N299 1000Mbit speed issues & Drive Spindown (#LMY-14042-345)

[racerx]

Hi Ciac,

I really cannot recommend the N299 at all. Mine is going back today for a credit, and I will be changing it out for something else. A friend of mine has a D-link DNS-323 on order and I will have a good play with it before I purchase my own.

Im not usually a fan of D-link but smallbuilder's reviews talk it up, and there is a big open source community around the device too which shows that it has something going for it.

As for the price ... its goes for between A$220-A$270 which is in between the two other devices mentioned.


After loosing all my non critical data with the JBOD issue I am going to be raelly careful about which product I select .. and also make sure it supports everything the manual states it does!

Cheers, Dan

[ausmark]

I think I can clear things up a bit for you guys....

They aren't lying when they say 1000 Mbit connections. The problem is that the processor will max out and not let the network interface do it's job.

You'll never get gigabit performance from these devices, or any NAS in the sub $1000 range.

The best thing you can do is use a netgear NA311 gigabit card with the latest driver.

Maybe they're not lying about it having gigabit connections, but Thecus' own N299 promo page clearly states "...and two Gigabit Ethernet ports ensure speedy access to stored data".

Fair enough maybe it'll never get gigabit performance, but (and I haven't done the maths and don't fully understand how to calculate the speeds) if it has sub-100Mbit performance, why have gigabit connections?

Not understanding the performance thing clearly enough, and based on the claims on the promo page, I went and purchased a Netgear GS105 gigabit switch and Netgear GA311 gigabit network card, and now have a gigabit local network -- but what's the point of having that, since the N299 doesn't perform even as fast as 100Mbit? I could have put the extra $$$ into a better enclosure, and had a better result.

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Sir,

Following N199/N299 firmware link V1.00.24 25MB for your reference:
http://www.thecus.com/Downloads/N299_FW_1.00.24.bin
MD5 CHEKCSUM: cc8b50e09f01f2715016f5c68876f11b

1. The release note would release on thecus web later.
2. The GPL around 200MB, thus uploaidng would take times.

Yvon Lei

[racerx]

What are the main changes in this new firmware?

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Sir,

This verison enchance the stability while file transmitting, and add USB wireless dongle compatibility, the detail release note would post on Thecus web later.

Yvon.

[steele]

I have upgraded to the new firmware, but now the power button on the front does nothing. Beacuse the drive does not spin down (not happy) I have to turn of the unit when not in use for long periods and with out the power button now have to navigate through the web app!!

Steele

[Largow]

racerx, all,

same issues here.
I am not awaiting new firmware, when I bought the device I thought I was buying these features (spindown/thermal control), and a gbit nas MUST perform better than this.

I have informed the shop I am returning this machine, but now the hunt for a better device in de same price category starts.....

L

[racerx]

All the issues in this and the other threads makes it seem thecus have really just sold an unfinished product. Then releasing a new firmware on the forum with no relesae notes on it is pretty bad too!

On another note I got my dlink DNS-323 on Friday. I have never been a dlink fan but this thing is AMAZING.

20meg a sec transfer speeds, standard EXT2 file system so it can be read in another machine in case of data failure, working email alerts, SPIN DOWN! I set it up with a pair of 500gig HDD's as separate drives (one for timemachine backup, one for movies) and put it in the cupboard with the switch and adsl modem. Dont even have to worry about it any more, it just spins down and is silent until its called upon.

It is also really "hackable" with a great mod support forum. I really think it was worth the extra $100 on the N299 for all the time i wasted trying to get the N299 working, then loosing 500gig of movies, not to mention the drives lasting longer as they spindown now I should have just got this one in the first place!

[Methanoid]

(dupe)

[Methanoid]

I've pretty sure I have seen this issue elsewhere. I gather the CPU in the N299 is so utterly underpowered that it struggles to power the device, especially at gigabit speeds (my LSLive gets 6mb/s easy). The CPU (Storlink IIRC) is used in other Chinese clone NAS's that are on ebay and its shameful (IMHO) that a company with Thecus' good rep sells such rubbish!!

[allenlux]

I am in the market for a small cheap NAS too, and the impending release of N299 in the States made me wait.

I agree and find it wholly unacceptable for a dual bay NAS like N299 to NOT support drive spindown. I suspect it should just be a firmware issue? It's the main reason why I stayed away from likes of Buffalo Linkstation Pro and the highly hackable NSLU2 (the SLUG). It just makes no sense for its target segment of home/SOHO users.

