Humble Speed Test on the DNS-343 (9)
Recently I am in the mood of doing transfer test on the NAS I managed to lay my hands on. So the D-Link DNS-343 won’t escape its fate of my network speed test! So let review DNS-343’s speed.
Just to fill you guys in, my network is capable of handling gigabit transfer rate and it is proudly powered by DIR-655 and D-Link’s Green Ethernet DGS-1008D Gigabit switch. Next, allow me to share with you guys the equipments I used to perform this test.
Equipments used
- DGS-1008D
- DNS-343
- 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB (ST3250620AS)
- 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB (ST3320620AS)
- My trusty computer (using Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet)
- A couple of CAT5E cables
The DNS-343’s information:
- Firmware: 1.01
- Jumbo Frame: NOT Enabled
- Factory default state
- Single disk in Test 1
- Two disks in RAID Level 0 in Test 2
- Four disks in RAID Level 0 in Test 3
- Four disks in RAID Level 5 in Test 4
My computer’s information:
- Jumbo Frame: Not Enabled
- Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
Test 1 – Single Disk
In this test, the DNS-343 is equipped with only one hard disk. Copied a combined huge file (~10GB) onto the network share (provided by DNS-343), then copied the file down back onto my computer. The achieved speeds are as follows:
Upload speed to the DNS-343 (196.09mbps)
Download speed from the DNS-343 (273.46mbps)
I would say the speed is rather impressive when compared to the Speed Test on the DNS-323.
Test 2 – Two Disks in RAID Level 0 (Stripped set without parity)
In this test, the DNS-343 is equipped with two hard disks running in RAID Level 0. Did the same procedure as the previous test – copied a huge file onto the network share and then copying it back onto my computer. Lets see how the DNS-343 perform.
Upload speed to the DNS-343 (193.53mbps)
Download speed from the DNS-343 (313.17mbps)
Wow! I didn’t know that RAID0 would provide so much of a speed boost in terms of reading! 313.17mbps!
Test 3 – Four Disks in RAID Level 0 (Stripped set without parity)
The DNS-343 is equipped with four hard disks running in RAID Level 0. The test procedures are the same as previous test cases.
Upload speed to the DNS-343 (190.98mbps)
Download speed from the DNS-343 (328.83mbps)
Test 4 – Four Disks in RAID Level 5 (Stripped set with distributed parity)
The DNS-343 is equipped with four hard disks running in RAID Level 5. Let’s look at the results.
Upload speed to the DNS-343 (136.85mbps)
Download speed from the DNS-343 (225.18mbps)
It seems like the transfer speeds are not exactly fantastic in the RAID Level 5 test. Guess that is the cost of having redundancy. In RAID 5, my data would be safe if there is only a single hard disk failure and I can easily rebuild the data by inserting a working hard disk. Anybody can explain why the RAID 5’s decrease in speed?
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on raid5 the speed of the DNS-343 is horrible. It will make you cry. 6mbytes/sec download and 2.5mbytes/sec upload.
check the review here:
http://www.crn.com/storage/208808199
the problem is that the device does raid5 on software. It does not have a raid5 cpu.
NAS-Dude,
I see. You calculated the speed in terms of bytes? Seems like their upload of 48.73mbps and download of 20.94mbps is terrible! Wonder if they had hooked up the NAS to a fast ethernet (100mbps) instead of Gigabit (1000mbps) network.
Will try to get my hands on two more harddisks so that I could try to test the transfer rate of RAID Level 5
yes, bytes.
I don’t think 100mbps or 1000mbps network would matter as 20.94mbps is still 5x slower than 100mbps.
I was in doubt between the dlink DNS-343 and the SMC SMCNAS04. I was going for the dlink because of the look, but after seeing those benchmarks, no way. The SMC does hardware raid, and performance for raid5 setup is on the 30-40mbytes/sec range.
It would be great if you could do some raid-5 performance tests. I’m only going to make my purchase middle next month
cheers,
NAS-Dude,
I’ve did a fast speed test for the DNS-343 on RAID 5. It seems like the review site you posted earlier had flaw results.
The speed of RAID 5 really did awed me..
Its faster than my DNS-323.
Im definitely going to get this next month if its available
Hi shadowandy,
thanks for the results!
Much better than those on the review site, but still quite slow
Can you do a quick test of the UPnP server with a video file > 4GB? There is an unsigned 32-bit integer bug in the DNS-323 firmware where the built in UPnP server does not report the file size/time correctly for files > 4GB. I would like to know if the 343 has the same bug.
Regards,
BSPvette
Thank you for the test. I have one quick question.
How is the DNS-323 in terms of noise?
I’m looking for a NAS for my living rooms so it needs to be pretty much silent.
Regards
Erandas
Erandas,
There are users at the community who wrote scripts to control the fan which could pretty much lower the sound of the fan.
To me, the sound is not really noticeable as I have stuck the unit away at a corner of my living room. If you hide it behind the TV, I guess it will get drowned out by the TV.