Linkstation Quad

[bechau]

Just discovered this wonderful site!!!!

First off, your NAS purchase guide is the most "to-the-point" article available anywhere.

Sadly, prior to finding website, I have already bought Buffalo LinkStation Quad (LS-QL) and discovered that the
1) 10MB/s transfer rate
2) slow bittorrent download speed

are probably the most crucial factors for NAS (as the other factors have become "standards") in a day-to-day usage.

Now it's time to decide:
a) Do I buy another one to replace my LinkStation; or
b) Find a way to improve its transfer rate

My preference is, understandably, (b)

My network: Intel i3 PC with 4GB RAM + SMC Gigabit switch + NAS
LanSpeedTest shows avg. of 10MB/s transfer rate from PC to NAS
PC network adapter is Realtek (updated to latest version)
Bittorrent speed test was done on a same file at the same time using utorrent and NAS' built-in. I noticed that NAS' bittorrent registered smaller number of seeders than utorrent on this same file.

Anything I can do to improve this to 20MB/s+? If not, I'm looking at:

Promise NS4600
Thecus 4200
Synology D409

Any other models are also welcome.

 

[claykin]

I doubt you'll have luck increasing performance much. Seems most of the Linkstation NAS products used a 600Mhz Marvell Kirkwood or an even slower Orion CPU. Not sure which is in this NAS, but don't expect much speed improvement. You may be able to get it a bit faster by disabling unused services and protocols on the NAS. Also make sure you have all Cat5e or Cat6 cabling. I recommend you disable Jumbo frames as even if it was supported it probably won't help at all.

You didn't say which OS your desktop is running. You can verify good TCP transmission capability by running a Tweak test. Note that most settings are not tunable in Vista or Win 7. At least the test can let you know if your settings are OK.

http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

Add the new Netgear Ultra 4 to your list.

 

[thiggins]

In general, NAS speed is what it is, i.e. there isn't much you can do to improve performance by tweaking network adapters, etc. OS can make a difference. But if you're running Vista SP1 or Win7, you're getting the benefits of improved file transfer algorithms already.

As for your alternatives, take the Promise off the list. Not a great product and not good support.

There are plenty of NASes that will deliver 20+ MB/s in the NAS Charts. Synology is going to be better for support than Thecus.

You can keep your cost low by looking at two-bay vs. 4 bay products, i.e. RAID 0,1.

 

[bechau]

Dear Tim,

I'm using Windows 7. Actually, the reason I'm asking for improvement is that one local buffalo tech support guy has achieved 20 MB/s performance.

However, he's unable to pin point how that was done besides using Gigabit network and CAT6 cables (all of which I have used).

From your experience, has anyone ever achieved that kind of performance from the LinkStation Quad?

 

[thiggins]

Check the review. RAID 5 write (to NAS) measured around 10 MB/s, but read (from NAS) was twice that. Perhaps that's what your Buffalo buddy was referring to.

 

[bechau]

Bummer

So are thsee what I should be looking at?

Synology DS409, QNAP TS-439 Pro?

Which would have faster Bittorrent speed?
I notice a huge different in BT speed between utorrent on my PC and the one on NAS. Is this because PC version has more configuration options or it's all about processing power+RAM? I can get a total of 200KB/s+ from on a PC vs max of 50KB/s on NAS downloading 10 files concurrently.

 

[bechau]

Just found out that in my country, I only have the following options (ranked by price):

QNAP TS-419P
Synology DS-410
QNAP TS-410 (cheapest)

Which would you recommend if I'm looking for:
1. Fast transfer rate (best value for money)
2. Fast bittorrent speed (not sure what is the inherent factor)
3. Squeezebox server*

*Both list them as "software package" but I'm not sure what it means. I store all my itune music library on my NAS. Currently, with my PC on, i can listen to them via itune. Without turning on my PC and running Squeezebox Server on it, I cannot access my music on my NAS from Logitech Duet (a stand-alone music player).

What I would like to do is to be able to use my itune as usual and, without having my PC on, play my music collection+playlist directly from Logitech Duet (with Squeezebox Server running on NAS).

Thanks in advance for your help.

P/S: I can't find any performance tests of the above NASes. Closest one is DS409+. Is it the same model as DS410 but for different country?

 

[thiggins]

Some of the models have been moved to archive and some don't have file copy benchmarks. Go to the NAS Charts, click the Archived Products Hidden [show them] link. Then filter for QNAP and Synology, then switch to the 1000 Mbps Average Write and Read Performance benchmarks to see all the QNAP and Synologies tested.
You'll see TS-219P, which is dual-drive version of TS-419P, so will perform similarly.

Some info on DS410 here Synology Announces Faster Four-Bay NAS and TS-410 here QNAP Adds $450 Four-Bay SOHO, "Prosumer" NAS .

All will give you much better performance than your Quad.

I can't tell you which performs better for Torrent downloading, since I haven't tested it.

Both Synology and QNAP support Squeezecenter via add-on packages that aren't installed in the base NAS. If you've installed and configured Squeezecenter on a PC, then you'll be comfortable configuring it after install.