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Synology DS412+ And Thecus N4800: Two NAS Devices With Atom D2700
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1. Intel's Pineview Platform Replaces Cedarview In Networked Storage

A little over two years ago, the first NAS servers employing Intel’s dual-core Atom processors started showing up with the then-modern D510. Our impressions at the time were very positive. Qnap's TS-459 Pro and Thecus' N4200 showed that the third-generation Atoms could serve as a strong foundation for network-attached appliances, beating the common Marvell Kirkwood mv6281 ARM and Freescale MPC8533 (PPC architecture) processors when it came to network data transfer speeds.

We weren’t as excited when Intel's Atom D510 gave way to the company's Atom D525. Our review of Qnap’s TS-559 Pro (Atom D510) and TS-559 Pro+ (Atom D525) showed that the newer version offered barely any data transfer speed advantages.

Technology marched on though, and Intel introduced new Atom processors based on the Cedarview platform at the end of 2011. These were manufactured on a 32 nm node, whereas the older Pineview-based CPUs were etched using 45 nm lithography. Maximum TDP went from Pineview’s 13 W to Cedarview’s 10 W. The Atom N2600, N2800, and D2700 all included GMA 3650 integrated graphics engines.

Intel's Atom D2700 processor, in particular, became popular with network storage vendors both because of its speed at 2.13 GHz and ability to exploit the integrated graphics for HDMI output. Of course, whether or not there’s really a need for a NAS server able to put a picture directly onto your television is something you'd need to decide for yourself. Cedarview-based processors do employ DDR3 memory controllers, though, whereas the Atom D525 could use either DDR2 or DDR3.

The current crop of network-attached appliances, like those from Synology and Thecus, are completely transitioning over from Intel’s Atom D525 to its D2700. Interestingly, though, the company is phasing out the Atom D2700, while its D525 is still available. Go figure.

Naturally, we wanted to know how much impact switching from Intel’s Atom D525 to its Atom D2700 actually makes on storage performance. We're benchmarking Synology’s DiskStation DS412+ and Thecus’ N4800, looking at their data transfer speeds and respective features as well.

2. Synology DiskStation DS412+: A Familiar Sight

The Synology DiskStation DS412+ might look familiar to our regular readers. It’s basically the big brother of the Synology DiskStation DS212+ that we've already reviewed. It has four hot-swap-capable drive bays on the front, which are hidden behind a black plastic shroud. Next to the front cover are five status LEDs that convey information about drive activity and system status. A power button and USB 2.0 port are the only other features of an otherwise-clean front panel.

Air circulation is provided by two 92 mm cooling fans at the back of the case. A pair of LAN connectors, an eSATA interface, and two USB 3.0 ports are placed just below the fans. As with Synology's DiskStation DS212+, the DiskStation DS412+’s chassis is mostly made out of plastic. Synology went with a rough texture, which we didn’t particularly care for when we reviewed the DiskStation DS212+, and we still don’t like now. It makes the enclosure difficult to clean because dust tends to settle in and is hard to get out.

As we've established, the DiskStation DS412+ has an Intel Atom D2700 processor inside. It also sports 1 GB of DDR3 memory. On the software side, Synology uses its own Linux-based NAS operating system called DiskStation Manager (DSM).

3. Thecus N4800: NAS With Multimedia

We don’t know if Thecus decided that a design team was too expensive, or that its two-year-old N4200 was just a good foundation for a new product. Either way, the company's N4800 looks almost identical to the older four-drive model. The only difference is the color of the two USB ports up front, which are now blue to show off their USB 3.0 support. Thecus covers its drive bays with a door, creating a clean-looking front panel. A pair of OLED displays relay information about drive activity, network status, current network settings (like IP and network gateway addresses), and warnings. The only other buttons accessible up front control the device's on/off status and facilitate navigation of the information display's menu system.

Around back, the N4800 comes armed with two Ethernet ports, a pair of USB 2.0 connectors, an eSATA interface, VGA output, an HDMI connector, and an audio output. There’s also a closed slot that can be used to accommodate a 10 GbE card. An interesting feature, which the N4800 shares with the N4200 and N4200PRO, is a slot for an included battery. In essence, this makes the N4800 a NAS server with an integrated uninterruptible power supply (UPS). This is a really nice feature, and we’d like more manufacturers to include it.


