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Atom-Powered NAS: Thecus N4200 And QNAP TS-459 Pro
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1. Developing Atomic Power

With the Atom processor's introduction, Intel triggered what could almost be called a small revolution. The processor played—and is playing—a significant role in the rapidly-growing popularity of netbooks and nettops. Now Intel's third-generation Atom processor, also designed for use in energy-efficient and affordable systems, is working its charm in the network-attached storage (NAS) segment.

Previous NAS devices used the second-gen "Diamondville"-based Atom 330. Such devices have already demonstrated some pretty convincing data transfer rates. Thus, our expectations are set high when it comes to NAS devices that use the new, third-generation Pineview-based Atom processors.

For cost reasons, these entry-level storage devices typically aren't equipped with hardware-acclerated RAID controllers. Instead, they let the CPU execute XOR calculations for various RAID modes, making data transfer rates for these NAS units partially dependent on CPU performance.

Pineview, What's New?

Clock speeds of the older Diamondville-based CPUs look very similar to those of new Pineview models. The dual-core Atom 330 (Diamondville) has a clock frequency of 1,600 MHz, while the dual-core Atom D510 (Pineview) runs slightly quicker, clocked at 1,660 MHz. The L2 cache is still 1MB (2 x 512KB), and the solution is manufactured using a 45 nm process. The biggest changes implemented in Pineview are the graphics and memory interfaces. For more on the architecture underlying Intel's Pine Trail platform, check out our launch coverage.

In short, Intel incorporated a graphics processor and memory controller onto the Atom processor die, and although this increases the processor's TDP by a few watts, the entire platform's power consumption drops due to the consolidation of chipset components. Because of this integration, a new chipset (little more than a southbridge, really) called NM10 Intel Express had to be developed.

The Intel 945GC chipset, used for the older Atom 230 and 330 processors, had a TDP of 22W. The NM10 Express dramatically lowers this to only about 2 watts. The combined TDP of an Atom 330 and 945GC chipset is around 30W, whereas a Pineview-based Atom D510/NM10 nets a TDP of around 15W. It should be noted, however, that the NM10 chipset only has two SATA ports, which makes it poorly-suited to NAS applications. We expect NAS vendors to look for other solutions to get more storage scalability.

In order to see what kind of power consumption and data transfer rates one can expect from a Pineview-based NAS, we took a closer look at the Thecus N4200 and QNAP TS-459 Pro. Both launched in the first quarter of 2010.

2. Thecus N4200: Features And Build

Based on its name, you might assume that Thecus' N4200 is just a slightly-improved version of the N4100 Pro. This isn't the case, though. While the N4100 Pro employs a 500 MHz AMD Geode LX800 processor with 256MB RAM, the N4200 uses a dual-core, 1.66 GHz Intel Atom D510 with 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM. Also, Thecus opted to go with the ICH9R chipset.

Two Displays

A display on the front of the N4200 provides information on system configuration and status. The front also sports four buttons for changing the settings.

Unlike the 4100 Pro, however, the N4200's top display is not a conventional LED or LCD display, but an OLED display. Just as the N4100 Pro had a vertically-arranged LED bar on the left side, providing network and disk activity information, the N4200 has an LCD display performing the same function. There are two USB 2.0 ports for connecting additional external storage devices. Underneath the OLED display, behind a door, we find four lockable hard drive bays that can accommodate 3.5" and 2.5" drives.

Rear Panel Connections

The most striking feature on the back of the NAS is likely the slot directly above the large 120x120 mm fan. This is where you insert an included battery that provides enough power to let the NAS shut down in a controlled manner during a power outage, without any data loss. Above this battery slot is a bracket hiding a PCIe x1 interface, which comes handy if you want to plug in a 10 Gb/s Ethernet network card, for example.

The N4200 doesn't necessarily have to be connected to the network through a cable. If you prefer more exotic solutions, you can even use a USB dongle to connect the NAS via WiFi. Naturally, wired connections will outperform wireless, but you never know when the cat might chew through your gigabit line (Ed.: that'd be one evil cat).

On the back, we find two eSATA ports, four USB ports, the external power supply connection, and two gigabit Ethernet ports. The GbE ports can either be operated with separate IP and gateway settings, or in failover and/or load balancing modes.

3. Thecus N4200: Web Interface And Features

In addition to the hardware specifications of a NAS device, you have to take into account its software functionality. In recent years, Thecus has evolved well on both fronts. The N4200 comes with a modern, Web-based administration interface that lets you choose from RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 modes. RAID volumes can be optionally encrypted using AES-256, as well. Additionally, users have the choice of ext3, XFS, and ZFS file systems.

