Sc101 performance – NETGEAR SC101 User Manual
Page 21
•
You are not using the latest firmware that includes hard disk standby, which spins the
disks down when not in use.
•
The disks are reading or writing
•
Copying data to mirrored drives, since the writing activity happens on both disks
•
Disk brands which naturally run hotter are used
How does heat affect the Storage Central performance?
Even when the Storage Central seems hot, the IDE disk-drives are working within their normal
specified temperature limits. In fact by placing back-up disk-drives outside a computer case you
lower the heat generated around critical, heat-sensitive components in your PC, such as your
CPU and memory. Also you reduce the heat produced by your computer's power supply. This
actually can help protect and improve your PC’s performance.
As far as is known, the Storage Central has not caused a significant reduction in disk life.
This non-NETGEAR article
explains in
detail hard disk heating, and also compares recent brands. Note that many of these disks,
however, are NOT compatible with the SC101.
The SC101 Storage device is designed for these critical requirements:
•
Security through mirrored disks
•
Flexible network storage expansion
•
Cost-effectiveness
Since performance is slightly less critical in the design, be aware of factors that affect it. The
SC101 performs best when:
•
Using the unmirrored configuration
•
Using high performance disks
•
Using a wired connection. Wireless 802.11b in particular will cause a considerable
performance degradation
•
Leaving disks with > 10% free space
•
Reading and writing to the SC101 from a high performance computer
In the best conditions, the fastest read time is 7 MB / second, and the fastest write time is 5 MB /
second. The San File System used by NETGEAR has the strongest advantages with read/write,
bandwidth-intensive applications.
For reasonable performance with multiple users, use a switch with I/O at least as fast at 100 MB.
21