Introduction and design
The N8810U-G is a two-unit rack-mount network storage unit, designed for server cabinets. It's big, since it accommodates eight hard disks, weighs 15kg, and it's over half a metre deep, with dimensions of 90mm x 428mm x 586mm.
It accommodates up to eight SAS or SATA disks, which can be configured in many types of storage array, from the basic types including JBOD, and RAID modes 0, 1 and 5, to more advanced configurations including RAID 50 and RAID 60.
Pitched at about £1,500 (around $2,350, AU$2,840), it's not the cheapest NAS on the market but it has more than a few extras to justify the cost. The included 10GbE card accounts for a large part of this price tag, for it offers cutting edge super-fast network speeds, along with software features including full hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption of your data.
Design
The black plastic cover at the front slides down after undoing a pair of thumbscrews to reveal eight drive caddies. An LCD display in the centre provides at-a-glance information about the status of the NAS. Each caddy has a lock on it to prevent removal, although there's no lock on the main drive bay door panel itself.
Two USB 2.0 ports, the power button and indicator lights are placed at the left. On the rear there are as many ports as you would find on a typical desktop computer, because the N8810U-G is basically an x86 PC. There are two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports, VGA and HDMI video out, and there's a pair of standard Gigabit Ethernet ports which can be bonded together.
The 10GbE card works as a third Ethernet interface, and is possibly the most important aspect of the N8810U-G, for it provides a faster network backplane than many other NAS units on the market, providing up to ten times as much throughput. It removes what has become a bottleneck with transfer speeds for NAS units that rely on standard Gigabit Ethernet only.
Hardware innards
Undoing a single thumbscrew at the back of the N8810U-G allows the metal cover to slide off, revealing the guts of the unit – a standard x86 motherboard, processor and memory.
The chip used by Thecus is a 2.9GHz Intel G850 Pentium dual-core. It's no Core i7 or Xeon, but there's not a huge need for ultra-fast processor performance. It won't be running any graphics-heavy software, and the majority of work the unit will do will be to manage users, shunt data around and support the underlying OS.
Thecus confirmed to me that upgrading the chip with another LGA 1155 processor is possible if you wish, but it might be worth calling them to check compatibility before you do.
There are four internal fans, all of which are hot swappable, which should minimise downtime in the event of one failing.
The standard configuration ships with 4GB of ECC DDR3 memory, and this can be expanded to 32GB, but that's probably only necessary if the N8810U-G is deployed in an environment with lots of users. Thecus boasts that a single unit can handle 250 users simultaneously without slowdown, indicating that the N8810U-G is well-suited for small-to-medium business environments.
Setup and software
Assembling the unit is reasonably straightforward. A massive bag of screws is provided for securing your hard disks directly into the underside of each bay, and they fit in without any trouble. There's no need for plastic sliders to attach to each disk.
A nice addition is the complimentary rail mounting kit, which is usually an extra cost when installing enterprise NAS units like this. It's provided in a separate box, as a set of rails and extra screws, with typically IKEA-like awful assembly instructions.
Another neat feature is the dual redundant 400W PSUs. If one packs up, as they are prone to do, the other will kick in, another way to minimise data downtime.
If only one PSU is in operation, either because you've only connected one of them, or more importantly, if one has failed, the unit warns you with a very loud beeping noise. This is worth remembering, since in a cabinet with lots of other computer hardware, it might not be obvious that the beeping noise is being caused by the N8810U-G's PSU.
With the unit assembled and plugged in, you have to log in remotely to finish the setup and build the array, for the video output is only enabled after installing a separate software module.
Software
Up until this stage I was pretty impressed by the N8810U-G. Plenty of thought has gone into making the hardware extremely flexible and resistant to downtime.
But in many ways, the software isn't as impressive. For a start, the overall faux-3D look of the user interface is dated. It's absolutely functional, but the system isn't the most attractive or intuitive on-board software I've used.
The operating system has been designed so changing most settings can be done without rebooting the unit, which is only to be expected given the focus on minimal downtime. Changing any low-level networking settings, such as IP address configuration, does require a reboot though.
The software provides plenty of useful bits of additional information. When creating the RAID array, hard disks are listed with their firmware versions clearly displayed.
The three Ethernet connections are managed individually, and can be configured with or without static IP addresses.
Hardware AES 256-bit encryption is provided as standard across the entire array. There's also free Acronis system backup and McAfee antivirus.
The list of extra features seems comprehensive. There's Active Directory integration, iSCSI thin provisioning, remote backup, FTP, user quotas, and software expansion modules for BitTorrent downloads and Plex. The N8810U-G is also VMWare 5.5 certified, so you should be able to easily use it as an ESXi datastore.
As with most NAS devices, additional functions are available via downloadable modules. This is an area where competitors seem to have a bit of a leg-up on Thecus.
