Cheap NAS for 100Mbit?

[Glen_Goyne]

At my home I am limited to 100Mbit*. I am looking for a cheap 2-disk NAS that will
1) give me maximum performance over 100Mbit
2) no features required, this disk will purely be accessed from XBMC so I don't need backup, itunes server. media server or remote access stuff

Most reviews I read now are of course based on performace over Gigabit and I find it hard to judge how 100Mbit performance will be. I think/hope all should perform wel on 100Mbit but I know from the past that there were differences in speeds. Hope someone can point me in the right direction, have been looking at some of the conceptronic offers (CH3SNAS), pogoplug , DNS 323 but still not sure how they perform on 100mbit only.


*As my tv decoder requires UTP for the tv signal I had to use a UTP "economizer" to have two UTP signals over one cable (each use 4 pairs). This effectively means I can never get more than a 100Mbit connection and the cable can't be replaced as the previous owner built a floor on top of it.

 

[thiggins]

A 100 Mbps LAN connection will cap performance at 12.5 MB/s. So buying anything over that will be wasted money.

Most all of today's NASes will exceed that number. Use the NAS Ranker, set the filters as desired filter and sort by price to look at candidates. You will probably find Buffalo and WD are the best values in diskful NASes. The ZyXEL NSA325 isn't a bad deal, either.

 

[Glen_Goyne]

A 100 Mbps LAN connection will cap performance at 12.5 MB/s. So buying anything over that will be wasted money.

Most all of today's NASes will exceed that number. Use the NAS Ranker, set the filters as desired filter and sort by price to look at candidates. You will probably find Buffalo and WD are the best values in diskful NASes. The ZyXEL NSA325 isn't a bad deal, either.

Thanks, so any NAS that does more than 12,5MB/s on Gigabit should be able to max out my 100MBit connection? Absolutely no expert just want to be sure that I don't pick one that in real life only does 6MB/s where another manages 9 or 10.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks, so any NAS that does more than 12,5MB/s on Gigabit should be able to max out my 100MBit connection? Absolutely no expert just want to be sure that I don't pick one that in real life only does 6MB/s where another manages 9 or 10.

That is correct. But keep in mind it depends on the nature of the transfers. Large files or continuous streaming, i.e. sequential file access, is more likely to hit your LAN limit. Moving folders of small files might not hit the 12.5 MB/s limit because they require more disk head movement.

 

[stevech]

I wonder why your LAN is limited to 100Mbps? You can take any LAN feed on ethernet, connect that to a $25 gigabit switch. Then plug all your PCs and the NAS into that switch. So your constraint goes away. Your Internet transfers would use the 100BT, but anything plugged into the switch would run a 100BT speeds if the two devices support such.

Perhaps you have a laptop that can't do gigabit. If you have an older desktop PC, a cheap gigE ethernet adapter board in a PCIe slot speeds it up; you'd disable the original slower one.

 

[Glen_Goyne]

I wonder why your LAN is limited to 100Mbps? You can take any LAN feed on ethernet, connect that to a $25 gigabit switch. Then plug all your PCs and the NAS into that switch. So your constraint goes away. Your Internet transfers would use the 100BT, but anything plugged into the switch would run a 100BT speeds if the two devices support such.

Perhaps you have a laptop that can't do gigabit. If you have an older desktop PC, a cheap gigE ethernet adapter board in a PCIe slot speeds it up; you'd disable the original slower one.

Hi Stevech,

Always good to challenge assumptions, however I can only use 4 wires, see my OP. Had one cable for internet near my tv and then needed utp as well for my fiber hd package, couldnt pull a new cable there so cable is split for tv and internet.

regards,
Jasper

 

[stevech]

Hmmm. Can you use MoCA for IP to TV (fast enough) and then you could have 4 pair cat5 for 1000BT

Assuming you can't pull two new cat5 using the existing cable as a pull-string. I've used the "flat" cat5e cables for 50' or so and they work well and are easier to handle.

 

[coxhaus]

Gig switches are cheap, no reason not to run one. With that being said 100 megabit is really fast enough unless you are trying to move one or part of one hard drive to another hard drive for a home network.

 

[stevech]

I agree... 100BT is fast enough for the vast majority of NAS transfers. Only when you move a 500MB file between two fast PCs using wired connections will you overtax 100BT. More common is batches of smaller files and the file system overhead at both ends is the constraint.