Kingston makes enterprise play with DC500 Data Center SSDs

Test Methodology

Notes

All comparison servers are tested using a single Gigabit Ethernet link with jumbo frames disabled and are connected to our test client and network via a TP-Link TL-SG1024 switch.

Server and storage benchmarks are fraught with numerous variables, ranging from disks used, file system, network equipment and of course the number of connected clients. All NAS units tested prior to August 2018 were done so using 4TB WD Red hard disks, or in the case of fully-populated units, any drives supplied by the manufacturer. As of September 2018, we have migrated our test methodology to include newer 8TB Seagate IronWolf disks, using the common ext4 file system.

To provide a look at potential performance, our first benchmark is the freely available and widely used CrystalDiskMark. Our second benchmark - NAS Performance Toolkit, developed by Intel - is a file-system exerciser designed to provide performance comparisons between network storage devices. Intel's utility focuses on user-level performance using real-world workload traces gathered from common applications. NASPT reproduces the file-system traffic observed in various traces onto a chosen storage device and records performance in MB/s.

Last but not least, we measure NAS power draw during three states; under load, idle and standby mode if applicable, while a noise reading is taken using a PCE-318 meter.

DC500R Testing

It hasn't escaped our attention that the DC500R would ideally be gauged alongside other enterprise SSDs. Seeing as we don't currently have six competing drives to hand, view the upcoming numbers as a bit of fun. The SSD-based 10GbE NAS will inevitably sail past every other configuration in our line-up, but it'll nonetheless be interesting to see what happens when the long-in-the-tooth Gigabit Ethernet bottleneck is lifted.

Remember that the DC500R drives are installed in a high-end Qnap TS-877 NAS outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor and 16GB of memory. All six drives form a RAID 10 array, with 10 per cent overprovisioning, and said server is attached to our test platform via a Qnap QSW-1208-8C 10GbE switch and a Qnap QXG-10G1T 10GbE expansion card.