NAS TV

Thecus takes advantage of the Atom D2700’s integrated graphics capability. The company arms its N4800 with 2 GB of DDR3 memory, which is twice as much as Synology's DiskStation DS412+. This allows Thecus to market its N4800 as a media server that can be connected directly to a display device (most likely a TV) for audio and video playback.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to try this feature because it wasn't supported by the firmware yet. Regardless, we're doubtful that many folks will want to set up a NAS appliance next to a media center. It's much more probable that you'd want to stream content from a networked server tucked away in a closet somewhere over a wired or wireless network to a small HTPC.

The N4800 is configured via a browser-based graphical user interface. It’s a far cry from Synology’s DSM, and not in a good way. It’s less intuitive and looks dated. We asked Thecus about this, and company representatives told us that a new firmware, including a new version of the browser-based configuration system, is in the works. Thecus also offers a live demo of the current version.

4. Benchmark System And Power Consumption

We maintained each of the servers' default settings and set the maximum transmission unit (MTU) to 1500. We used four Samsung Spinpoint HD103SJs in each NAS device. The N4800’s firmware was version V2.01.05, and the DiskStation DS412+’s was version 4.0-2219. All of the details are in the following table.

Benchmark System Hardware
Intel Platform (LGA 775)Asus P5E3 Deluxe, Rev.1.03G, Intel X38 Express, BIOS: 0810 (02/11/2007)
CPUIntel Core 2 Duo E6750 (65 nm, Conroe) Two Cores, 4 MB L2 Cache, 1333 MT/s FSB, 65 W, 2.66 GHz
RAM2 x 1024 MB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600
eSATA ControllerJMicron JMB363
System HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s, 8 MB Cache
Benchmark HDD4 x 3.5" Samsung Spinpoint HD103SJ, 1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s, 32 MB Cache
DVD ROMSamsung SH-D163A, SATA 1.5 Gb/s
Graphics Card
Gigabyte Radeon HD 3850 GV-RX385512H, GPU: 670 MHz, Memory: 512 MB DDR3 (830 MHz, 256-bit)
Network Card
Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Sound Card
Integrated
Power Supply Unit (PSU)
Cooler Master RS-850-EMBA, ATX 12V v2.2, 850 W 
System Software and Drivers
Operating System
Windows Vista Enterprise SP1
DirectX 10DirectX 10 (Vista Default)
DirectX 9Version: April 2007
Graphics Driver
AMD Radeon Version 7.12
Network Driver
9.0.32.3 (Vista Default)
Intel Chipset DriverVersion 6.9.1.1001 (20/02/2008)
JMicron Chipset DriverVersion 1.17.15.0 (24/03/2007)


Intel NAS Performance Toolkit

We benchmarked the two NAS servers with Intel's NAS Performance Toolkit. A detailed description can be found in Benchmarking With Intel's NAS Toolkit.

Noise

Thecus's N4800 and Synology's DiskStation DS412+ are quiet. During normal operation, the N4800 produces 29.6 db(A), and the Synology DiskStation DS412+ produces 30.2 db(A). Our subjective impressions went the other way; Thecus' NAS seemed louder due to the tone of the sound, bothering us more.

Power Consumption

Our power consumption benchmarks are mixed. The N4800’s power supply unit seems to be more efficient, drawing 1.9 W when the system is turned off. Synology’s DiskStation DS412+ draws 3.3 W.

This trend reverses once the NAS servers are on, writing to all drives (a workload encountered during a RAID rebuild). The Synology DiskStation DS412+ draws 48.2 W, which is less than the N4800’s 54.0 W.

 Synology DS412+Thecus N4800
Off3.3 Watt1.9 Watt
Peak57.2 Watt74.4 Watt
Sleep (HDD Down)17.0 Watt21.7 Watt
Idle41.2 Watt40.5 Watt
Rebuild48.2 Watt54.0 Watt
5. Benchmark Results: Multimedia

We're including the Synology DiskStation DS411+II and Thecus N4200PRO in our benchmark as a basis for comparison. These systems employ Intel's Atom D525 processor.

The NAS servers demonstrate similar performance when it comes to sequential writes of large amounts of data. It's interesting that Synology manages to do better with the DiskStation DS412+ than it did with the DiskStation DS411+II. Thecus, on the other hand, doesn't do much better with its N4800 than it did with the N4200PRO.

