System Configuration

We will be using an Intel based configuration which features about four USB 2.0 and an Ethernet LAN port to explorer the performance and features of the RaidSonic ICY BOX IB-NAS2000 storage. While it might not be a top performing platform this is what most regular users will have and that will represent the performance of the USB 2.0 & Ethernet external storage devices at best. So let's go and check the specifications and hardware that was used for the benchmarks we have performed.

• Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.0GHz Processor
• ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
• Team Xtreem DDR PC-4000 2GB Cronus Edition Memory
• 1x Maxtor DiamondMax 9 200GB HD IDE (UDMA133)
• Gainward BLISS 7800 GS+ (G71) 512MB AGP
• Hiper Type-R HPU-4B580 (580W) Power Supply
• Cooler Master ATC-200C Computer Case
• Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 Case Fan
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional incl. SP2 Edition

We just need to plug in the USB cable from the ICY BOX IB-NAS2000 on one of the available USB connections of our test system. Once done we can just switch on the power on the RaidSonic ICY BOX and Windows XP SP2 will automatically detect the external drive and recognize it. When going for the Ethernet LAN connection, you need to simply attach the NAS2000 storage on your network.

When using the Ethernet cable some extra configuration of the device itself will be required. After that's done, the drive can just be mapped as a network drive within Windows. Now we are set to go and put this external USB drive to work and see how fast it ends up in relation to the Maxtor IDE operation.

Test Results & Benchmarks

SiSoftware Sandra Pro 2007 SP1 (10.105)

SiSoftware Sandra (the System Analyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. We will be using SiSoftware Sandra to measure the performance of our removable ICY BOX USB/Ethernet storage.

RaidSonic ICY BOX NAS2000 USB 2.0 (Maxtor 120GB Ultra ATA/133)

First we will look at the ICY BOX IB-NAS2000 as an USB 2.0 external drive and make a benchmark run with SiSoftware Sandra. This will provide us our reference of performance to compare it with a standard Ultra ATA/133 hard disk by Maxtor.

Benchmark Results

• Combined Index: 19184 operation(s)/min
• Endurance Factor: 1.6
• 512B Files Test: 28033 operation(s)/min
• 32kB Files Test: 18584 operation(s)/min
• 256kB Files Test: 5480 operation(s)/min
• 2MB Files Test: 620 operation(s)/min
• 64MB Files Test: 22 operation(s)/min
  Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 (DiamondMax Plus 9)

And to compare we have the normal performance of a Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133 reported by Sandra. This is the same line of hard disk that we equipped our RaidSonic ICY BOX with, namely the DiamondMax Plus 9 range. Again the same benchmark is executed to get the final performance result.

Benchmark Results

• Combined Index: 33548 operation(s)/min
• Endurance Factor: 5.2
• 512B Files Test: 58898 operation(s)/min
• 32kB Files Test: 22127 operation(s)/min
• 256kB Files Test: 5843 operation(s)/min
• 2MB Files Test: 1452 operation(s)/min
• 64MB Files Test: 52 operation(s)/min
  Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

RaidSonic ICY BOX USB 2.0 vs. Maxtor 200GB Ultra ATA/133

Looking back at the performance of the USB 2.0 and Ultra ATA/133 operation, by using a similar hard drive show us that the USB 2.0 interface isn't really a match for the native IDE interface. Then again, the flexibility of a removable storage is the primary goal and the performance is second to that. So if we look at it from another angle the data throughput is quite okay. And since we looked at various USB 2.0 external storage solutions in the paste the performance is on par as well. What should we retain from the above comparisons is that the USB 2.0 interface is somehow limiting the performance of the hard drive used to build the removable storage.