Network Communication

The N4200 can communicate via iSCSI and, if used under Windows, MacOS, or Linux, it can be an iSCSI target. When used with similar (and various other) NAS devices from Thecus, such as the N5200 Pro, N5500, or units from the N7700/N8800 series, the N4200 can even be used as an iSCSI initiator. The device supports SMB/CIFS, FTP, NFSv3, AFP, HTTP, or HTTPS protocols for exchanging data.

For multimedia storage, the Thecus N4200 comes with iTunes, UPnP AV, and photo Web servers installed. It also comes with a print server, as well as support for various UPSes. The server functionality can be expanded. For example, you can add a Web or MySQL server by downloading and installing a module from the Thecus site.

A Web Interface With Delays

Thecus' UI is functional and for the most part logical, although the menu structure could be made somewhat less nested and more accessible. What really struck us when using firmware version 3.00.12 was the sluggishness of the browser-based interface. When clicking on something or performing an action, it took about three seconds before anything happened or you gave visual feedback. During testing, we also noted that the N4200 had to be restarted after the creation of a new folder. The device stopped responding to SMB/CIFS requests, so access through Windows Explorer was no longer possible. A firmware update from Thecus should remedy problems of this kind.

Thecus offers a live demonstration of its GUI. Just follow this link to try it out: Thecus live demo.

Update: Thecus recently released version 3.02.00.2 of the firmware. Using this, we noticed none of the problems mentioned above, so be sure to update your firmware if you run into any issues with the N4200.

4. QNAP TS-459 Pro: Features And Construction

QNAP offers several NAS products equipped with Intel's Atom D510. The different products in the TSx59 Pro-series differ mainly when it comes to the number of supported drives you can connect and corresponding power consumption. For our tests, we used the QNAP TS-459 Pro. It can be equipped with up to four hard drives and up to 1GB of DDR2 RAM. Like Thecus, QNAP also uses the Intel ICH9R southbridge.

Clean Front

Most products of this kind seem to come with a front-mounted display for displaying and changing basic system information, and the TS-459 Pro is no exception. Below the LCD are four vertically-mounted lockable disk trays. Along the left are the power switch and a USB 2.0 port.

The Rear

The rear view looks just as tidy as the front. The TS-459 Pro features an internal power supply; you can see its small 50 mm fan just above the 120 mm fan that cools the hard drives.

We also find four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports that can either be used for connecting to two different networks or for load balancing/failover. Moreover, the QNAP TS-459 Pro has a VGA port for system maintenance, which you can use for analyzing console error messages.

5. QNAP TS-459 Pro: Web Interface And Functionality

QNAP offers a solid lineup of features, including Web, MySQL, FTP, print, iTunes, and UPnP Media servers, as well as a VMware-Ready certification for interaction with a vSphere VMWare ESX/ESXi Server. Alternatively, you can use Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Additionally, the TS-459 Pro supports features like iSCSI LUN masking to ensure safety and multi-path I/O load balancing and failover.

Some of these features mainly pertain to professional environments. In semi-professional environments, and especially for use in a home network, the relevance should be minor or negligible. Consumers will care more about QNAP's support for Apple's Time Machine and the network protocols CIFS/SMB, FTP, NFS, AFP, HTTP, HTTPS, Telnet, and SSH.

Off to the Cloud

An interesting feature that we'll probably see from other NAS manufacturers is the possibility of direct transmission from the NAS to Amazon's S3 cloud data storage service. Whether additional providers of cloud storage services will be supported in the future depends on the popularity of this type of data management. Users who don't want their data or backups to leave the house have the option to use the TS-459 Pro as an Rsync server/client and replicate the data onto another server.

Web Interface

The browser-based administration interface is probably one of the most comprehensive implementations found in a NAS device today. The number of available settings is huge. The menu structure is straightforward, but the large number of configuration options might initially overwhelm some newcomers.

Professionals are likely to love the GUI. You can, for example, control fan speed manually, set up a visual alarm if disk space runs out, or access the extensive log files. If all of this isn't enough, you can access a large software repository and use the QPKG feature to install additional modules, such as the blog solution Wordpress or the forum software phpBB.

For a live demonstration of the QNAP's interface, click the following link: QNAP live demo.

6. Test System And Details

Test Configuration

System Hardware
Platform
Asus P5E3 Deluxe, Rev.1.03G; Intel X38, BIOS: 0810 (02/11/2007)
CPUIntel Core 2 Duo E6750 (65 nm Conroe core) @ 2.26 GHz
RAM2 x 1,024MB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600
eSATA ControllerJMicron JMB363
System Hard Drive
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9, 160GB
7,200 RPM, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB Cache
Test Hard Drives
4 x 3.5" Samsung Spinpoint HD321KJ
320GB, 7,200 RPM, SATA/300, 16MB Cache
DVD-ROMSamsung SH-D163A , SATA150
Video Card
Gigabyte Radeon HD 3850 GV-RX385512H
GPU: 670 MHz; Memory: 512MB DDR3 (830 MHz, 256-bit)
Network Card
Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Sound Card
Integrated
Power Supply
Cooler Master RS-850-EMBA, ATX 12V V2.2, 850 Watt  
System Software
Operating System
Windows Vista Enterprise SP1
DirectX 10DirectX 10 (Vista-Standard)
DirectX 9Version: April 2007
Graphic Drivers
ATI Radeon Version 7.12
Network Drivers
9.0.32.3 (Vista Standard)
Intel Chipset DriversVersion 6.9.1.1001 (20/02/2008)
JMicron Chipset Drivers
Version 1.17.15.0 (24/03/2007)


