing limiting the performance of our ASUSTOR AS-202TE than the NAS itself. In turn, the results were pretty decent for a system of this caliber, although I have seen better. Obviously, we did not expect QNAP TS-470 levels of performance, which is significantly more expensive. As you can see in our graphs above, the ASUSTOR AS-202TE is capable of doing 64.3MB/s for write and 90.19MB/s for read. Neither figures are bad, but the Thecus N2560, another two bay system, is slightly faster in both.
ATTO disk benchmark provides valuable insight into evaluating disk performance; it is especially valuable since it is not local disk limited like Windows file copy -- but rather the network adapter itself. After first using it in our QNAP TS-559 Pro+ review three years ago, ATTO has been an integral part of our storage benchmarks; used in everything ranging from USB flash drives to solid state disks. Venturing into the area of 115MB/s in read and 100MB/s write for pretty much everything 128K and up, remember that the theoretical maximum of Gigabit Ethernet is 'only' 125MB/s (1000Mbps / 8) with overhead -- this is pretty impressive. As far its comparison against the Thecus N2560 is concerned, it is slightly slower in the write portion like we have seen earlier. Interestingly, when it comes to the read portion, the ASUSTOR AS-202TE is actually faster. Does it make sense? Not really, but results are results.
With one SSD and one hard drive installed, power consumption for our specific configuration is at a very reasonable 21W idling and 25W under load. Power consumption will drop even further if the hard drives are configured to turn off if they are not used. Just for your curiosity and reference, startup peak power usage is 44W. All in all, the ASUSTOR AS-202TE is quite a power efficient network attached storage. In fact, these figures are almost identical to the Thecus N2560, a NAS touted for its efficiency. Considering it is going to be running 24/7, every watt will definitely add up!
Page Index
1. Introduction and Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware (External)
3. A Closer Look - Hardware (Internal)
4. Configuration and User Interface, Part I
5. Configuration and User Interface, Part II
6. Configuration and User Interface, Part III
7. Performance and Power Consumption
8. Final Thoughts and Conclusion
