Benchmarking With Intel's NAS Toolkit

Results: Easy Operation, Reproducible Results

The Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, with its many multimedia-oriented benchmarks, covers the modern requirements of assessing a networked NAS device’s performance capabilities. But at the same time, the performance of traditional tasks, like the copying of large files, is not neglected.

The test results are reproducible—naturally an important attribute in any performance metric. The execution of the 18 different benchmarks results in a comprehensive picture of the tested NAS unit. This allows numerous network storage units to be compared.

Other variables in the test structure can be kept to a minimum; we always test NAS units with the same test platform. The details about the hardware used can be found in the relevant articles. In order to be able to get universal values from the drive configurations, we try to use Samsung HD321KJ drives wherever possible. If the NAS units have already been fitted with drives by the manufacturer, of course we use those drives.

Other requirements of the test hardware used are few, though users of AMD system will have to get along without the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit. Incidentally, with comprehensive test structures, you should bear in mind the need for sufficient storage capacity for the log files. These can take up several gigabyte of storage space.