NASLite Network Attached Storage

Well, I am wrapping up a very long weekend of Linux Distro benchmark testing for an office NAS and I have to admit that NasLite 2 blew everything else out of the water.

Rig:
Dual AthlonMP 1800
1G RAM
LSI Megaraid 150-6
4x WD 400GB RE2s in RAID 10
Gigabit LAN

I tested (or attempted to):
NASLite 2
Freenas
Openfiler
ClarkConnect Community 4.0
Ubuntu 6.06

Freenas I couldn't get installed, Openfiler requires a seperate domain and seperate authentication server, Ubuntu looks nice but I am a Linux newbie and the SAMBA shares implentation is still a little too confusing so the only systems that actually made it to benchmarking was NASLite and ClarkConnect.

I'll start by saying ClarkConnect is an excellent distro that I though was absolutely perfect for my needs... I really like it but am sad to say it performed very poorly against NASLite. I ran the Passmark test on both systems as well as my homebrew "real-world" test where I copy a 1G folder full of average size files back and forth between a very fast SCSI workstation and the NAS.

PASSMARK (sequential RW)
NASLite: 105.2 MBytes/sec read, 76.6 MBytes/sec write
CC: 26.8 MBytes/sec read, 49.8 MBytes/sec write (weird the writes are faster)

HOMEBREW TEST
NASLite: 32.3 MBytes/sec read, 31.1 MBytes/sec write
CC: 18.4 MBytes/sec read, 31.4 MBytes/sec write (again with the faster writes)

So it looks like my $30 bucks to test out NASLite was worth it and I will be running it on atleast one box but it is a little light regarding the features I need and will still have to deal with "sensitive" data in another way. I'd love to see you guys implement some user/group shares but you have an excellent product and I am super impressed with the performance.

I haven't upgraded to NASLite 2 yet, since I just found out today it is available, but my previous experiments with NASLite v1.x product vs. ClarkConnect confirmed that NASLite blew CC right out of the water performancewise. I can't imagine that NASLite 2 could be anything less than even more impressive than v1.x

I did however, manage to tweak the Samba settings on a Ubuntu Server setup that acts as a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM server (16 drives) by doing an in-depth examination of the smbconf file used by NASLite, and got it to function exactly like a NASLite v1.x box would have done if it could have supported dual SCSI controllers with 16 optical drives attatched.

I am eagerly anticipating updating my 800Gb NasLite box to v2, but, since v2 still doesn't support optical drives as exports, the Ubuntu Server still serves the purpose for which it was intended.

If anyone is interested, here is the smbconf file I used:

NOTE: Enter the appropriate info inside the two lines that contain:

{YOURWORKGROUP} and {YOUR NASLiteIP}

and don't forget to remove the brackets!


[global]
netbios name = NASLite
workgroup = {YOURWORKGROUP}
server string = NASLite (IP: {YOUR NASLiteIP})
security = share
client codepage = 850
interfaces = eth0
name resolve order = bcast host
max open files = 1014
socket options = TCP_NODELAY
map archive = yes
map system = yes
map hidden = yes
nt acl support = yes
local master = no

[Disk-1]
path = /export/Disk-1
comment = NAS Disk-1 ( Read / Write )
invalid users = root admin
guest account = NAS-User
read only = no
writeable = yes
public = yes

[Disk-3]
path = /export/Disk-3
comment = NAS Disk-3 ( Read / Write )
invalid users = root admin
guest account = NAS-User
read only = no
writeable = yes
public = yes

[Disks]
path = /export
comment = NAS Disks ( Read Only )
guest account = NAS-User
read only = yes
writeable = no
public = yes

[Info]
comment = NAS Information ( Read Only )
path = /export/Info
guest account = NAS-User
read only = yes
writeable = no
public = yes

Ever since I upgraded my network at home and in the office to gigabit speeds, I always get ~80-150Mb/sec. Its nice to know that I can copy over 40-80Gb in 30 mins, more less. When it would take hours previously..


I love NASlite.

dsmith,

I am getting ready to upgrade myself. Seems like it would be the way to go to take better advantage of NAS here.

Care to share what equipment you went with? Thanks.

DMW

Using NASlite/NASlite+/NASlite on anything more then a P3 system is a waste.

For me, I have been using Dell P3 boxes, L866 and 4100 series exclusively we were using them for work, can't beat free PCs.

I installed a Netgear GA311 card, 3-4 320GB drives and a Vantec removable drive bay.

Boot from the CD/floppy and off you go, the drivers pickup of the gigabit card and like I said, transfers take no time at all. I use to have troubles with latency due to LAN bandwidth, but not anymore.

Oh, I failed to mention that my main machine (WIN XP) has a supplied Gigabit controller and both machines are connected to a Netgear gigabit switch.