Each NAS server's sequential read performance is similar to their sequential write performance. Synology's DiskStation DS412+ and Thecus' N4800 give us almost identical data transfer rates and manage to do somewhat better than their predecessors. The N4800 does slightly better here than it did in the video recording benchmark compared to Thecus' N4200PRO.

When it comes to looking at small files, these two NAS server generations perform about the same. Once again, using RAID 5, the new Thecus N4800 underperforms the company's older N4200PRO.

More benchmarks can be found in our picture gallery.

6. Benchmark Results: Office

Synology's DiskStation DS412+ wins the backup benchmark ahead of the competition and its own DiskStation DS411+II. As we saw in the “photo album” benchmark on the previous page, Thecus' N4800 lags behind its N4200PRO.

The older Intel Atom D525-based Thecus N4200PRO manages to take the crown in our backup recovery benchmark ahead of the competition and the new N4800. At this point, we're wondering if Thecus needs to optimize the N4800’s firmware to at least match its previous offering.

Our office productivity benchmark shows fewer differences between the two vendors and their successive generations of storage devices. For the most part, all machines perform fairly similarly.

More benchmarks can be found in our picture gallery.

7. Intel's Atom D2700 Could Boost Speed, But Thecus Needs An Optimized Firmware

The jump from Intel's Atom D510 to the Atom D525 was really just a minor update that didn’t generate any large (or even noticeable) improvements in storage server performance. Refreshed models serving up extra throughput could have certainly come in handy for adding additional services to existing appliances. However, the new processor simply did not make much of a difference.

Transitioning from the Atom D525 to Intel's Atom D2700 gives us a very similar, and equally disappointing, evolutionary experience. The difference in clock rate of 330 MHz between the Atom D2700 and its predecessor had us hoping we'd see more significant improvements this time, particularly since the Atom D525 was only 133 MHz faster than the D510 it replaced. It turns out, however, that when it comes to data transfer rates, the latest NAS devices are just as fast (or slow) as the old ones.

We do think the faster processor impacts the responsiveness of each machine's Web-based UI, though. Navigation feels snappier, and pages load faster.

For anyone without a NAS device currently, a new system with Intel's Atom D2700 is a good way to not only centralize storage, but also run other services like a MySQL database or Web server. Synology and Thecus both include several interesting features, such as TwonkyMedia server support and virus scanning. Both stand to benefit from additional processing power. Would we be inclined to upgrade an older NAS appliance with one of these new ones, though? Probably not, unless one of the software features really stands out to you. Otherwise, expect comparable performance and comparable looks.

Thecus' N4800: Neither Here Nor There

You should think twice before actually using the Thecus N4800 as a media player in your living room, hooked up directly to a TV via HDMI. It might be quiet, but, at the end of the day, it’s still actively-cooled. So, quiet shouldn't be confused with inaudible. Its noise would likely get old really fast during quiet scenes in movies. In addition, the firmware to make this possible wasn't even available in time for our review.

It’s not that we think using a NAS server as a media player is a bad idea. It’s an interesting design that has some potential. This is just the wrong product for it. Four-bay NAS server models like Thecus' N4800 are designed for the small and medium business (SMB) sector. This user group is usually much more interested in factors like performance and dependability than running a media player.

The integrated battery backup shows that Thecus does have its SMB customers' best interests in mind, though. Built-in UPS functionality worked well throughout our review, and it's something we'd encourage other vendors to start thinking about.

Synology DiskStation DS412+: Great Speed, Mature Firmware, No Integrated UPS

Our benchmarks show that Thecus' N4800 often performs worse than its predecessor. But this isn’t the processor’s fault. Synology shows us how to get more performance from a NAS with its DiskStation DS412+, beating the Atom D252-equipped DiskStation DS411+II in our benchmarks. We think the problem stems from Thecus' firmware, then. Not only does it need to be optimized for better performance, but the Web-based GUI could also use an overhaul, especially compared to Synology’s user interface.

Synology's DiskStation DS412+ offers good data transfer speeds and easy usability. It's easy to configure and use. Synology uses its DSM firmware, now version 4.0, across the company's product line. It’s well thought out, intuitive, and even looks good.

If data safety and uninterrupted operation are your main considerations, Thecus' N4800 might still be the better choice, especially if you can live without a pretty GUI. Just because we don't like it as a media player doesn't mean it's not a capable NAS server. And its UPS is a great feature to have.