New Synology 1010+

[weh]

My computer sees this 5-drive, RAID-5 array as a very large, single, 3-partition (2TB each) eSata drive. Sans Digital TR5M-B 5 Bay SATA to eSATA (Port Multiplier) JBOD / RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5 Enclosure (Black). Total cost: $216 (plus the cost of the five 1.5TB WD "green" drives I used to fill it). I didn't even need to use the included dual-port eSata PCI/e card. Either of the two extra "GSata" ports on my Gigabyte motherboard work just fine (note that the ones associated with the Intel ICH10R do not appear to work properly with the Sans Digital system - only a single drive is visible to the computer).

Here's another from case manufacturer Lian Li for $11 less! Lian Li EX-50 RAID Sub-System.

Sans Digital also has 8-drive models; however, if I'm reading the literature correctly, these appear to be configured as two 4-drive subsystems contained in a single chassis and require two eSata connections to the host computer instead of one.

These are great options to add massive storage to small form factor computers. You should investigate.

 

[thiggins]

Would be interesting to see if/how a NAS recognizes that or a similar box..

 

[weh]

Why not ask Sans Digital for a loaner. I suspect they'd love the publicity. My impression thus far is that they have an excellent product that is very cost effective. (I have no financial connection to Sans Digital - I just bought the box on the advice of a friend who is using several of them at his medical records storage facility.)

A note on their connectivity to the computer: the eSata adapter supplied in the ~$200 deal is a PCI/e-1 card. Depending on how you configure the box, that could present a significant throughput bottle neck. They also offer a PCI/e-4 card, but it's more expensive.

I'm probably not getting the throughput I could with the PCI/e-4 adapter; however, I'm not using the device as working space so it isn't a problem. I'm averaging about 30~40 MB/s when transferring large files (typically, anywhere from about 10MB to as much as 1.5GB, each, usually about a dozen files at a time) from a pair of 1TB Caviar "blacks" (RAID-1) connected to the ICH10R and using the motherboard's "GSata" connector for the TR5M-B (RAID-5).

 

[scottlindner]

I have a few very specific technical questions about this NAS. For anyone that owns or still has it, could you PM me so we can collaborate offline? In the interest of keeping this thread objectively focused on reviewing this NAS, I'd prefer to keep my questions private and post a summary once I have figured everything out.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[thiggins]

Have you tried asking Synology directly?

 

[scottlindner]

No response.

I may be trying to be *too* smart prior to purchasing. Based on what I think I'm finding on the forums of all of the NAS products I'm considering, I think I have a good idea for the features and level of support (tech support or community) I'll get from each of the products/vendors I'm considering. Based on this impression, I feel the DS1010+ is the one to go with.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[thiggins]

Be careful of performance expectations if you're planning to use the DX510 expansion. Those 5 drives connect via a port multiplier and one eSATA port.
I'm waiting for Synology to provide a DX510 so that I can test.

 

[scottlindner]

Be careful of performance expectations if you're planning to use the DX510 expansion. Those 5 drives connect via a port multiplier and one eSATA port.
I'm waiting for Synology to provide a DX510 so that I can test.

Are you suspecting the single eSATA will starve the throughput of the additional 5 drives?

I'm not considering the expansion. At least not for a very long time. I figure by the time I will out grow 5 2TB drives it'll be a good time for a NAS upgrade anyway.

Thanks for the input. I hadn't thought about it like that.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[thiggins]

Are you suspecting the single eSATA will starve the throughput of the additional 5 drives?

Yes, I am.

 

[scottlindner]

Yes, I am.

I was thinking about this overnight. Even dual gigabit Ethernet and its inefficiencies even when fully saturated is slower than the single rate over eSATA. So I'd suspect the big performance hit will be in RIAD rebuild times, and possibly rare latency hits due to the short term bursts that saturate the eSATA and collisions on the SATA multiplier.

I'm not a NAS or RAID guy so I can't really claim to know much like I suspect you would, but that's how I'm thinking about it.

Scott

 

[thiggins]

Maybe there won't be a problem. But Synology hasn't presented any data to say there won't be and has been in no rush to provide product for test.

 

[scottlindner]

Maybe there won't be a problem. But Synology hasn't presented any data to say there won't be and has been in no rush to provide product for test.

Yah.. the proof will be in the benchmarks.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Abdo]

One question that I have is how much to the noise in the DS1010, is much noise?

I currently have a Netgear NV+, the noise would be bigger or lesser?

Thanks


Abdo

 

[thiggins]

Neither one is particularly quiet. You would notice either one in a quiet room.

 

[Abdo]

Thanks,

But mine it question is because in the comparative degrees of the SmallNetBuilder, it brings the DS1010 as a device with more noise that the QNAP.

Therefore that it would like to know if the DS1010 the same makes noise that the current one that I have Netgear NV+.

Abdo

 

[syno.franklin]

@scottlindner

Please PM me the email address which you have used to contact Synology, and the region of the world you are from.

Or you may elect to use our product inquiry form, found here

Hope this helps, and have a good day.

 

[scottlindner]

@scottlindner

Please PM me the email address which you have used to contact Synology, and the region of the world you are from.

Or you may elect to use our product inquiry form, found here

Hope this helps, and have a good day.

I already opted to buy the DS1010+ so all of my questions are no longer relevant. Thanks for the response!

Cheers,
Scott

 

[teekay]

multi user/access performance

apologies in advance. noob questions here.

I'm really interested in getting this unit as a small design office NAS. Therefore I have 3 questions that I need to find out more before deciding between this unit or the DS4600 pairing it with a workstation PC cum server.

1. What does the throughput test speed means compared to real world usage if I were to use it to edit photos/videos (20-100MB files) and occasionally streaming some music/video from the NAS as a single user?

2. How does the DS1010+'s 80+MB/s stack up against a DAS such as Promise DS4600 directly attached to a workstation for the above tasks?

3. Finally, any thoughts on real world usage in an environment where I have about 5 users randomly accessing files to read, write and stream?

thanks in advance for any suggestion or thoughts for this.

 

[scottlindner]

1. What does the throughput test speed means compared to real world usage if I were to use it to edit photos/videos (20-100MB files) and occasionally streaming some music/video from the NAS as a single user?

You need to understand your office environment. How many people, how often, is it a simple read once and write once file operation or is it more of a live connection like database files.

2. How does the DS1010+'s 80+MB/s stack up against a DAS such as Promise DS4600 directly attached to a workstation for the above tasks?

Once you understand the answers to the questions above, you should be able to use this site's comparison tool to determine that. They've done all of the tests, you just need to figure out which tests are most critical to your environment.

3. Finally, any thoughts on real world usage in an environment where I have about 5 users randomly accessing files to read, write and stream?

For five users doing MS Office type stuff you could use a much lesser NAS unit.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[teekay]

Scott, thanks for the quick response.

I have problems understanding and trying to make good use of the comprehensive data and test done here as I'm not that much of a tech savvy person.

To further explain the scenario, we're not using ms office applications as often as we use adobe's premiere, photoshop, final cut & aperture that needs some form of stream read/write. Not simple read/write stuff.

So we have 2 guys on graphics editing that I don't believe will need constant access which is much more of a simple read write but using file sizes ranging from 250-500MB a pop.

We have 1 guy that does the heavy video editing that needs some form of a streaming demand working around with file size ranging from 500MB to 2GB a pop. And we'll have constant media (audio/video) streaming to most computers all the time.

Maybe from the above scenario, you can tell me what part of the data should I be looking for to suit the above setup?

thanks in advance once again! cheers!