by Andrey Kuznetcov
09/08/2005 | 02:59 PM
Not so long ago we told you about a special external network storage solution from Maxtor (for details please see our article called Shared Storage Drive from Maxtor: First Look at Network Storage Devices). Now we are ready to offer you a detailed review of another product of the kind. This time it is going to be a solution from Western Digital.
<%BANNER[article]%>Since we have already tested quite a few regular external storage devices supporting USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 interface before (you can check our Storage section for more reviews), our interest in these new solutions gets even greater, especially due to the ever growing popularity of local networks.
The case of this hard drive is made of plastic of two different colors: silver and gray. To tell the truth the selected type of the case material doesn’t make it very robust, although on the other hand, a sensitive device like that shouldn’t be subject to any heavy physical shocks.
There are ventilation slits on both sides of the case, and the hard disc drive inside can even be noticed through them. The Power On button is located on the front panel of the drive, right under the NetCenter name. This button is combined with the operation status LED.
On the rear panel of the drive you can find the power supply connector, the network port, two USB ports for external devices, a tiny reset button (which cannot be pressed with a finger tip) and Kensington slot, which is intended to protect this device from unauthorized use to some extent.
Here I have to stress that there are two reset modes available. Of you press and release the Reset button quickly enough, i.e. in less than one second, the entire device gets shut down and will be ready for work in approximately 5 seconds. After that you have to push the Power On button again to turn on the device. The second reset mode is only good for special situations, because after that you will need to enter some network parameters anew. To activate that second mode you will have to press and hold the tiny Reset button for 10 seconds, and the drive will reboot in about 40 seconds. The drive should be set vertically that is why it is supplied with a special stand. Since there are no pads or stands attached to the drive case, we assume that it is the only acceptable position for proper operation of the device advised by the manufacturer.
According to Western Digital, their storage solution is perfectly suitable for data storage in home or office environment. It allows creating password protected folders. It can serve as a backup storage solution where you save the data from all other systems. The convenient thing about this drive is that it offers constant access to all files at any time and from any machine, even when the main system is shut down. Besides that the drive also allows connecting external devices to it, such as printers or additional external storage solutions. In this case the connected external devices will be also accessible from the network.
The NetCenter can be prepared for work in no time. Once the drive is physically connected to the local network, the user has to run the CD disc bundled with the drive that has all the necessary software on it and install NetCenter EasyLink tool. This program will scan the local network and “find” the drive. After that the drive will be assigned a corresponding letter name for the shared folders. Then all you need to do is fill in the user name and password in the NetCenter Manager. You can also change some configuration settings manually if necessary.
Now let’s take a closer look at the technical characteristics of this device, which is still quite unusual for us. The drive our lab received for testing featured a 320GB HDD inside. Besides this model, the NetCenter product family will also include models with 250GB and 160GB storage capacities. The buffer is 8MB big. The spindle rotates at 7,200rpm. The average seek time during reading is 8.9ns, and the average latency – 4.2ms. Unfortunately, the network interface supports only 10/100 Base-T Ethernet. The USB ports support 2.0 specification. The drive doesn’t have any fans that is why it is very quiet during operation. It supports DHCP protocol and SMART technology. In idle mode the drive automatically enables power saving mode.
The solution can work normally and retain stability when the environment temperature lies between +5o C and +40o C. The device can be stored at the temperatures of -20o C and +65o C. The acceptable input voltage can vary between 100V and 240V (47-63Hz frequency). The device dimensions are 150mm x 239.9mm x 55.5mm.
The WD NetCenter drive is shipped with a vertical stand, quick installation guide, Ethernet cable, external power supply unit and a CD disc with the software. The software bundle for WD NetCenter includes NetCenter EasyLink and Acrobat Reader, as well as electronic versions of the user’s guide and quick installation guide.
Western Digital is offering this solution for approximately $399.
We tested this solution with our brand name FC-Test 1.0 utility. You can read more about this testing tool in our article called X-bit's FC-Test 1.0 or "System Rebooted" .
The testbed was configured as follows:
During our tests we connected the device to the 3com controller integrated onto the mainboard.
Just like in case of the recently tested Maxtor network storage device, we had pretty limited number of tests that we carried out. WD NetCenter drive has very specific application, i.e. it is intended primarily for reading and writing different files. That is why we performed only those tests from the FC-Test tool package that deal with this type of operations.
We used the same five patterns differing only by the number and size of files included into them to measure the read and write speeds. This time we could evaluate the performance of our today’s hero more objectively, because we could compare the obtained results against those we have already received during the tests of the Maxtor external network solution. The only thing I have to stress before we pass over to the discussion of obtained results, is that the drives from Maxtor and WD are of different storage capacities, which makes the direct comparison not absolutely correct.
Well, all allowances made, let’s move on to the actual performance analysis.
On the first diagram there are the write speed measurements. As we can see, both drives performed close enough in three patterns consisting of a limited number of larger files. The small performance difference lies within the allowed measuring error. Unfortunately, the write speed is not really impressive. It is the actual bandwidth of the network interface that limits the drive’s performance. In Programs and Windows patterns that consist of a lot of small files the performance is noticeably lower. However, WD NetCenter gets about 1.5 times faster during write operations than its rival from Maxtor. I assume our hero boasts a more efficient buffer, i.e. much better finalized firmware version.
On the second diagram that stands for the read speed testing results we do not see any principal differences. The overall performance numbers grew bigger, but the general picture remained pretty much the same. Both hard drive solutions runs almost equally fast again in three patterns dealing with a limited number of larger files. And in the remaining two patterns WD NetCenter wins the race with a significant advantage over the competitor. Moreover, in Windows patter, WD solution proves almost twice as fast as its rival. Of course, our props to better firmware and as a result, more efficient work of the buffer and the drive in general.
This time we got a much better impression from the network storage solution performance, because we were witnessing a race between Maxtor Shared Storage Drive and our WD NetCenter. At first let me make a few general conclusions.
10/100 Base-T Ethernet interface slows down the progress here. Contemporary hard disk drives with high spindle rotation speed appear simply unable to take full advantage of their potential because their performance gets limited by the real interface bandwidth, which is far from what we would want it to be, unfortunately. Of course, it would be much more adequate if WD NetCenter supported Gigabit Ethernet interface, which would be more appropriate for a large capacity hard disk drive used in it. I once again caught myself thinking that we are victims of some marketing games here. The manufacturers are trying to win as much as possible, as the next thing they might announce would be an absolutely the same solution but supporting faster network interface. And as a result costing considerably more. True: minimum investment, maximum benefit. These are just my two cents.
And now back to our testing participants. Of course, as you have just seen from our testing results, WD NetCenter looks much better than Maxtor Shared Storage Drive. When processing large files, both storage solutions show about the same results. However, as it comes to smaller files, the WD drive wins the race immediately. In other words, it will work faster in real life. I assume that WD NetCenter owes this victory to better firmware, which leads to much more optimal buffer performance. So irrespective of the storage capacity, the performance laurels belong to WD NetCenter.