Testing against SMB/Windows only isn't a good policy for a Linux-based NAS. Since different software stacks provide different protocol support, performance tends to vary widely between SMB (Samba), AFP (netatalkd), and NFS (unfsd, many others). What version a vendor chooses to support can also have major impacts on performance.
In a nutshell, testing against Windows ensures you results apply only to Windows - and most folks aren't going to realize that doesn't apply broadly. (Speaking as someone who has dealt a lot with NAS units and varying/flaky protocol support.)
Our NFS tests are done with a Linux VM (and for the 5big NAS Pro, we will present those results in the second part of the review).
Many SMB users run Windows, and even when they purchase Linux based NAS systems, the shares are going to be mounted on Windows. Our testing methodology ensures that we cater to the most common usage scenario, and more importantly, it is consistent across different reviews.
My homemade WHS box cost far less than that w/o disks and has consistently performed better than this box. For example - both reads/writes will saturate gigE (about 115MB/s average throughput). Maybe NAS testing should also be compared against dedicated servers?
Of course my server sits in a 4U case in the basement, it isn't small and sexy like this one is.
Is there any chance for a higher-end Synology review? I mean the xs and xs+ series. They claim 400,000+ IOPS. Anything that claims 400,000 IOPS should be tested at Anandtech! Especially if it's around 6k for a total package, including a total OS and VMware support.
this came with 2x 1tb plus 3x 2tb or 8tb. your setups had 5x 4tb or 20tb. So for arguments sake half that to 4tb for oem 10tb for your 'max' setup . Wuala offers 5gb as a ' first hit is free' deal. what do they charge for 4tb to 10tb?
I will tell you 1tb a year is 1100. this was for a 1 person user.
For small business 100gb with 5 users was 429 a year.
For a small business it is not a crazy high fee. For a personal user the prices are far too high. I am not anti-cloud, but to protect 1tb at 1100 a year is just too expensive for a personal user. I got the prices directly from wuala's website
Hmm.. I don't see your point here. LaCie doesn't want you to use Wuala to back up your entire NAS. It is a Dropbox like service for selected content on your computing device. Additionally, they allow you to associate your NAS with that account so that you can access the NAS through the Wuala interface. Whatever is stored on your NAS doesn't count towards the quota in the cloud, hence the term 'hybrid cloud'.
Hello, Indeed Wuala can be used to: - back up certain shares from your NAS in the cloud to secure them offsite. Don't forget that to backup the NAS' entire content, you can buy a second one and use it as full backup target offsite - sync folders between employees that are highly mobile / often remote. The plus being that Wuala does not scan, share or know a thing about your data or password.
My point is the device can have 10tb of info with ease even more. Wuala offered 1tb for 1100 a year. For the single user. 1tb out of 10tb would be selective. For a single user it would be expensive. Basically cost prohibitive unless the info was truly need for making money. Ie a small business The business plan had only one offering 100gb and 5 users. It was 429 a year. They did say they had other plans to call them.
If I load this device with 4tb drives run as raid5 with a good ups setup. I can store 16tb of info. 100gb out of 16tb is not much. 1tb is more reasonable. So if the un named business plan is 2k for 2tb and 10 users as a business owner it may be okay. But I was not able to find out what a large business plan costs. Hence my question "so how much is wuala?" Is a 5 to 10 user 2tb plan cost prohibitive?
Don't know. I do know that a 5 user 100gb plan is 429 and that is okay. but 100gb of info out of 16tb is not much.
I would think more info on a large size plan would be a factor for a user. As a small business user I want to know the yearly cost for gear up front. As i see it 550 for the unit 5x 4tb hdds at 425 is 2125.
Total 2675. Setup as raid5 running an eaton 5125 ups as a back up . A 5125 runs 400 extra battery pack is 300 2 battery packs 600. so 1k for a good ups setup. I am at 3675. Plus the computer Lets say 2500 for a good but not great server.
So 6k Gives me the gear to run the business. Not too expensive for a money making business. If I need 2tb or 3tb out of the possible 16tb to be on the cloud will it be too costly.
