Western Digital My Cloud DL4100 Business NAS Review
by Ganesh T S on March 4, 2015 5:30 AM EST- Posted in
- NAS
- Storage
- Western Digital
- Enterprise
Multi-Client iSCSI Evaluation
As virtualization becomes more and more popular even in home / power user settings, the importance of the iSCSI feature set of any COTS NAS can't be overstated. Starting with our ioSafe 1513+ review, we have started devoting a separate section (in the reviews of NAS units targeting SMBs and SMEs) to the evaluation of iSCSI performance. NAS vendors have multiple options when it comes to implementing iSCSI LUNs. By far, the most common and simplest method is in the form of regular files. Western Digital adopts that method too. WD also allows multiple initiators to connect to a single iSCSI target.
We evaluated the performance of the WD My Cloud DL4100 with file-based LUNs. In the first case, we configured a single LUN and had multiple initiators from different machines connect to it. In the second case, we created one LUN/target for each initiator to connect to. The standard IOMeter benchmarks that we used for multi-client CIFS evaluation were utilized for iSCSI evaluation also. The main difference to note is that the CIFS evaluation was performed on a mounted network share, while the iSCSI evaluation was done on a 'clean physical disk' (from the viewpoint of the virtual machine).
Performance Numbers
The four IOMeter traces were run on the physical disk manifested by mapping the iSCSI target on each VM. The benchmarking started with one VM accessing the NAS. The number of VMs simultaneously playing out the trace was incremented one by one till we had all 25 VMs in the fray. Detailed listings of the IOMeter benchmark numbers (including IOPS and maximum response times) for each configuration are linked below:
- WD My Cloud DL4100 - 4 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Single LUN (Regular File)
- WD My Cloud DL4100 - 4 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - LUNs (Regular Files)
The performance issues we encountered in the single-client iSCSI benchmarks are evident here also. The other 4-bay NAS units we have put through these tests (the Seagate NAS Pro 4-bay as well as the Synology DS415+) exhibit better numbers as well as consistency compared to the WD My Cloud DL4100.
Towards the end of the iSCSI testing process, we ran a script on the clients' side to disconnect the iSCSI targets one by one, while refreshing the My Cloud DL4100's web UI's iSCSI page at the same time. During this process, the unit froze up completely - the web UI wasn't reachable, the LCD navigation froze and a SSH connection was refused - there was no way out but to yank out the power and restart the unit. Unfortunately, the logs reported only a power failure and this was not a repeatable issue. In addition to general performance improvements, it appears that the My Cloud OS could do with stability QA also.
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dreamcat4 - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
It does not really seem to go away (ever be removed) the choice of the user to decide the underlying file system. Whether it is to be ZFS or RAID or other possible options such a btrfs etc.If you do want to buy a Synology etc box (which is fine BTW), just be sure to realize that you are usually relying upon a linux RAID-something underneath that. So then that is effectively translates into being your user choice of the underlying filesystem.
It is very hard for individuals to properly compare RAID vs ZFS vs neither (or "other"). Because most of us only get the time to rely upon ONE of those solutions in our NAS device. However if you are sure to keep 1 full backup of all your data, then the reliability aspect. Or the risk of doing RAID rebuilds, silent non-ECC zfs errors, etc. can mostly be entirely negated. And storage process are cheap enough these days to be able to make a full backup. That I recommend above all else because then you only need to compare and choose over the relative advantages of each solution. Which makes the decision a lot easier.
You should never trust a single RAID array or ZFS storage pool to keep you data safe. That includes the user-configuration aspect of such complex filesystems.
dreamcat4 - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
Would also like to mention the UFS version 2.01 filesystem. It may not turn out to be suitable for all of your NAS needs. However UFS v2.01 has some unique advantages over other formats. It is properly recognized for both r+w on all of the most popular client platforms: Linux Windows and Mac OS X. Without needing any special driver whatsoever. And that advantage can be particularly helpful in recovery situations (when the other non-storage hardware has failed). So UFS v2.01 is a very good alternative to FAT32, NTFS, EXT, UFS, and HFS+ for those reasons. It's main competitor is FAT32. However unlike FAT32 it has no annoying 4GB file size limit, and comes with journalling.CiccioB - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
Is there a plan for the consumer versions (My Cloud/ My Cloud Mirror) to be upgraded soon as well?1DaveN - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
I've worked a little with a pre-release one of these, and have several of the similar WD storage boxes. One of the best things about these is that they are quite small, and practically silent. You can put them anywhere - I have two in a shared office, and my office mate would complain about the noise if she noticed it. The build quality is excellent, and they should be widely available, leading to some discounting at places like Amazon.My oldest of these WD boxes dates from the summer of 2011 (if you look on their web site, you'll find a number of different servers that look very similar. Mine runs Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials). That one has been storing daily backups of 16 Windows client PCs since 2011 and I've never had any problems with it whatsoever.
I'm not sure a NAS is a device where performance is the first consideration. At least for me, they're not primary storage where a slow response is keeping me waiting. I tend to use a NAS more for backup or archived file storage where a few seconds one way or the other isn't really noticeable.
jay401 - Friday, March 6, 2015 - link
Anyone know why WD's HDD prices have been shooting upward the last few weeks? 4-6TB Reds have gone up quite a bit. Is there a supply problem?ap90033 - Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - link
Is it me or does this site seem to have about half the reviews and info that it used to?ewanhumphries1706 - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
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