I agree that spindown is very important and it's extraordinary how many NAS devices don't do it.

It is possible to get the NSLU2 (the SLUG) to spin down an attached USB hard drive, if you run Debian.

I've created a setup like this to do regular snapshot backups with rsync.

The NSLU2 runs full Debian Etch from a 2GB USB stick (in fact 1 GB would have been enough). The /boot, / and swap partitions are all on the USB stick.

The backups are on a hard drive in an Icybox enclosure connected to the NSLU2 through a USB port and this hard drive spends 99% of its life asleep. The whole setup is completely silent except when the crontab runs the rsync job, when the hard drive wakes up for a few seconds and then spins down again when the job is finished.

The spindown commands (part of the backup script) are:
umount /dev/sda1 || error "could not unmount backup device"
sg_start --pc=2 0 /dev/sda1

I can provide more detail on this, but it should probably go in a separate thread somewhere.

The NSLU2 running Debian is a brilliant device. I've bought a couple of spares for future projects.

John

[dave852]

I sent mine back after only a couple days and there was one main reason.

Speed

I'm completely new to the world of NAS and the N299 was my first. I had no idea that I shouldn't have expected anywhere near gigabit speeds (i still don't understand why). Also to only be able to write data slower than my 8 megabit internet downloaded it seemed just unbelieveable for a dedicated storage device.

Saying it also had an idle spin down feature when it doesn't is also a hell of a mistake to make. If future firmware upgrades include it fair enough but if it really is that simple to put in why wasn't it put in from the start. I suspect it never will be available for the N299.

Finally the JBOD. It wasn't untill I put the 2 500GB hdds from the Thecus into a PC that i realised the data had not remained intact. As some1 has posted the JBOD is just as dangerous to data on both hdds in the event of drive failure as the RAID options. Which to me seems utterly foolish.

All in all DO NOT BUY THE N299. For those waiting for its release in the states. DO NOT BUY THE N299. I can't say it enough. Its utter cr*p.

[spiken]

Also to only be able to write data slower than my 8 megabit internet downloaded it seemed just unbelieveable for a dedicated storage device.

Hmm, I think you confuse Megabit and MegaByte.

Don't expect the same performance with a 400$ product with a 200$ one .

[Methanoid]

Hmm, I think you confuse Megabit and MegaByte.

Don't expect the same performance with a 400$ product with a 200$ one .

Yes fair enough but I think Thecus sell this (IMHO) POS for a price a tad more than other Storlink based products that are essentially the same. And besides which to market a Gigabit product that isn't actually ANY faster than a 10/100 product is not helpful at all.

[ausmark]

Following N199/N299 firmware link V1.00.24 25MB for your reference:

MD5 CHEKCSUM: cc8b50e09f01f2715016f5c68876f11b

Yvon,

By the sounds of it, the firmware upgrade makes things a little more stable, but there are no claims as to improved transfer speeds.

What is the theoretical maximum performance of the N299, based on hardware limitations?

Where is the bottleneck? Is it that the box has a CPU that underperforms? Does it not have enough/any RAM? Why is it that gigabit network ports are provided if the unit is not capable of transferring data anywhere near that fast?

Will a firmware upgrade ever be provided that can dramatically improve the performance of the N299, or are the reported transfer speeds around the maximum that can be achieved with this unit?

Is it possible to install a faster processor or additional RAM to improve performance?

I find it very misleading and even untruthful to claim that (and I quote this from your web site at Thecus Products) "two Gigabit Ethernet ports ensure speedy access to stored data".

Is anything being done to satisfy customers complaining of poor performance?

Thanks for your help,

Mark.

[ausmark]

...now the power button on the front does nothing. Beacuse the drive does not spin down (not happy) I have to turn of the unit when not in use for long periods and with out the power button now have to navigate through the web app!!

Steele,

Checking the Thecus N299 pages, the release notes (posted much later than the firmware was made available) indicate the "problem" you're reporting with the power button isn't actually a problem: it seems the facility to power down the unit by pressing the power button has been removed -- to avoid accidental power downs, you are now required to hold down the power button for a few seconds.

As for the lack of a spin down feature, yes this is bad. The shortcomings of Thecus' product design (i.e. not providing the spin down feature) and documentation (i.e. documenting a feature that isn't present) are unfortunate.

It was bad enough to overlook this feature. What's worse is they provided documentation and marketing material claiming this product had the feature, later blaming the absence of it on a documentation error. Sloppy indeed.

Mark.