I WAS not able to determine cost for more then 1tb as a single user or 100gb as a multiple user. So if I was going to spend for this I would have like to know my cloud cost for 2tb 3tb of cloud.
You can reply to certain comments by hitting "reply" under the user name/user logo. And you haven't added anything to your original post which ganesh replied to and you still seem to be confused as to the purpose of the Wuala service it seems to me.
My late 2010 LaCie 1 TB Hitachi drive worked a treat until just before X-mas 2012, when it tipped over onto my desk and wrecked the hard drive. Built like a tank, fragile as glass. I won't buy another LaCie product.
Any pictures of any physical damage ? Have you tried the internal drive with another external case/dock or PC ? Was there damge to just the HD or just the LaCie electronics or both ? If just the HD and no backups, then did you ask a data recovery company to access recoverability ?
Wuala has me interested in this device. Can I assign certain folders within the NAS to be synced with Wuala or does this have to be done through a workstation? It would be great to have a mission critical share automatically backed up to Wuala through the NAS without any further bother.
Hi, anybody know what if the internal motherboard in the 5Big NAS / Office is a mini-ITX format? The 4Big Rack Office and the older ethernet disk rackmount versions used/use a IT format motherboard.
Unfortunately there are no halfway stylish HTPC-esque looking 1U 19" cases out there for 4 3.5" drives with a max depth of about 19"......
A personal bugbear I have with NAS reviews (one that is apparently shared by no-one else in the world): How about evaluating the reliability side of things in a bit more depth?
What happens when you yank a disk in the middle of a metadata-heavy write? What happens when you yank the power-cord in the middle of a metadata-heavy write? What happens when an HDD in a RAID set is silently corrupted? (simulated by, say, mounting it under Linux and flipping some bits) What happens if the box breaks and you want to get your data off the disks? What's the underlying file-system? Does it scrub the disks?
If I just wanted to know how friendly the GUI is, I'd be reading CNET ;)
I'm very interested in this NAS and I would like to read as many previews as I can before it hits the stores here in The Netherlands. Thanks for Part I :-)
Why does Lacies harddrive compatibilitiy list not have Western Digital RED series drives on it? I asked them about these drives and the 5Big NAS Pro and they said they can only guarantee listed harddrives to work properly, they could not tell if they tested these drives at all.
Strangly the WD GREEN drives are listed, but online I keep reading about many problems with these drives in a NAS due to acessive head parking. Will this not be the case when used in a 5Big NAS Pro?
Only if there would Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interface connectivity, along with RAID10 - it would be perfect. For my use anyways :)
If there would be Thunderbolt connectivity and ability to that interface use most of the systems resources, this product would suite the needs of both high performance users as well as an NAS solution.
RAID10 would be great, also on marketing viewpoint as many users prefer RAID10 over RAID6 or at least would like to have that as an option.
With regards to the choice of drives, what drives are reliable? It seems many internal drive reviews on amazon report having multiple drives bought in one go fail on their nas. This shows up under the one star ratings for the seagate barracuda, wd red green and black. Why such high failure rates?
Is there a good drive to use on a nas, without going for the WD RE Enterprise drive? I don't really need too much performance, just high reliability for moderate cost.
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diamondsw - Sunday, January 6, 2013 - link
Testing against SMB/Windows only isn't a good policy for a Linux-based NAS. Since different software stacks provide different protocol support, performance tends to vary widely between SMB (Samba), AFP (netatalkd), and NFS (unfsd, many others). What version a vendor chooses to support can also have major impacts on performance.In a nutshell, testing against Windows ensures you results apply only to Windows - and most folks aren't going to realize that doesn't apply broadly. (Speaking as someone who has dealt a lot with NAS units and varying/flaky protocol support.)
ganeshts - Sunday, January 6, 2013 - link
Our NFS tests are done with a Linux VM (and for the 5big NAS Pro, we will present those results in the second part of the review).Many SMB users run Windows, and even when they purchase Linux based NAS systems, the shares are going to be mounted on Windows. Our testing methodology ensures that we cater to the most common usage scenario, and more importantly, it is consistent across different reviews.
vol7ron - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
Diamonds good point. Good article, Ganesh - also, thanks for posting the price below, perhaps updating the table in the article would also help.Any OSX considerations? I like to give attention to all 3 Win/Linux/Mac
FearTec - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
And what is the price?ganeshts - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Diskless is $549, par for the course. I apologize for missing out this important aspect.mcnabney - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
Wow, spendy.My homemade WHS box cost far less than that w/o disks and has consistently performed better than this box. For example - both reads/writes will saturate gigE (about 115MB/s average throughput). Maybe NAS testing should also be compared against dedicated servers?
