Game Data

As most people will use a NAS for storing and retrieving data from it, we've created a set of sequential file copying tests that should help demonstrate how well a NAS handles different types of data. The first dataset is a 96.2 GB game library that is copied as is from an NVMe SSD on the host computer to the NAS. This is then copied back from the NAS to the host PC. Everything is timed and converted to transfer speeds in MB/s. In addition, we also performed this test with an SSD as read cache, where we copied the data five times from the NAS to the host PC. We noted down the improvement on the fifth time the data was copied over, as it often took at least three or four times of copying the data before there was a noticeable benefit. We limited this test to the 10 Gbps interface, even though it would've provided a small benefit in some instances over the 2.5 Gbps interface as well, simply due to how time-consuming this test is.

Single Large File

Next up we copied a single 66.9 GB large file to simulate something like a large video file or a compressed backup file being copied to and from the NAS. This was again done a second time with the SSD read cache enabled.

Photos

The third and final test consists of 10.6 GB of photos across 4,084 files.