On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 08:30:44 -0700 Jim Garrison <[email protected]> dijo: >Different connections. NAS usually runs over Ethernet and uses NFS or >SMB remote drive sharing protocol over TCP/IP. USB uses a totally >different, native and much more efficient driver stack, and if capable >of USB 3 can be pretty close to native eSATA speeds. I don't have >specific speed comparisons but with NAS the NFS/SMB protocol and the >need to chop things up into TCP/IP packets slows things down, even if >you have 1Gbps ethernet.
+1 for Jim's comments. I have both. I use a Mediasonic two-bay USB3.0/eSATA enclosure with a couple of WD red pro drives striped for 12TB, and a Synology two-bay NAS also with a couple WD drives, striped for 16TB. The Mediasonic is for daily use and the Synology is its backup. Backups are made daily at 3am with rsync, using its -delete option so the Synology is a mirror of the Mediasonic. In shopping for these devices I chose the Synology because it uses Linux and is more configurable. I chose the Mediasonic over other USB enclosures because of reviews, but that may have been a bad choice. The Mediasonic has both USB3.0 and eSATA ports, but the USB port failed earlier this year, shortly after the warranty expired. I solved the problem by purchasing an eSATA cable with an eSATA-to-USB module for the computer end. This works just as well as the old USB-USB cable, but it soured me on the Mediasonic brand. The Synology has USB as well as network ports, but I just use it as a NAS. It's main advantage to me is that it is easier to get other computers to see it than the Mediasonic, which is connected directly to my main computer. A long time ago I tried getting other computers to access my main computer, and I succeeded, except for its external drives. I could never get the network shares working for external drives, in spite of massive help here, and eventually gave up. I can access both devices from my main computer, and the connection speed is not too different, although the Mediasonic seems a bit faster. But the Mediasonic is slow for an initial write/delete when it has been idle for a while. I don't know for sure, but I think this is because Xubuntu has to refresh it. I see the drive lights flicker at least every couple of minutes because it is seeding torrents, but when I try a write/delete the drive lights become constantly on for five-ten seconds while the file manager is frozen. Ditto for write/deletes from the command line. Once it is refreshed write/deletes are quick. Had I to do it over I might have bought enclosures with more bays. And, of course, USB 3.1 Generation 2 (10Gbps), just for future compatibility, because my current main computer just has Generation 1 (5Gbps). Just some observations. :) _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
