Performance - Summaries

4.0.1 firmware was loaded on a TS-421 for our standard NAS test process. Given that all three models use the same processor, RAM and Ethernet components, all testing was done on the TS-421 sample. The TS-421 tests used four drives configured in single RAID 0, 5 and 10 volumes. The TS-221 tests used two drives in single RAID 0 and 1 volumes. The TS-121 tests used one drive.

As noted in the TS-421 review, times to completely build and resync 4 x 3 TB RAID 5 and 10 volumes were quite long at 17h 20m and 22h 30m, respectively. Unlike Thecus and Synology, QNAP does not offer the option to skip a bad block test, which can speed volume resync times significantly.

Since we have the NAS Ranker, I'll only make a few observations about each benchmark summary. The TS-421's Benchmark Summary below shows Windows File Copy write performance about the same (~44 MB/s) for RAID 0 and 10, but dropping to 36 MB/s for the more CPU-intensive RAID 5. File Copy read takes a different tack, with a slight upward trend from RAID 0 through RAID 10 (66, 72 and 73 MB/s).

NASPT File copy results are lower than their Windows File Copy counterparts across the board for both write and read.

QNAP TS-421 Benchmark Summary

Please note that I copied the Network Backup (rsync) results from the TS-421 to the TS-221 and TS-121 for NAS Ranker consistency. There rsync bug found in the original TS-421 review that required hand-editing of the rsync.conf file had not been fixed as of the retest.

With two drives representing the TS-221's performance, RAID 0 performance is slightly higher than with four drives. Windows file copy for RAID 1 measured 50 MB/s for write and 78 MB/s for read. NASPT file copy was also a bit higher (38 vs. 33 MB/s) for write and almost 15 MB/s higher for read.

QNAP TS-221 Benchmark Summary

With only a single drive, both write and read performance dipped to 46 and 71 MB/s for Windows file copy and 33 MB/s and 68 MB/s for NASPT file copy.

QNAP TS-121 Benchmark Summary