NAS device vs PC as a NAS? Performance?

[dapopa9]

I will backing up non-critical data to these device using Acronis backup software. Basically I just want to shoot system images across the network and have it stored on a NAS. It will be 99% writing to the device..not worried about read. The network is Gigabit.

My question is how does the write performance compare between a NAS specific device (example: Synology DS109 ) and a desktop computer runing Win XP being used as a dedicated NAS solution (example: Dell Optiplex 760, 1GB RAM, nothing running except Win XP minimal services)?

thanks for the advice!

 

[dapopa9]

any thoughts??

 

[thiggins]

Using a desktop computer will probably be faster than the DS109. Only way to know is to try it. Our filecopy test using a Core 2 Duo test client with RAID 0 array running Vista SP1 yielded around 40 MB/s for the DS109.

 

[Dennis Wood]

Using Storagecraft's, Shadow Protect, you'll see about 75 MB/s writing to the TS-509 Pro, and about 90MB/s writing to the READYNAS PRO. We do exactly what you're describing, but using different software. Looking at the last log, a 46GB backup took 17 minutes to finish...and the host NAS was running another backup for part of that time too.

Storagecrafts recovery DVD allows you to map network drives to either of these NAS units in the recovery boot environment making "bare metal" restores possible at some serious speeds. IMHO, there is no better disaster recovery scheme. My record is about 15 minutes for a workstation recovery (failed boot) which involved a 50GB image restore. No tapes to find/load...just a DVD boot and 3 more minutes to load RAID drivers (for the workstation), map a drive and get a coffee.

Cheers,
Dennis.