Last week I read some reviews and purchased the RN104 with 4x 3TB drives. My use case requires me to encrypt the data, so I created an encrypted 6TB volume in RAID6. Unfortunately the transfer performance when using encrypted volumes is horrible. My average speed for reading data from the volume was 17 Mb/s on average on a Gigabit network connection. Tip for reviewers; please include encrypted transfers in your benchmarks!
I was hoping a dedicated computer to handle data storage would be somewhat efficient with this type of functionality, but this is clearly not the case for this model. As such, I'm thinking of swapping it for the heftier RN214 model:
RN104: Marvell Armada 370 1.2 Ghz (dual core) with 512 Mb memory RN214: Arm Cortex A15 1.4 Ghz (quad core) with 2048 Mb memory
Does any one have any numbers on how well the RN214 model handles encrypted volumes? Thanks in advance.
Can you confirm the Firmware running in your ReadyNAS system? Also, test if you will get the same transfer speed by connecting your PC to the ReadyNAS via LAN.
Anyways, just picked up the RN214 from a local shop. Same disks, same network environment ofcourse.
Transfer speed tests at 50+ MB/s even while the initial RAID6 volume is still building. This volume building operation by the way claim to take 16 hours, which is also a huge improvement from the 70+ hours that it took on the 104 model.
I fully concur with this post in that the Readynas 104 is not useful for those that want to use encryption on their volumes. The single-core (yes, single) processor is too weak to handle the computational load that activating encryption adds.
I fully concur with this post in that the Readynas 104 is not useful for those that want to use encryption on their volumes. The single-core (yes, single) processor is too weak to handle the computational load that activating encryption adds.
I agree that the RN100 series isn't a good choice if you want drive encryption - it possibly is adequate if you use fast ethernet or wifi to access the NAS. But in general you should get a more powerful plaform.
I would add that people should assess why they want drive encryption in the first place. It doesn't offer as much protection as many people assume. The NAS after all is a network server, and drive encryption has no benefit if someone can get access through the network. Also, if the USB key is stolen with the NAS, the thief can do an OS-reinstall to reset the admin password and access all the data.
I'm not saying the encryption has no value - just that it will impact performance, so you should make sure you understand what you getting in return (and what you are not).
Yes, I'd agree with your points. For me I use encryption to protect my and my customer's data against physical theft of the NAS device. Anyways, the RN214 is running great.
The 100 series is a cost effective storage solution. Definitely if you are wanting to use features such as encryption I would go with at least the RN210 series.
Note the resources required for the encryption will reduce the resources available for other tasks.
If you use an encrypted volume you don't need to leave the USB key connected. If you connect the USB key after the NAS boots it should still mount the encrypted volume.
