Thecus N5200
Thecus’ N5200 High Performance NAS Server has been the source of much speculation in our discussion Forumz. So now that Thecus has finally been able to provide a review sample, we rushed it into testing and added the results to the charts.
The N5200 is a five-drive SATA NAS, powered by a 600 MHz Intel Celeron M processor with 256 MB of RAM. It supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD and features RAID Migration, RAID Expansion and hot-swap capability. It even has a built-in four-port gigabit switch with (very elementary) Internet sharing capability.
The charts show that the N5200 does indeed have high performance with gigabit read/write performance with a 64 MB file approaching that of Bill Meade’s DIY RAID NAS. It also handily out-performs Synology’s CS-406 as well as Infrant’s NV.
Since the NAS charts don’t yet show RAID5 or jumbo frame gigabit performance, we’ve included RAID5 comparison plots below so that you can really get an appreciation for the N5200’s performance.
Thecus N5200 performance comparison – 1 Gbps RAID5 write
Thecus N5200 performance comparison – 1 Gbps RAID5 read
A full review of the N5200 will be coming in a few weeks.
HP mv2020 Media Vault
We also received one of the first review units of HP’s Media Vault. The tested unit was an mv2020 model, which came with two 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA drives. The drives can be used individually, or in JBOD and RAID 1 modes.
The mv2020 also sports a UPnP media server an even comes preloaded with a CinemaNow movie.
The product is also available in the mv2010 300 GB single-drive version that is user-expandable to two drives. The second drive in both models mounts on a lockable, removable drive tray.
The plots below show that the Media Vault easily out-performs Thecus’ dual-drive N2100 NAS with a gigabit connection. Sorry, but no jumbo frame support.
HP mv2020 performance comparison – 1 Gbps write
HP mv2020 performance comparison – 1 Gbps read
A full review of the HP Media Vault will follow soon.