Of course my server sits in a 4U case in the basement, it isn't small and sexy like this one is.
zsero - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Is there any chance for a higher-end Synology review? I mean the xs and xs+ series. They claim 400,000+ IOPS. Anything that claims 400,000 IOPS should be tested at Anandtech! Especially if it's around 6k for a total package, including a total OS and VMware support.ganeshts - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
I have a higher end QNAP TS-EC1279 RP review coming up. Depending on the reception to that piece, we may request Synology for the XS / XS+ :)philipma1957 - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
this came with 2x 1tb plus 3x 2tb or 8tb. your setups had 5x 4tb or 20tb. So for arguments sake half that to 4tb for oem 10tb for your 'max' setup . Wuala offers 5gb as a ' first hit is free' deal. what do they charge for 4tb to 10tb?I will tell you 1tb a year is 1100. this was for a 1 person user.
For small business 100gb with 5 users was 429 a year.
For a small business it is not a crazy high fee. For a personal user the prices are far too high. I am not anti-cloud, but to protect 1tb at 1100 a year is just too expensive for a personal user. I got the prices directly from wuala's website
ganeshts - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Hmm.. I don't see your point here. LaCie doesn't want you to use Wuala to back up your entire NAS. It is a Dropbox like service for selected content on your computing device. Additionally, they allow you to associate your NAS with that account so that you can access the NAS through the Wuala interface. Whatever is stored on your NAS doesn't count towards the quota in the cloud, hence the term 'hybrid cloud'.julieno - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
Hello,Indeed Wuala can be used to:
- back up certain shares from your NAS in the cloud to secure them offsite. Don't forget that to backup the NAS' entire content, you can buy a second one and use it as full backup target offsite
- sync folders between employees that are highly mobile / often remote.
The plus being that Wuala does not scan, share or know a thing about your data or password.
wirelessrouters - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
Its only for small business. Too much high price so out of reach for general user.philipma1957 - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
My point is the device can have 10tb of info with ease even more. Wuala offered 1tb for 1100 a year. For the single user. 1tb out of 10tb would be selective. For a single user it would be expensive. Basically cost prohibitive unless the info was truly need for making money. Ie a small business The business plan had only one offering 100gb and 5 users. It was 429 a year. They did say they had other plans to call them.If I load this device with 4tb drives run as raid5 with a good ups setup. I can store 16tb of info. 100gb out of 16tb is not much. 1tb is more reasonable. So if the un named business plan is 2k for 2tb and 10 users as a business owner it may be okay. But I was not able to find out what a large business plan costs. Hence my question "so how much is wuala?" Is a 5 to 10 user 2tb plan cost prohibitive?
Don't know. I do know that a 5 user 100gb plan is 429 and that is okay. but 100gb of info out of 16tb is not much.
I would think more info on a large size plan would be a factor for a user. As a small business user I want to know the yearly cost for gear up front. As i see it 550 for the unit 5x 4tb hdds at 425 is 2125.
Total 2675. Setup as raid5 running an eaton 5125 ups as a back up . A 5125 runs 400 extra battery pack is 300 2 battery packs 600. so 1k for a good ups setup. I am at 3675. Plus the computer Lets say 2500 for a good but not great server.
So 6k Gives me the gear to run the business. Not too expensive for a money making business. If I need 2tb or 3tb out of the possible 16tb to be on the cloud will it be too costly.
I WAS not able to determine cost for more then 1tb as a single user or 100gb as a multiple user. So if I was going to spend for this I would have like to know my cloud cost for 2tb 3tb of cloud.
