Home Automation Domotica Forum Europe, Bwired Forum

I was curious about the performance of a low end ISCSI box (QNAP 239 Pro) and have done some testing.
For the test I have created ISCSI lun and a share on the Qnap


<b>OS: Windows XP pro</b>
File Size 4,26gb (VMDK file)
Network speed 1 Gbit
Hardware Macmini (HD Intel X-25M SSD)


copy the file to ISCSI lun 2,05 min.
Copy the file to SMB share 1,33 min



<b>OS: OSX 10.6</b>
File Size 2,5 (VMDK file)
Network speed 1 Gbit
Hardware Imac


copy the file to ISCSI lun 1,10 min.
Copy the file to SMB share 1,35 min


I was a bit surprised that SMB is faster than ISCSI (Windows XP)


<b>PRO</b>
ISCSI lun is connected as local disk (some applications need that)

<b>CON</b>
Slow (QNAP 239pro)
No access from other PC's without the target machine
Need extra software for connectivity

I will do the same test on a QNAP TS-809U...and hope that ISCSI will perform better.


[img]uploaded/Chak/2009922215359_ISCSI.png[/img]




<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Enver
http://twitter.com/Chak64%20My%20Domoti ... dware.html<i> My Domotica Hardware Software</i></font id="size1">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">PRO
ISCSI lun is connected as local disk (some applications need that)<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That's the idea of iSCSI.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Need extra software for connectivity<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Use Windows Vista / 7, Server 2008 with its initiator build-in.

The slower response than SMB could be the bad software quality of the iSCSI target software. There is a difference. Can you install other software on this? Or the initiater software ofcourse. There is also a big difference if iSCSI packets are offloaded by the network interface card instead of the CPU (check CPU performance on both sides).

Thanks for the review, because you got my attention with the News from last days.


Alexander

YW
At the QNAP side I can only replace the software with the next firmware update.
For the Windows I did use the Microsoft version of the software.


<i>iSCSI Initiator on Windows
The Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator v2.07 is an official application for Windows OS 2003, XP, and 2000 to allow users to implement an external iSCSI storage array over the network. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator is included.</i>


CPU with SMB 25%
CPU with ISCSI 15%


Will try to do the same test on the Imac and Windows 7.

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Enver
http://twitter.com/Chak64%20My%20Domoti ... dware.html<i> My Domotica Hardware Software</i></font id="size1">

The CPU percentage is from the client or from the server?

Alexander

both sides CPU

ISCSI
Client 15%
Server 25%

SMB
Client 25%
Server 45%

ISCSI is doing better on both sides.


<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Enver
http://twitter.com/Chak64%20My%20Domoti ... dware.html<i> My Domotica Hardware Software</i></font id="size1">

At work we have done some extra testing

QNAP TS-809U
HP DL 380 G5 2 CPU Quad 16 GB Win2008

Performance with single lan connection 1 Gb was 80mbs.
local disk was 120 mbs

Testing is done with HDspeed

Speed of ISCSI in this case is more than acceptable.


<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Enver
http://twitter.com/Chak64%20My%20Domoti ... dware.html<i> My Domotica Hardware Software</i></font id="size1">