Performances in Raid 0
Now we give you an idea of performances in Raid 0, if you must use NAS in this mode despite the risks.
Compared to Raid 5, the performances gain in terms of sustained speeds varies from 10.9% (Thecus N5200BR Pro in SMB) to 50% (Thecus N4100+ Pro in FTP). In fact, the slower the processor (and therefore the more it struggles to calculate Raid 5 parity), the bigger the gain when there is no special calculation to carry out before writing data.
As for overall rankings, they remain unchanged compared to Raid 5.
In reading, things are even more positive for the N4100+ whose speeds literally explode compared to Raid 5. Buffalo, on the other hand, still suffers from the same strange problem in reading/SMB because here performances are lower than those measured in writing! For this reason, it even finishes behind the N4100+.
Overall, the fact that the processor comes into play much less in the reading of data results in a smoothing out of performances: Qnap, Synology and Thecus’ N5200BR Pro are thus grouped together. We also can see that the performances of this same N5200BR Pro do not really increase compared to those measured in Raid 5 (+3.6% and +1.5%), confirming that the limit is no longer due to the calculation of parity.
For the others, we sometimes gain more than 30% in FTP reading (Buffalo, Synology) and between 14.3% (Qnap) and 18.6% (Synology) in SMB.
Performances in Raid 1
For these tests, we created a Raid 1 storage of two drives.
Once again we find the same overall ranking as in other modes: the N4100+ is last, the N5200BR Pro in first and then a pack of Qnap in last and Buffalo and Synology neck and neck.
While performances are better overall than in Raid 5, they aren’t as high as in Raid 0. There is between an 8.1% (Buffalo) and 38.5% (still the N4100+) gain.
The Thecus N5200BR Pro is the exception because it has lower performances than in Raid 5. In the end, this is only logical because Raid 5 storage shares the data between several drives while Raid 1 duplicates it. Quite simply, with the other machines, the time spent calculating parity reduces the gain coming from the distribution of data on several drives.
Once again, the N4100+ finishes ahead of the Buffalo whose performances in reading/SMB are unexplainably lower than in writing: strange ! And as usual, the situation goes back to normal in FTP.
Just like in Raid 0, the Qnap, Synology and 5200BR Pro finish neck and neck.
