Introduction

The consumer NAS market segment is growing at a very fast rate, with 2 and 4-bay solutions leading the trend. While some vendors choose to compete on feature set (which tends to push up the price), others choose to approach from the cost perspective. Thecus has solutions from both perspectives. While the N2560 (review) was an Evansport NAS which presented a host of media-centric features, the N2310 that we are going to look at today cuts down the features (both hardware and software) to target entry-level users at a low price point.

The specifications of the N2310 are provided in the table below:

Thecus N2310 Specifications Processor Applied Micro APM 86491 (1C PowerPC 465 CPU @ 800 MHz) RAM 512 MB DDR3 RAM Drive Bays 2x 3.5"/2.5" SATA 6 Gbps HDD / SSD (Hot-swappable) Network Links 1x 1 GbE External I/O Peripherals 1x USB 3.0 / 1x USB 2.0 Expansion Slots None VGA / Display Out None Full Specifications Link Thecus N2310 Specifications Price $126

The N2310 runs a Linux kernel (v2.6.32). Other interesting aspects of the platform can be gathered after gaining SSH access into the unit.

In the rest of the review, we will cover the hardware aspects of the N2310 and provide some setup and usage impressions. This is followed by benchmarks in single and multi-client modes. For single client scenarios, we have both Windows and Linux benchmarks with CIFS and NFS shares. In the final section, power consumption numbers as well as RAID rebuild times will be covered along with some closing notes.

Testbed Setup and Testing Methodology

The Thecus N2310 is a 2-bay unit. Users can opt for either JBOD, RAID 0 or RAID 1 configurations. We benchmarked the unit in RAID 1 with two Western Digital WD4000FYYZ RE drives as the test disks. Our testbed configuration is outlined below.

AnandTech NAS Testbed Configuration Motherboard Asus Z9PE-D8 WS Dual LGA2011 SSI-EEB CPU 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2630L Coolers 2 x Dynatron R17 Memory G.Skill RipjawsZ F3-12800CL10Q2-64GBZL (8x8GB) CAS 10-10-10-30 OS Drive OCZ Technology Vertex 4 128GB Secondary Drive OCZ Technology Vertex 4 128GB Tertiary Drive OCZ Z-Drive R4 CM88 (1.6TB PCIe SSD) Other Drives 12 x OCZ Technology Vertex 4 64GB (Offline in the Host OS) Network Cards 6 x Intel ESA I-340 Quad-GbE Port Network Adapter Chassis SilverStoneTek Raven RV03 PSU SilverStoneTek Strider Plus Gold Evoluion 850W OS Windows Server 2008 R2 Network Switch Netgear ProSafe GSM7352S-200

Thank You!

We thank the following companies for helping us out with our NAS testbed: