Performance

To test the NetDisk, I decided to compare the performance of the Netdisk in Ethernet mode, USB mode, and by directly accessing (via IDE) the hard drive trapped inside the NetDisk. We did a full format of the NetDisk for each benchmark for the most accurate results.

SiSoft Sandra is a synthetic benchmark used to measure the theoretical performance of different system devices. Because of this, the results seen here may not reflect real world results and your opinion of the NetDisk should not be swayed too much until you see the results of further benchmarking.

SiSoft Sandra File System Benchmark

Performance (higher is better)

Ethernet NetDisk

USB NetDisk

IDE NetDisk

7854

16056

37310

0

kB/s

50000

 

 

Not surprisingly, the NetDisk in USB 2.0 mode is more than twice as fast as the NetDisk in Ethernet mode. Could this be because Ethernet supports speeds up to 100 Mb/s while USB 2.0 supports up to 480 Mb/s? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question!)

HDTach is more of a real-world benchmark which will show a much better representation of what to expect when using the NetDisk in the different modes.

Once again, the NetDisk in Ethernet mode performs the worst, but HDTach's 10,046 kB/s is much better than Sandra's 7,854 kB/s. Still, neither of the modes comes close to the bare drive's average read speed of 47,058 kB/s.

Our final test is using DiskBench, which creates a file on the drive and measures the time and speed it takes to do so. For our bench, I had DiskBench create a 500 MB file in ten 50 MB blocks.

The actual size of the file was 524,288,000 bytes. In Ethernet mode, it took the NetDisk ~81 seconds to create the 500 MB file; much slower than the ~18 seconds in USB mode and the ~9 seconds in IDE mode. This places the bare hard drive at ~50 Mb/s, the USB mode at ~27 Mb/s and Ethernet mode at ~6 Mb/s.

During our testing, I found the NetDisk to get quite warm, which would be quite obvious considering it has no active cooling. It doesn't get overly hot, and overheating should not be a problem. The hard drive inside is a Samsung SP0802N, and because of its' "Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor Technology" and lack of other mechanical devices inside the NetDisk, noise is minimal.