Seagate NAS 4-Bay with Marvell ARMADA 370 Review
by Ganesh T S on July 24, 2014 8:30 AM ESTMiscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks
It is expected that most users would configure the Seagate NAS 4-bay in RAID-5 for optimal balance of redundancy and capacity. Hence, we performed all our expansion / rebuild testing as well as power consumption evaluation with the unit configured in RAID-5. The disks used for benchmarking (Western Digital WD4000FYYZ) were also used in this section. The table below presents the average power consumption of the unit as well as time taken for various RAID-related activities.
| Seagate NAS 4-bay RAID Expansion and Rebuild / Power Consumption | ||
| Activity | Duration | Avg. Power |
| Single Disk Init (4TB in JBOD) | - | 17.16 W |
| 4 TB JBOD (1D) to 4 TB RAID-1 (2D) | 12h 00m 46s | 28.47 W |
| 4 TB RAID-1 (2D) to 8 TB RAID-5 (3D) | 36h 43m 29s | 38.36 W |
| 8 TB RAID-5 (3D) to 12 TB RAID-5 (4D) | 46h 56m 07s | 48.19 W |
| 12 TB RAID-5 Rebuild (4D) | 23h 57m 06s | 48.05 W |
One of the interesting aspects that I have noted in NAS OS is that the time taken for rebuild of an array is approximately half the time taken for a similar expansion step. Usually, the 3-disk to 4-disk RAID-5 expansion approximately takes the same amount of time as replacing one of four disks in a RAID-5 array, but Seagate seems to be having some tricks up its sleeve to shorten the rebuild time.
Seagate also provides the Sdrive desktop program as well as iOS / Android app for access to the NAS on-the-go. Upon installing Sdrive, the user is required to create an account first. These accounts can then be associated with particular user IDs on a Seagate NAS / NAS Pro. Seagate operates a relay server in case the user is out of the NAS's local network. In our experience, the Android app and program worked flawlessly. Scope for improvement include adding more features within the app (similar to Thecus's T-On-the-Go), but, given the target market, I don't believe it is that important. The program and app already have the core features necessary in a business environment.
Coming to the business end of the review, credit must be given to Seagate for recovering well from the disaster that was the 2013 Business Storage NAS lineup. The shift to the LaCie-developed NAS OS has brought in the much-needed stability to the platform. When we first looked at NAS OS in the LaCie 5big NAS Pro early last year, we were quite happy, but felt it was a work in progress (no third-party apps or SSH access, for instance). All our concerns are getting addressed one-by-one. There are still quite a few business-oriented features that the firmware could provide (snapshot support, for instance). Hopefully, they will make an appearance in future firmware releases. That said, the current firmware version is quite usable. On the software side, Seagate seems to be doing the right things.
From a hardware perspective, we can see that the choice of ARMADA 370 is dictated by the requirement to hit certain price points. It would have been nicer to have one of the more powerful dual-core variants (such as the ARMADA XP - MV78230 - used in the LenovoEMC ix4-300d), as this could have resulted in better performance and also provided a more robust platform for running multiple applications simultaneously. The price point reached by the ix4-300d ($270) is actually lower than the NAS 4-bay (suggested retail price of $300, but $360 on Amazon). Even if the absence of hot-swap in the ix4-300d is considered, it looks like Seagate could have gone in for a better SoC at the same price point.
Despite the shortcomings outlined, we believe Seagate will taste better success with this product compared to last year's lineup - the renewed focus on the SMB market and stable firmware will prove beneficial. From a SMB perspective, Seagate's handling of all the aspects of the NAS - the drives, the chassis and the hardware/software design - in-house will provide them with the confidence to adopt these solutions.
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Arbie - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
Didn't see thermals mentioned. Seagate goes for record-setting internal temps by totally sealing their drives in plastic. I have several GoFlex multi-TB units that, out of the box, exceed their max rated limits! It seems impossible that a company that can build a modern hard drive can't produce a ventilated plastic box to house it. At least I thought it was impossible, but technology advances....Yeah I know these are different animals but they still say "Seagate" on them, and those incompetent packaging engineers must have moved on to some other project. Could be this one.
Ref: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-worlds-firs...
and probably many other web comments by now.
BTW the fix on the GoFlex is to rip half the cover off, and hold the remaining half on with a rubber band. Looks real nice.
JeffFlanagan - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
I was considering getting three or four of these to replace my somewhat flaky Unraid server, but Arbie's comment makes me worry that this will be drive-destroying junk.Ganesh, can you tell us about any thermal issues?
DanNeely - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
This design includes a 120mm fan. While measurements would be nice, I doubt this design has the same problem as the goflex enclosure.woggs - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
The pics on page 2 show the fan but no other vent holes for air flow. Where does the air from the fan go? Are there bottom vent holes we can't see?MichaelD - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
The fan pulls air through the chassis from front to back. The air enters through the spaces around the drive sleds and is pulled through/over the drives before being pushed out the perforated rear panel.I've been looking to get a NAS device to replace the W7 box/HW RAID card setup I have running at home as a NAS. I built that box 3 years ago to replace the SOHO NAS JUNK that was for sale at that time. I.E. under $600 or so.
This box looks promising...but still, the storage format is not compatible with Windows. If the NAS itself fails, I have to wait until a replacement NAS is purchased to see if my data is there, and that worries me.
MichaelD - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
Just saw that even though it's got two GbE ports, this device does not support Link Aggregation. A real shame. Not a deal-breaker for me but it's nit to pick.MadMan007 - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
It depends on the NAS drive file system actually. There are ext4 drivers for Windows that enable read/write of ext4 volumes. I have read that people are able to pull a drive from a RAID1 and read it on a Windows machine...perhaps it depends on the NAS vendor as well though.ganeshts - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
This unit's lineage is not related to the GoFlex, rather, it is from LaCie (the use of Noctua fans, for example).I am very happy with the thermal performance. All our evaluation was done with the WD Re drives (known for not being very 'cool'), and never once did the temperatures go above 50 C in our stress tests.
BMNify - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
seriously, how can you keep flogging the crap ARMADA 370 SoC in a NAS as a good investment, tindustrial hey are far lower spec than even a A8 in data throughput and the ports are second rate add-on's for a soc that cant cope.....even an old 5.4" single board computer with a cheap case would be far more forgiving of data throughput, http://www.abigo4u.com/review/product/list/id/2136...
LS-576TXD 5.25" Embedded board with Intel QM77 w/6 x Giga LAN
or one of the newer 3.5" smb's would give far better return on investmant, just bung freenas on there and be far better supported.
name99 - Thursday, July 24, 2014 - link
Dude, just accept that different people have different desires and needs.Personally I don't see the point of these NAS boxes --- I can (and do) create much the same thing by hooking up a bunch of external drives to an old Mac and using OSX's soft RAID. Meets my needs, may not meet yours, especially if your needs demand RAID5 or live disk replacement.
Likewise some other people's NEEDs (not desires, NEEDs) are "absolutely trivial installation", or "comes in a single box that can easily be moved, with no bits hanging out".
You're like the salesman who, asked "please show me the laptops department" starts ranting about "you don't want a laptop, you want a tablet. Here, let me show you our fine selection of tablets."