10. Competitive Comparison

To put the 2100's performance into perspective, here are the previous results plotted along with those of the Buffalo Gigabit Linkstation (non-RAID) and TeraStation.

Figure 15: 100 Mbps Ethernet read performance competitive comparison (click to enlarge)

The 2100's read performance is lower than both of the Buffalo products, except at the 128 MB file size. But the Buffalo products' write speeds drop off at larger file sizes, giving the 2100 the upper hand.

Figure 16: 100 Mbps Ethernet write performance competitive comparison (click to enlarge)

Read performance with a Gigabit Ethernet connection shows that the Buffalo Gigabit LinkStation and TeraStation in RAID 1 mode generally turn in superior performance except for the 128 MB file size runs. Keep in mind that the Buffalo results are produced without the benefit of jumbo frames. Also of note is the large drop in performance for the TeraStation when run in JBOD mode.

Figure 17: Gigabit Ethernet Read performance competitive comparison (click to enlarge)

There is little difference among the products when it comes to write performance, except for the Thecus when run with 4K jumbo frames. Once again, the downward performance trend below 128 MB file size is due to decreasing caching effects.

Figure 18: Gigabit Ethernet Write performance competitive comparison (click to enlarge)

File Copy

I also ran a couple of drag-and-drop file copy tests to provide a different perspective on performance. These were done with a different computer than the iozone tests - Dell Inspiron 1000, 2.2 MHz Mobile Intel Celeron, 320 MB RAM, Win XP Home SP2 - with the 2100 in RAID 1 mode. The results below are averages of multiple runs of moving a directory tree containing just over a gigabyte.

100 Mbit Ethernet

From Thecus to Laptop: around 3:00
From Laptop to Thecus: around 4:45

1000 Mbit Ethernet (no Jumbo Frames)

From Thecus to Laptop: around 2:20
From Laptop to Thecus: around 2:30

I also read and wrote a file sized at over 1 GB to the Thecus to check for the large file problem that exists with some Linux-based drives. Both read and write completed in under three minutes with a Gigabit Ethernet connection.