Upgrade or Not? (SS4200E to DS209)

[BostonDan]

I'm trying to decide if it is worth upgrading my Intel SS4200E with (4) 1TB drives to the Synology DS209 with (2) 1 TB drives. I'm using the NAS primarily for storing/backing up documents and project files in size up to 2GB in size. I realize I'll be losing space, but in the past 3 years, I've only filled up around 100GB of space and I like the idea of going to 2 drives. To complete the picture of my system, I'm also using a ReadyNAS-Duo to backup the SS4200e in my system.
In real life practice, do you think that I'll notice the speed improvement going to the DS209 or is noticing the speed really limited to media streaming.
Thoughts?

 

[thiggins]

In real life practice, do you think that I'll notice the speed improvement going to the DS209 or is noticing the speed really limited to media streaming.

You might not notice a difference although the DS209 is faster. But depends on what you're backing up and the OS you're using.

You won't notice a difference for streaming. Both are plenty fast.

 

[BostonDan]

Thanks for responding Tim -
50% of the files I'm backing up are JPEG's, Word Documents, and Excel files ranging in size from 1K to 3MB. The other 50% are Media and ZIP files which range in size from 100MB to 8GB(it wasn't 2GB as I first thought).
As far as the clients, I have two netbooks (Asus 1005HA and Samsung N120) and two notebooks (Dell D620 and Dell Inspiron 603M). The Asus is running Windows 7 while everything else is running Windows XP. Does the OS play that much of a role in limiting bandwidth?
Someday I hope to add a media server with a few media players, but I haven't even started that.
After reading some of your articles, I'm guessing that the limiting factor is the netbooks & Laptops, not the NAS devices. Appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks again - Dan

 

[thiggins]

You'll definitely see a difference in file transfer speeds over XP with Vista SP1 and later and Win 7. See How To Build a Really Fast NAS - Part 6: The Vista (SP1) Difference