LaCie's 2big NAS Review
by Ganesh T S on May 28, 2012 7:55 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- Storage
- NAS
- LaCie
A CentOS 6.2 virtual machine was used to evaluate NFS and CIFS performance of the 2big NAS when accessed from a Linux client. In order to standardize the testing across multiple NAS units, the following parameters were used to mount the NFS and Samba shares:
mount -t nfs NAS_IP:/PATH_TO_NFS_SHARE /PATH_TO_LOCAL_MOUNT_FOLDER -o async,hard,proto=tcp,noac
mount -t cifs //NAS_IP/PATH_TO_SMB_SHARE /PATH_TO_LOCAL_MOUNT_FOLDER -o directio
Note that we have not tried to optimize NFS performance for the NAS. In order to keep things as uniform as possible, we will just look at comparative performance on the basis of the default mounting options
combined with the above (which are set to avoid caching effects on the client side).
In the previous section, the tests conducted on the LaCie 2big NAS were repeated on the Synology DS211+ (using the same hard drives). In this section, we benchmarked both the NAS units using IOMeter using the scripts available here. The tables below presents the various results.
NFS Performance
| NFS Throughput (Av. MBps) | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 44.48 | - | 38.89 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 0.78 | 0.41 | 0.8 | 0.43 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 11.3 | 11.27 | 16.31 | 16.30 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 0.72 | 0.31 | 0.79 | 0.34 |
| NFS Access IOPS | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 1423 | - | 1245 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 100 | 53 | 102 | 55 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 362 | 361 | 522 | 522 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 92 | 40 | 101 | 43 |
| Average Response Time (ms) | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 41.16 | - | 47.3 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 395.48 | 388.92 | 383.6 | 375.02 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 81.64 | 82.64 | 56.48 | 56.90 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 454.64 | 450.96 | 416.95 | 406.1 |
CIFS Performance
| CIFS Throughput (Av. MBps) | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 30.11 | - | 28.75 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 0.71 | 0.38 | 0.94 | 0.51 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 14.43 | 14.38 | 13.93 | 13.78 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 0.58 | 0.25 | 0.80 | 0.34 |
| CIFS Access IOPS | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 964 | - | 920 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 90 | 49 | 121 | 66 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 462 | 460 | 446 | 441 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 74 | 32 | 103 | 43 |
| Average Response Time (ms) | ||||
| Test Name | LaCie 2big NAS | Synology DS211+ | ||
| Read | Write | Read | Write | |
| Max Throughput 100% Reads | 61.64 | - | 64.5 | - |
| Real Life - 60% Random - 65% Reads | 428.19 | 433.97 | 323.14 | 318.6 |
| Max Throughput - 50% Reads | 64.22 | 64.31 | 66.82 | 67.02 |
| Random 8KB - 70% Reads | 563.62 | 570.60 | 415.35 | 408.04 |
A look at the tables above indicate that the 2big NAS wins on some benchmarks, while the Synology DS211+ wins on others. It appears that they are pretty evenly matched when it comes to performance in a Linux environment, though the NFS implementation in NAS OS 2 could do with some improvements.
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15 Comments
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zzing123 - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Apparently a lot of these SOHO NAS's begin to have problems when they fill up, due to both using the inner tracks of the HDD platters, as well as the CPU overhead from software RAID. Rather than benchmarking absolute performance at new, can you begin to see what performance is like with an 85% full drive after a tortuous series of production IO? The reason being is a lot of people are increasingly using these NAS's for iSCSI and this doesn't help matters.See here for more info: http://www.servethehome.com/cost-nas-boxes-perform...
Furthermore, while technologies such as bcache (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&am... and BTRFS are nearing kernel inclusion, or even using an OpenIndiana based embedded OS to provide ZFS (like EON), I see very little from the NAS manufacturers that they are even considering these advanced filesystems and SSD tiering, except for Drobo who are wildly overpriced and underperformant.
ganeshts - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Thanks for the note. We will keep this in mind for future NAS reviews.In fact, I tried to do something similar to expose QNAP's kernel problem [ http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=189&t=51... ], but left that effort hanging once QNAP owned up to the problem. Maybe it is time to work more on that aspect :)
guste - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Ganesh, thanks for the great review. I was wondering if it's possible, next time can you pick colours for the graph that aren't so similar?JarredWalton - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
How's that?guste - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Cheers, Jarred. Thanks kindly.ggathagan - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
It would be interesting to see if your list of desired features are present on the LaCie "Professional" products that use NAS OS 2.It may be that the focus for their non-"professional" devices is ease of use, as opposed to full features.
I think the review blurb LaCie uses on their web page for the 2big summarizes their target:
“...5/5 – this really is a well made, cool looking NAS that can do pretty much everything you need it to do. My only real problem with it is that I have to give it back!”
Like Apple, LaCie has always focused as much effort on the aesthetics of their products as they have the functionality. Also like Apple, I would expect that mindset to extend to how much of the inner workings of the OS are exposed to the user.
Math nitpick from the unpacking page:
"On the rear side, we have four square slots behind which the fan's exhaust pipe sits"
I see six.
GrizzledYoungMan - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Some of my clients are those sorts of people (ie, Lacie customers). And man, it's crazy.They've all suffered a huge identity crisis in the last few years because Apple so clearly doesn't give a shit about its professional users anymore, abandoning FCP and eventually the desktop. Reflexively they want to keep buying Macs because hey, that's what 'creative' people do (never mind that they best pros I've met don't give a shit what type of computer they use). But logically they are running out of reasons to.
I predict mass suicides.
GrizzledYoungMan - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
I don't know if it's too pricey to make sense for your audience, but you all may want to check out Open-E's DSS V6 NAS software platform.It uses a heavily modified version of FreeBSD (I believe) and runs on a really wide variety of hardware, and provides nearly all of the failover, security and management features of those atomic powered high end enterprise NAS appliances for a fraction of the price (ie, thousands instead of tens of thousands).
I've installed a bunch of these things for clients ranging from SOHO (with heavy storage needs, like video) to SMB all the way up to legit mid-tier enterprise work. They take a bit more knowledge to install than, say, Drobo, but it's the kind of stuff that anyone who works with gray-box appliances routinely will be well versed in.
Coming from things like Windows Storage Server, Drobo, etc the performance is pretty amazing, you really feel like you're getting the most out of the hardware. With basic hardware (a modern low power Xeon mobo, LSI SAS RAID controller populated with 7200 rpm enterprise SATA drives) I routinely see wire speed on transfers from NAS to client machines over gig-e. In the small handful of installations I've done with 10 Gbe present, shit gets crazy.
Most importantly, I've never seen a client lose data thanks to trouble with the software and support from the company is incredible, to the point where they will write unique small patches for specific clients, regardless of size. Between the two, it feels solid like a rock, in a way that many NAS and SAN systems simply don't.
secretmanofagent - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
I can't help but see the turret. If they make the blue light red, slap an Aperture Science on the side, and they'll get the geeks to swarm over it.sleepeeg3 - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Probably the last product before they are swallowed by Seagate.