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) |
CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (65 nm, Conroe) Two Cores, 4 MB L2 Cache, 1333 MT/s FSB, 65 W, 2.66 GHz |
RAM | 2 x 1024 MB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 |
eSATA Controller | JMicron JMB363 |
System HDD | Seagate Barracuda 7200.9, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s, 8 MB Cache |
Benchmark HDD | 4 x 3.5" Samsung Spinpoint HD103SJ, 1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s, 32 MB Cache |
DVD ROM | Samsung 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 10 | DirectX 10 (Vista Default) |
DirectX 9 | Version: April 2007 |
Graphics Driver | AMD Radeon Version 7.12 |
Network Driver | 9.0.32.3 (Vista Default) |
Intel Chipset Driver | Version 6.9.1.1001 (20/02/2008) |
JMicron Chipset Driver | Version 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.
Header Cell - Column 0 | Synology DS412+ | Thecus N4800 |
---|---|---|
Off | 3.3 Watt | 1.9 Watt |
Peak | 57.2 Watt | 74.4 Watt |
Sleep (HDD Down) | 17.0 Watt | 21.7 Watt |
Idle | 41.2 Watt | 40.5 Watt |
Rebuild | 48.2 Watt | 54.0 Watt |