Would 2 NIC's & more memory help?

[ianq]

Am looking to replace my dismal Buffalo LS421DE with something that offers better performance.

Was thinking of the QNAP TS-251 versus the Synology DS214P for the following reasons:

- Has 2 NIC ports, can set up in aggregate mode;
- Memory can be expanded from 1GB to 8 GB

The question is whether either of these would actually improve performance for my situation, which is:

I use rsync to keep the files on my NAS synced with what is on my Mac. I am not transferring a lot of data daily, but what the rsync is doing is traversing through a huge list of folders and files to find any that have changed since the last sync. Probably talking about 50,000 files+ that have to be checked.

Now, when I run this rsync from the Mac to a USB 3.0 locally attached drive, the script takes 2 minutes to complete. When I run it to the Buffalo NAS, it takes 45 minutes.

Don't expect the NAS to be as fast as USB 3.0, but would have thought it would be faster than it is.

If memory or dual nics won't buy me any performance gain then I can consider the DS214P as the difference between it and the TS-251 is negligible.

Any thoughts appreciated...

 

[L&LD]

Using the 2 NIC ports in aggregate mode will increase the performance greatly, assuming that you also have a switch that can use that same mode. This will far surpass the USB 3.0 performance that is theoretically possible, but not even remotely achievable by the NAS you currently have.

The RAM in your usage case will not be much improvement, but I have found that even adding 2GB RAM module increased the general responsiveness of the NAS (QNAP 469L) in otherwise low intensity workloads. If cost is minimal or if you have the RAM anyway, I would install it.

The Buffalo NAS that you have now must be very, very slow. Even it's USB 3.0 port is not up to specs. At snb it rates at the number 35th spot overall and below the 10th position of all 2 port NAS'.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/...-linkstation-421e-diskless-enclosure-reviewed

USB 3.0 port doesn't deliver 3.0 performance

I hope this helps with your decision.

The best advice is buy with a possibility to return, just in case the performance bottleneck is elsewhere on your network and not in the Buffalo NAS you're currently using.

 

[stevech]

I don't advise 2 NICs, aggregation, in a home/SOHO network.

Synology and QNAP provide, with a gigE LAN and decent switches (I'd not use the switch inside the home router)... 80Mbps reading big files, or faster, and about 1/3 less writing big files. Moving lots of files smaller than say 100MB is slowed by file system and SMB overhead. Faster LANs won't help.

I have some old NAS dogs.. would only do 4MB/s or so, due to slow CPU and bad software.

 

[thiggins]

Link aggregation doesn't increase throughput for individual data flows. Each data flow is limited to the bandwidth of a single link in the LAG. In a LAG with two or more 1 Gbps links, the best throughput an individual data flow will see is 1 Gbps.

The real value of LAG is in increasing total (or aggregate) throughput between devices. So, no, LAG won't help.

My experience in testing many NASes says there isn't anything you can do to improve throughput other than to use incremental backup, which you already doing.

Use the NAS Charts to find the fastest rsync performance
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/bar/57-network-backup

 

[azazel1024]

Link aggregation doesn't increase throughput for individual data flows. Each data flow is limited to the bandwidth of a single link in the LAG. In a LAG with two or more 1 Gbps links, the best throughput an individual data flow will see is 1 Gbps.

The real value of LAG is in increasing total (or aggregate) throughput between devices. So, no, LAG won't help.

My experience in testing many NASes says there isn't anything you can do to improve throughput other than to use incremental backup, which you already doing.

Use the NAS Charts to find the fastest rsync performance
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/bar/57-network-backup

This. LAG really only helps with link redundancy incase a cable gets unplugged or a port fails (on the switch or the NAS/server). That and it helps with TOTAL throughput. So you could have 2 clients hitting the NAS at 1Gbps each. If you only have 1 client hitting it, it is limited to 1Gbps.

An exception is with SMB multichannel, which is, so far, a windows ONLY implementation in win 8/8.1/10 and server 2012. THAT allows you to combine NICs to higher single client bandwidth.

Memory, it can help some. I have no idea how much or how agressive the caching is on those NASs. Windows uses some pretty flexible storage caching using RAM both on read caching and write caching (both at a file systems, OS and network layer level). So expanding memory on something like a windows server can improve storage/network performance a fair amount. On a Synology NAS...dunno.

It should deffinitely improve things if you are running a lot of services...but I have no idea if CPU or RAM limitations would rear their ugly head first. It likely would NOT improve actual network performance, as that is generally a CPU limitation being able to handle the network transfers and drive reads/writes. These are pretty lightweight CPUs, even for the newer stuff, in comparison to just about any "real" processor out there.

That said, from the little I know, the Buffalo IS a dog, so the choices you are looking at would be faster, just not really because of expandable RAM or dual NICs.