A couple of days ago, I posted a review of the Data Robotics Drobo 2.0. While I loved the featues and ease of use - I was less impressed with it's average USB 2.0 performance, and sub-par FireWire 800 performance (well, in Windows anyway). I decided to replace it with a LaCie 2TB 4big Quadra and promised that I would post the performance difference I discover.
Well - I'm finished with my initial testing, run on the same exact MacBook Pro 17" 2.66Ghz notebook with Windows Vista 64-bit. Results are exactly as I expected, see below:
Tests run on a 2.66Ghz Core2Duo MacBook Pro with a 7200RPM 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black HDD, 4GB of RAM, running Windows Vista 64-bit
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RAID 0 Mode - USB 2.0 - 5.5GB Large File Transfer - 28,958,069 Bytes/sec. - Roughly 29MB/sec or around 1656.994 Megabytes per minute.
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RAID 0 Mode - USB 2.0 - 389MB Small File/Folder Transfer - 7,657,999 Bytes/sec - Roughly 7.6MB/sec or around 438.194 Megabytes per minute.
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RAID 5 Mode - USB 2.0 - 5.5GB Large File Transfer - 24,378,867 Bytes/sec. - Roughly 24MB/sec or around 1394.970 Megabytes per minute.
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RAID 5 Mode - USB 2.0 - 389MB Small File/Folder Transfer - 12,191,366 Bytes/sec - Roughly 12MB/sec or around 697.595 Megabytes per minute.
I then shut down the computer, Powered down the Quadra, and hooked it up via the FireWire 800 cable, plugged it into the PC - then rebooted everything. As with the Drobo, I expected to see better performance. If not, it would definately prove that Vista FireWire support is lacking. If it was, it would definately spell problem for Drobo 2.0 v1.3 firmware.
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RAID 0 Mode - FireWire 800 - 5.5GB Large File Transfer - 49,686,687 Bytes/sec - Roughly 50MB/sec or around 2843.095 Megabytes per minute.
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RAID 0 Mode - FireWire 800 - 389MB Small File/Folder Transfer - 2,857,061 Bytes/sec - Roughly 3MB/sec or around 163.482 Megabytes per minute (Verified Twice)
I didnt bother running the FireWire 800 RAID 5 tests as I expected them to be close to what I saw for RAID 0 - Stellar, although for some reason small file transfer speed slowed down quite a bit, the large file transfer absolutely cooked the USB time - telling me that the Drobo (which scored lower results FireWire 800 versus USB 2.0) still has some kinks to work out.
I also ran HDTune tests and received the following results
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USB 2.0 - Read Benchmark Test (RAID 0 Mode)
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Minimum Transfer Rate - 24.1MB/sec
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Maximum Transfer Rate - 32.0MB/sec
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Average Transfer Rate - 25.0MB/sec
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Access Time - 16.0ms
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Burst Rate - 20.4MB/sec
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FireWire 800 - Read Benchmark Test (RAID 0 Mode)
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Minimum Transfer Rate - 61.7MB/sec
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Maximum Transfer Rate - 63.4MB/sec
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Average Transfer Rate - 62.7MB/sec
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Access Time - 15.5ms
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Burst Rate - 50.5MB/sec
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USB 2.0 - Read Benchmark Test (RAID 5 Mode)
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Minimum Transfer Rate - 24.7MB/sec
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Maximum Transfer Rate - 31.2MB/sec
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Average Transfer Rate - 25.8MB/sec
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Access Time - 19.7ms
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Burst Rate - 20.7MB/sec
Now - as promised, my plan was to hook this drive up to my server via SATA-II eSATA port and run benchmarks. WOW - Drobo eat your heart out!
Tests were run on a Dual Xeon 3.0Ghz Server with 16.0GB RAM, Windows 2008 Server 64-bit, and a relatively benign Silicon Image SiI3132 PCI-Express x1 eSATA card:
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RAID 5 Mode - eSATA - 23.5GB Large File Transfer - 150,712,182 Bytes/sec. - Roughly 151MB/sec or around 8623.820 Megabytes per minute.
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RAID 5 Mode - eSATA - 44.8GB Small File/Folder Transfer - 42,014,526 Bytes/sec - Roughly 42MB/sec or around 2404.090 Megabytes per minute.
I also ran HDTune tests and received the following results
And keep in mind, that is with a relatively inexpensive eSATA card. I spoke with LaCie Tech Support (who were fantastic by the way) - and they actually have benchmark results when hooked up to a Mac eSATA that are upwards of 280MB/sec on RAID 0 configurations. This is truly an external drive that you can run as a main drive or backup. Excellent product!