Intel NAS Performance Toolkit 

We tested the NAS devices using the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit. For a more detailed description of the benchmarks, see the article Benchmarking With Intel's NAS Toolkit.

The Thecus N4200 used the firmware version 3.00.12 in our tests, while the QNAP TS-459 Pro used the firmware version 323 (0209T).

Power and Noise (Subjective)

Both NAS devices consume about the same amount of power, which should come as no surprise considering their almost identical hardware. The noise of both units was subjectively measured, and while they seem rather equal, the QNAP TS-459 Pro didn't do quite as good a job at dampening hard drive vibrations. This resulted in a slight but annoying humming sound. Gently pressing on the hard drive housing made the humming go away permanently. The plastic rails used in the Thecus N4200 drive bays are the better solution. Both NAS units are quiet enough to keep next to you while you work without being a bother.

 Thecus N4200QNAP TS-459 Pro
Off1.7W0.7W
Peak105.6W110.5W
Sleep23.7W24.4W
Idle45.7W45.1W
Rebuild56.5W52.2W
7. Benchmark Results: Multimedia

For More Benchmark Results, Check Out the Image Gallery

In the multimedia benchmarks, QNAP's TS-459 Pro's performance shines. Sequential write tests show data rates of more than 100 MB/sec in RAID 5. Compared to the other products listed in the NAS devices chart, the Thecus N4200 doesn't do badly, either. It can write HD video streams at 63.8 MB/sec in RAID 5 mode, which is far more than previously-tested devices.

Playing HD video streams results in a similar picture. The difference between the N4200 and the TS-459 Pro isn't quite so large, though. When working with many small image files, the two Atom D510 NAS devices perform alike, even when compared to older devices.

8. Benchmark Results: Office

For More Benchmark Results, Check Out the Image Gallery

When performing a Windows backup, QNAP's TS-459 Pro, with its high data transfer rate in RAID 5, easily passes the 80 MB/sec mark. The NAS device from Thecus can only manage about half of that. The results when restoring the backup file were quite even, though. With over 30 MB/sec in RAID 5 mode during the Office Productivity test, both products set new records, though the Thecus N4200 is slightly better.

9. Conclusion

For both the QNAP TS-459 Pro and the Thecus N4200, the dual-core Atom D510 is the secret ingredient behind the high data transfer rates. However, this performance comes at a price. The QNAP TS-459 Pro is available as a barebones unit without drives for $900 to $950 dollars. The bare Thecus N4200 runs a bit cheaper, at $750 to $800 dollars.

In both cases, the buyer gets a very polished NAS device with support for 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives without having to buy any additional equipment.

Almost Identical Hardware

When it comes to external connections, both units are almost identically-equipped. The Thecus N4200 has two USB 2.0 ports available on the front, while the QNAP TS-459 Pro only has one. Both of the units have four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports in the rear. QNAP also offers a VGA port for diagnostic purposes, which the N4200 lacks. However, the N4200 comes with a battery, ensuring a safe shutdown to preserve your data in the event of power failure. Thecus applies redundancy when it comes to the flash memory storage of its firmware, using a dual DOM (disk on module), while QNAP settles for a single one.

Differences in Administration and Features

The biggest difference between the TS-459 Pro and the N4200 lies in their respective GUI's feature sets and design. The TS-459 Pro's interface isn't only more sophisticated, it also offers more detailed configuration options (for example, creating a custom profile for fan control). It also comes with a VMware certification and many iSCSI features, such as LUN masking and MPIO. 

If you're ready to spend around $900 on a NAS, you can't go wrong with the QNAP TS-459 Pro. It offers high functionality and great transfer rates, as well as several professional features. 

As a result of lofty pricing, don't ignore the Thecus N4200, which runs about $200 less than the QNAP and still offers reliably high data transfer rates. In addition, the Thecus N4200 comes with the replaceable battery. This can be useful, especially in home networks, where the NAS device may be connected to a switchable power strip.

When it comes to the GUI, Thecus' N4200 lacks a number of features and settings found in the QNAP TS-459 Pro, forcing the user to accept some compromises. However, most of these are features a typical user will never miss.