Forum Discussion

chopin70

Virtuoso

May 07, 2017

Solved

Help me buying a new ReadyNAS: looking at the 524x

Hi,

Since my Ultra 2 is having unresolved V+12 voltage warnings, I am looking at a new NAS.

Here are my needs:

- 4 bays to run 2x RAID 1 volumes: 2 x 8TB disks for video and 2x 4TB disks for data

- I need a very good rela time encryption with little performance impact

- a good power efficiency, near 40-35W at operation

I see the CPU on the 524x on intel site supporting AES-IN instructions

Are these instructions used on the OS6/524x ?

Any one teste encryption performance on new units ?

Also, is it possible to configure my volumes like I am planning on the 4 disks ?

Please help me buy a new unit

Note: I opted readyNAS because of the BTRFS features I like and simplicity/support

Installation & Upgrade

Performance

chopin70
May 15, 2017
A quick feedback to close topic:
Encryption has no performance impact on the 524X, so it seems to benefit completely of the AES-NI cpu instructions
The CPU is the Pentium D1508, Netgear should be really clear and precise about it, as Intel makes things confusing
Transcoding is good for my needs, even from reasonable 30 Mbps 4K material to a 1080p output using Plex
HEVC to x264 transcoding for 1080p sources is also very smooth
Power usage at idle is around 35-38W, which is excellent for my needs

I am mainly happy because of a great increase in my backup speed compared to my old Ultra 2. Backup tasks with small files is near 10x faster and multiple file copy is smooth when it was near impossible

Some performance tests:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS/ReadyNAS-524X-performance-encryption-and-transcode/td-p/1282946

17 Replies

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chopin70
Virtuoso
May 07, 2017
Another question
The CPU is the Pentium D1508 or a Xeon D-1508 ? I find nothing on intel site about such a Xeon processor and Netgear remains vague about its name: server processor, omitting the Pentium and Xeon names !
- jak0lantash
  Mentor
  May 07, 2017
  chopin70 wrote:
  Another question
  The CPU is the Pentium D1508 or a Xeon D-1508 ? I find nothing on intel site about such a Xeon processor and Netgear remains vague about its name: server processor, omitting the Pentium and Xeon names !
  The RN520 series is based on a Intel® Pentium® Processor D1508: https://ark.intel.com/products/91558/Intel-Pentium-Processor-D1508-3M-Cache-2_20-GHz
  The RN620 series is based on a Intel® Xeon® Processor D-1521: https://ark.intel.com/products/91202/Intel-Xeon-Processor-D-1521-6M-Cache-2_40-GHz
  
  Imho, it could be clearer on both Intel's and NETGEAR's sides.
  - chopin70
    Virtuoso
    May 07, 2017
    The fact is that Netgear omitted the Pentium and added a "-" sign writing D-1508 instead of D1508
    
    So, what remains:
    - hardware encryption actually uses the AES-NI instructions supported by the D1508 ? Hopefully that means encryption with quiet no performance impact as the RN716 reviews I saw
    
    - what steps should I do to migrate ?
    * put the 2 disks from Ultra 2 directly on the RN524x
    * start it, and later I add the 2 new disks
    * it will ask me to create a new volume on the 2 new disks that will be in raid 1 ?
jak0lantash
Mentor
May 07, 2017
Any ReadyNAS 4 bays (OS6) would allow this volume configuration. You need to look at Flex-RAID.
I will let other people reply about the encryption, as I don't know.
The interesting models would be RN214, RN424 and RN524X.