Death666Angel - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
You can reply to certain comments by hitting "reply" under the user name/user logo. And you haven't added anything to your original post which ganesh replied to and you still seem to be confused as to the purpose of the Wuala service it seems to me.bodacious - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
My late 2010 LaCie 1 TB Hitachi drive worked a treat until just before X-mas 2012, when it tipped over onto my desk and wrecked the hard drive. Built like a tank, fragile as glass. I won't buy another LaCie product.Subyman - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
LaCie makes HDDs with bumpers for clumsy people too.tygrus - Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - link
Any pictures of any physical damage ?Have you tried the internal drive with another external case/dock or PC ?
Was there damge to just the HD or just the LaCie electronics or both ?
If just the HD and no backups, then did you ask a data recovery company to access recoverability ?
Subyman - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Wuala has me interested in this device. Can I assign certain folders within the NAS to be synced with Wuala or does this have to be done through a workstation? It would be great to have a mission critical share automatically backed up to Wuala through the NAS without any further bother.julieno - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
Hello, you can do that through the workstation. Though we're working on the headless system.Crazymayhem - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
Hi, anybody know what if the internal motherboard in the 5Big NAS / Office is a mini-ITX format? The 4Big Rack Office and the older ethernet disk rackmount versions used/use a IT format motherboard.Unfortunately there are no halfway stylish HTPC-esque looking 1U 19" cases out there for 4 3.5" drives with a max depth of about 19"......
klassobanieras - Thursday, January 31, 2013 - link
A personal bugbear I have with NAS reviews (one that is apparently shared by no-one else in the world): How about evaluating the reliability side of things in a bit more depth?What happens when you yank a disk in the middle of a metadata-heavy write?
What happens when you yank the power-cord in the middle of a metadata-heavy write?
What happens when an HDD in a RAID set is silently corrupted? (simulated by, say, mounting it under Linux and flipping some bits)
What happens if the box breaks and you want to get your data off the disks?
What's the underlying file-system?
Does it scrub the disks?
If I just wanted to know how friendly the GUI is, I'd be reading CNET ;)
me_too - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
I'm very interested in this NAS and I would like to read as many previews as I can before it hits the stores here in The Netherlands. Thanks for Part I :-)me_too - Sunday, February 24, 2013 - link
More questions...Why does Lacies harddrive compatibilitiy list not have Western Digital RED series drives on it? I asked them about these drives and the 5Big NAS Pro and they said they can only guarantee listed harddrives to work properly, they could not tell if they tested these drives at all.
Strangly the WD GREEN drives are listed, but online I keep reading about many problems with these drives in a NAS due to acessive head parking. Will this not be the case when used in a 5Big NAS Pro?
When can we expect Part II of the review? :-)
NVISION - Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - link
Only if there would Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interface connectivity, along with RAID10 - it would be perfect. For my use anyways :)If there would be Thunderbolt connectivity and ability to that interface use most of the systems resources, this product would suite the needs of both high performance users as well as an NAS solution.
RAID10 would be great, also on marketing viewpoint as many users prefer RAID10 over RAID6 or at least would like to have that as an option.
ejunyhu - Monday, March 11, 2013 - link
what is the vga port for? can you connect a monitor and get config&monitoring display?bobasaur - Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - link
I read elsewhere that the VGA port is for seeing boot up sequence & settings, useful during disaster recovery.bobasaur - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - link
can't wait for part 2!xpro - Wednesday, May 29, 2013 - link
I've been holding my breath, I look like a smurf.bobasaur - Thursday, July 18, 2013 - link
I'm an honorary smurf now tooBob38489 - Monday, July 15, 2013 - link
With regards to the choice of drives, what drives are reliable? It seems many internal drive reviews on amazon report having multiple drives bought in one go fail on their nas. This shows up under the one star ratings for the seagate barracuda, wd red green and black. Why such high failure rates?Is there a good drive to use on a nas, without going for the WD RE Enterprise drive? I don't really need too much performance, just high reliability for moderate cost.