NAIM tested NAS drives

Quick question: Are there NAS's that have failed? Or is this a list of units Naim has been able to test in their facilities? Just wondering if one has a NAS that isn't on the list, if it will fail miserably...

We do I will discuss on Monday the implications of posting it.

Paul,

Any chance you can publish details of the Naim NAS Simulation test tool?

Thanks

Yes we will also make it available from our download site for anyone who wishes to give it a try.

Hi, will this be made available to customers too or just dealers? Thanks

also customers

Paul,

If you are avoiding publishing those that failed (and that's understandable I think), perhaps you can at least say how many were tested in total...
For example, if 10 passed out of a total of 100 tested, this would at least impart a sense of proportion by revealing the 'pass rate' (which in this example would be a 10% pass rate).
Just a thought...

Tonytronic

Nas tool posted above.
TonY from 10 listed as passed I have another 5 which failed so far.

Paul,
Will you be testing more Windows Home Server options in the future as well?

I second tonytronic's request for a bit more information on hardware that passes/fails the test, criteria used etc

Cheers
Tom

Yes we will Tom and right now on balance we think its not fair to list fails. Our test tool is tough and designed at fitting Nas to Naim, it may well be that the Nas units that fail are fine with everything except the Naim test and we do not wish to get involved with knocking something which actually fits its promise.

I understand not wishing to knock other manufacturer's products.
Can you give an indication of what makes a NAS suitable for Naim. e.g. low audible noise, power consumption, quality of audio signal etc. Currently i don't know what features are important for digital media storage.

This is a useful project/thread, thanks.

there lots of well spec nas out there, from manufacturers that have been the pc world for a long time. i have the ripnas and back up with the samsung story 1.5 tera. and just to be sure ive backed to a 2nd nas and packed it away out of harms way . 2500 cds ripnased ,no problem at all. cost of 2 backup drives £150. the point is 2 back ups is just more reassuring. the ripnas is very quiet and so is the samsung allan
n

quote:

Originally posted by Tom_W:
I understand not wishing to knock other manufacturer's products.
Can you give an indication of what makes a NAS suitable for Naim. e.g. low audible noise, power consumption, quality of audio signal etc. Currently i don't know what features are important for digital media storage.

This is a useful project/thread, thanks.

Tom

If you look at this thread here you can see what aspects are being tested by the Naim NAS-test tool.

It is really about, besides being able to connect to the NAS in the first place, performance of the network connection to the NAS and whether there are detectable audio break-ups.

quote:

Result:
Name: Initial Connect Time
Measured:
Threshold: < 5000 ms
PassFail:

Result:
Name: Average Write Throughput
Measured:
Threshold: > 2 Mbyte / sec
PassFail:

Result:
Name: Average Read Response Time
Measured:
Threshold: < 25 ms
PassFail:

Result:
Name: Max Read Response Time
Measured:
Threshold: < 500 ms
PassFail:

Result:
Name: Total Audio Breakups
Measured:
Threshold: = 0
PassFail:

Result:
Name: File Scanning Performance
Measured:
Threshold: > 10 per second
PassFail:

5 out of 6 test criteria are about speed and performance, 1 is about audio breaks.

If one does the test at home, then this test does not just test the NAS itself, but also the effects of the network connection between the test-tool and the NAS-machine.
Failing to meet the Naim criteria can not always be attributed to only the NAS-machine. The load of the test-PC running the test-tool, the quality of all intermediary networkcomponents and not in the least the network load itself caused by other users / usage of the network all have an effect on the outcome of the testtool.

From a Naim (HDX / NS01) point of view that doesn't matter because it requires a good quality datafeed, but it is not always the NAS that is at fault if the test fails a home.

The best test setup for testing the NAS, would be a dedicated PC which just runs the Naim NAS-test tool, and no other programs, and a 'direct' (over a switch would be easiest) connection between dedicated PC and NAS. This way one can exclude most other influences.

-
aleg

Thanks Aleg, that's helpful.

Hello,

Did you test the Synology DS209+II or any other Synology product?

One user on the forum (Malicorne) reported streaming issue when using the DS209 with the Uniti. Has this been investigated?

Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Stephenson:
...
Notes
...
• Seagate Barracuda or Western Digital Caviar Green Drives were used in tests at Naim.
...

I want to give a small warning about using Western Digital Caviar Green Drives.

It has been known that Western Digital Caviar Green Drives can cause time-outs when used under Linux OS (which is used in most NAS's). The IntelliPark feature of these drives can, under Linux, constantly park the disk heads thus causing an I/O-wait and long time-outs.

The following is a quote from the Ubuntu Forum regarding this issue with the Western Digital Caviar Green Drives.

quote:

Re: kjournald2 blocked for more than 120 seconds

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I seem to have solved the problem.

Apperantly it's Western Digital's Green disks which aren't what I would call "compatible" to us Linux-users. The IntelliPark feature seems to constantly park the disk heads thus causing the I/O-wait.

... so I went back, told Western Digital support (which said that they don't offer support for Linux)

Samsung Drives seem to operate without any problems.

I have one Western Digital Caviar Green disk and can confirm this issue exists. For me only when writing to the drive for the first time after boot, so it is only a minor nuissance for me, when I remember it in time.

-
aleg

I just ran a 1-hour test on my Synology 209+ (2 x Western Digital WD10FYPS) connected via a Netgear Gigabit Router to my Shuttle SG33G6. There were no problems reported although I used the computer at the same time to surf the net etc.

I will subject the set-up to a 24-hour test at a later point in time when my little family won't be needing the Synology + Wireless router + Internet connection.

Best wishes,
Peter

just tested my VHS-4 (connected to full Gigabit wired network): results are quite good, 5 times the average values (does that mean that I can supply music to 5 different rooms without any audio breaks ?)

How about a USB2 drive connected to a PC then via a router ?

quote:

Originally posted by djh1697:
How about a USB2 drive connected to a PC then via a router ?

Depends on how you make it visible from your PC. It should be visible as a network share and all proper access rights should be set.

As long as it is a network share visible over SMB, I guess it should be usable.

-
aleg

quote:

I want to give a small warning about using Western Digital Caviar Green Drives.

It has been known that Western Digital Caviar Green Drives can cause time-outs when used under Linux OS (which is used in most NAS's). The IntelliPark feature of these drives can, under Linux, constantly park the disk heads thus causing an I/O-wait and long time-outs.

I've read a lot online about this too. I'm using Samsung 1.5TB F2s, as they seemed to be recommended, and were listed in the "Compatable HDDs" on the QNAP website.

I want to buy a NAS for my MacbookPro.

The Buffalo linkstation pro's look good. Can anyone advise exactly which model naim refer to?

There are a lot of 'pro' models on the market.

cheers

quote:

Originally posted by Right Wing:
I want to buy a NAS for my MacbookPro.

The Buffalo linkstation pro's look good. Can anyone advise exactly which model naim refer to?

There are a lot of 'pro' models on the market.

cheers

RightWing

Looking at the Buffalo website there is actually only one Linkstation Pro model which comes with a choice of 3 sizes for storage capacity. So I would say it is pretty clear.

Cheers

aleg

quote:

Originally posted by Aleg:

quote:

Originally posted by Right Wing:
I want to buy a NAS for my MacbookPro.

The Buffalo linkstation pro's look good. Can anyone advise exactly which model naim refer to?

There are a lot of 'pro' models on the market.

cheers

RightWing

Looking at the Buffalo website there is actually only one Linkstation Pro model which comes with a choice of 3 sizes for storage capacity. So I would say it is pretty clear.

Cheers

aleg

cheers mate. I was looking on amazon.co.uk and got confused. will head to the buffalo site now.

many thanks

Probably going to buy a NAS drive soon, and the Buffalo's look very interesting.

Just wondering if Naim have actually tested the Buffalo linkstation duo drives, as the idea of using RAID for backup redundancy is appealing - mainly for the security of having 2 copies of the data. If ordinary pro would get 2TB, if duo, would be the 4TB model (I've got a LOT of CDs)

Alas, when I look at the specs for these drives, I never see any information about how noisy they are. Very relevant if they are likely to be sited in the same room as the hifi!