Test setup

The N4100Pro is connected directly to an X7DAL-E motherboard using a factory made CAT6 crossover cable, jumbo frames are enabled. Local storage consists of four 72 GB 15K disks in RAID 0 on a U320 LSI MegaRAID to prevent any bottlenecks.

To test performance I used ATTO (by mounting a network drive). Additionally files are copied using the Windows copy command.

Performance

The first image shows RAID 0, the second shows RAID5.
The ATTO numbers are usually higher than actual transfer speeds. As expected performance isn't stellar. I did expect performance to be higher with RAID 0 compared to RAID 5, this is not the case. Since most people would use a four bay NAS in RAID 5 it's good to know this doesn't slow down compared to RAID 0.


ATTO showed large amounts of data were slower than small ones. I copied an ISO I had sitting on my computer to the N4100 Pro and then copied it back to my PC. As ATTO already showed, write speed aren't particularly great, read speed is more acceptable though.


Since ATTO showed better results with smaller amounts of data I copied a load of MP3's to the N4100 Pro and copied them back again. The results are similar to that of the ISO.

Power usage

Idle power usage seems quite low, fluctuating a bit under 60W it won't cause you a huge power bill.


To keep the device busy I took out a hard disk and put it back in. The result is a broken array which had to be rebuilt. This keeps the hard drives and CPU busy thus creating a fair load.
Power use rises to just over 60W, a small difference. While the hard drive was removed power usage was around 50W which makes me believe the drives didn't spin down. I'm not sure why.