Would USB2 over ethernet perform better than NAS?

DrMekon

DrMekon

DrMekon

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Ive always been really shocked by the shoddy performance of gigabit NAS.. which performs only margiinally better than 100mbps/12MBps.. you get no where neare its true speed, or even anywhere near the max capability of the disk itself.. complete wast eo f money IMO...

I notice now you can buy network usb hubs.. would these provide a better throughput to a usb disk, than nas's do over ethernet..???

I know ethernet is still the underlying medium here, but surely the gigabit nas solutions are just false advertising!!! USB2 has capability to reach 280mbps/60MBps whichwould easily outperform gb nas...
 
Aren't GB Nas solutions actually bottle-necked by the Hard Disk used rather than the ethernet interface?
 
USB 2.0 max speed is 480Mbps if i'm not mistaken, so if gigabit's is 1000Mbps, i'd say the USB connection is the bottleneck - can't you get home NAS with a native ethernet port? Then that way, you could connect your mobo direct to the NAS with a true gigabit to gigabit link, most mobo's come with 2 gigabit ports nowadays.
 
most "ready" NAS devices are very slow, even with gigabit LAN, you're far better of with a small windows machine with folders sharing

look at site called small net builder and see the speed charts
 
USB 2.0 max speed is 480Mbps if i'm not mistaken, so if gigabit's is 1000Mbps, i'd say the USB connection is the bottleneck
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Well, purely based on speed yes.. but Ive never seen a gigabit nas perform more than about 15MBps, whilst typical HD can write at least 60MBps and gigabit spped is around 125MBps... Its just a marketing scam really, when they perform not much better than a standard 100mbps, but they charge lots more money for it... the bottleneck is the NAS alone....

I was looking at a dedicated server, but I want somehting really small!!!
 
If you want the speed, I think your best option is a dedicated small PC with a gigbit ethernet port. I have a home server dedicated to my downloaded TV shows, movie rips, backup ISOs for virtual drives.

Both my server and main PC are on a gigabit network which sometimes gets maxed out when transfering between PCs.

I sometimes see a burst of 120MB/s that will last a few seconds then it'll slowly decrease to around 90MB/s and then hover between 70-85MB/s for the duration of the transfer.

Mounting ISOs over the network to use in a virtual drive works flawlessly and games seem to install faster than from the origional disk. I would very highly advise anyone to go the route of a dedicated PC for a file server.

I also get the added benefit of having a second PC to run dedicated servers from to host private internet games for me and friends to play some multiplayer games in.

I'm pretty sure you'd get it for a price similar to an NAS, from what I've seeen NASes seem pretty expensive for what they are.
 
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There are fast NAS but they are not cheap. I have a Thecus N5200 which transfers between 25-30 mb/s but costs £500.

The benefits over a PC based system is size (its smaller than most shuttles), noise and much less hassle to set up.
 
wesley said:
most "ready" NAS devices are very slow, even with gigabit LAN, you're far better of with a small windows machine with folders sharing

look at site called small net builder and see the speed charts
Click to expand...

Truth! Most hope NAS boxes are pretty shoddy. Either fork out a load of cash for a business level one, or setup and old box as a file server.
 
So what exactly is the issue with the home NAS devices, is the I/O or ethernet controller etc they put in them just naff?

I can understand the disk being a possible bottleneck, but surely integrating a decent onboard nic isn't too much of an engineering challange? Nic's are dirt cheap, even pc world (i know i said it) sell them for 15 quid, can't be cost surely?
 
Its usually the processor on the NAS. They are low powered and have to run the software raid on cheap system
 
So something like that Icybox NAS is useless? Bit of a noob when it comes to networked data but I do have a wifi network that can support 10/100 ethernet (do I really need gigabit?)...

Im actually thinking of reducing the amount of HD space I have in my main PC so that it literally only holds the OS, apps, games and data. Id like to have another device thats always on, quiet and basically holds all my media so I can play it from there whenever I like rather than having to copying it to my main PC.

Id also want my PS3 to be able to connect to it. Can I move stuff to this device from my PS3 (or vice versa) or is it only streaming? I keep hearing DLNA but dno what that is and how it effects my decision...

So considering that and my novice experience what fits the bill? I assumed, at first, a NAS box but it seems you lot think a dedicated PC would be better - what kind of spec would be needed since Ive got bits from some old PCs (Pentium Pro, P3 and an Althon TB setup - presume thats WAY too old :p) and that I could rebuild and a few redundant IDE HDDs. I guess its all about the OS really and the NIC - a desktop processor would be plenty powerful?!?...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
ps3ud0 said:
So something like that Icybox NAS is useless? Bit of a noob when it comes to networked data but I do have a wifi network that can support 10/100 ethernet (do I really need gigabit?)...

Im actually thinking of reducing the amount of HD space I have in my main PC so that it literally only holds the OS, apps, games and data. Id like to have another device thats always on, quiet and basically holds all my media so I can play it from there whenever I like rather than having to copying it to my main PC.

Id also want my PS3 to be able to connect to it. Can I move stuff to this device from my PS3 (or vice versa) or is it only streaming? I keep hearing DLNA but dno what that is and how it effects my decision...

So considering that and my novice experience what fits the bill? I assumed, at first, a NAS box but it seems you lot think a dedicated PC would be better - what kind of spec would be needed since Ive got bits from some old PCs (Pentium Pro, P3 and an Althon TB setup - presume thats WAY too old :p) and that I could rebuild and a few redundant IDE HDDs. I guess its all about the OS really and the NIC - a desktop processor would be plenty powerful?!?...

ps3ud0 :cool:
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I would recommend gigabit ethernet. It's tiresome watching files transfer at a maximum of 12.8MB/s over 100mb ethernet. If you're streaming to your PS3 while accessing files via your PC 12.8MB/s cut in half is no fun at all.

I regularly get transfer rates between PCs on a gigabit network of 70-85MB/s so GBs of data transfer very fast compared to 100mb. Go for a small PC acting as a file server over a gigabit LAN.

The LAN box should only cost about £20 and the old PC bits should be good enough to serve your files, you just need a GB network adapter.

Also, I don't think you can connect to the PS3 to transfer files to it, I'm not 100% on that though.
 
i'd do what kylew says, a low spec low power pc (like a celeron or something) is perfect as a fileserver
 
Would either of this do:

Pentium Pro 200
P3 450Mhz
Althon 1Ghz
Althon 1.2Ghz
Opteron 165 (DFI SLI-DR - think thats gigabit ethernet)

Obviously have to get SATA controller and a gigabit NIC for the first 4 :p

Also whats all this DLNA - bit upset about the gigabit network as I love my WRY54GS :p

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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