Messy modules
Installing modules involves visiting the website, browsing the list of available software, downloading it and installing via your browser. You have to check compatibility with the N8810U-G, and while this is all listed on each module page, it feels messy.
A better way would be to integrate the software store with the NAS operating system directly, and only show modules that are 100% guaranteed to work with the N8810U-G.
Some of these modules vary in quality. I quickly installed the BitTorrent module and the interface really wasn't great. It seemed a bit of a chore to upload files and it used quite simple controls, at least compared with the third-party downloader plugins offered on other NAS units.
But despite these small issues, I don't want to criticise the software on the N8810U-G too much. It's no looker, but it's solid and functional.
Performance
Since the N8810U-G is a 10GbE device, testing at full speed required a 10GbE card installed in my PC. Thecus kindly lent me a C10GTR PCI-Express card for testing, while Netgear sent me a ProSafe XS708E switch. An evaluation of these products is best saved for another time, but this was sufficient to test the full speed of the N8810U-G.
I used eight WD Red 6TB hard disks, and chose RAID 5 for the array, assuming it would be the most popular choice, combining redundancy and performance, without sacrificing too much capacity.
Although 48TB of capacity was installed, it's important to recognise that this is in decimal, while Windows and other operating systems use the binary TiB to measure capacity, so it looks like less. Overall the usable capacity came to 38TiB, with one disk as a spare.
I performed three tests. To and from the N8810U-G and a RAM drive, with a file transfer of a folder containing 3.5GB of small files, and then with 5GB of large files. I then measured the speeds with Teracopy, which seems to give lower speeds than a direct file transfer. I also used the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit software, for a broader performance overview. This score can be easily compared between NAS devices.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the maximum possible transfer speed over 10GbE is 1.25GB/sec, and no device can go faster. Of course, with faster, pricier enterprise disks than the WD Red 6TB you should get some better speeds, although this will increase the overall cost of the unit.
Promising results
In all three tests, write speeds were faster than read. With the Teracopy file transfer tests, I measured exactly 60MB/sec read and 121MB/sec write. While this result for writing is exponentially higher than you get from a typical two-bay NAS, the read speeds are only around 25% higher.
Large file transfer speeds were much better. In Teracopy I measured 368MB/sec write and 152MB/sec read. This is reasonable, but not quite what I was expecting.
When using file transfers in Windows 8.1 I recorded far better scores. Reading averaged at 432MB/sec, while writing results came in at 642MB/sec, which is very impressive.
The Intel NAS Performance Toolkit showed some interesting speeds. File Copy To NAS came to 428.3MB/sec, HD Record levelled off at 357.8MB/sec. The tough Photo Album test, which really pushes a lot of tiny files to the NAS, measured at 31.8MB/sec, which sounds awful, but is still three times higher than a two-bay Zyxel NSA 325 I had previously tested. It's as if this test is down to the device CPU rather than raw throughput.
Overall then, promising results, but perhaps not the very best you can get from a 10GbE NAS. Indeed, while I haven't got a lot of results to reference, a quick look online shows other NAS units managing higher read and write speeds, pushing 800MB/sec in some cases over 10GbE.
But nevertheless, it's still awesome to see such speeds from a piece of copper Ethernet cable.
Verdict
We liked
The N8810U-G may not be maximising the performance of 10GbE but it performs very well.
Thecus has gone to great lengths to provide redundancy. The N8810U-G will stay online even if there's a PSU, Ethernet, fan or disk failure, with plenty of hardware to fall back on. It definitely deserves brownie points for stress relief.
I also really like the easily accessible innards. Want to add more memory? No problem. Swap out the Ethernet card? Sure! Even changing the CPU or its fan is possible.
We disliked
Big and hefty are relative terms, but that is exactly how I would describe the N8810U-G. It's server hardware, and not for home use at all. That's only a criticism if you were thinking of it for this use. Unless you keep a server rack in your downstairs cupboard, there are alternative, more compact eight-bay NAS units that might be easier to manage.
The N8810U-G is also very noisy. It's not a device you would want to put under your desk.
The software is a bit of a let-down. It definitely needs a lick of paint, the plugin system could do with a redesign and perhaps a better navigation system. While it works fine, the operating system seems to lack the attention to detail Thecus has provided on the hardware front.
Final verdict
The N8810U-G is a solid, well-performing piece of server storage hardware. Considering it supports pricey 10GbE for superfast network speeds, it's not bad value for money.
Its trump card is redundancy. Thecus has put a great amount of effort into this area, with dual PSUs, hot-swappable fans and user-replaceable system components. That's great to see.
The software is merely okay though. It's fully functional but nothing exciting, and messy in parts. Thecus isn't the only networking company that could do with giving its software a more modern redesign, but it's more irksome when forking out for a £1,500 (around $2,350, AU$2,840) device.
from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1z9mTmN
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