The test system used in this review was an HP dc7900. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS 250GB SATA hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX570 256MB PCIe graphics card and Intel 82567LM-3 gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the LG N2A2, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, Iometer and the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit. The tests were first run with the device configured as an NAS and then again in its external hard drive mode. To eliminate any network bottlenecks, the N2A2 was connected directly to the computer using a CAT6 ethernet cable.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 4KB and 512KB in size.
 RAID 0 |
 RAID 1 |
 Individual Disk |
According to LG, the N2A2 is able to read at 60MB/s and write at 40MB/s. While the unit performed well, its sequential read and write speeds came up a little short of these numbers in a couple of our tests.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the N2A2's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 32MB and 256MB.
 RAID 0 |
 RAID 1 |
 Individual Disk |
The N2A2 performed a bit better when tested with ATTO. With the two hard drives in a RAID 0 array, the unit topped out at 58 MB/s when reading and 44 MB/s when writing.
Iometer:
Next, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the N2A2's sequential read and write speeds using blocks ranging from 512B to 2MB in size.
The hard drive configuration had little effect on the N2A2's sequential read speeds. In all three cases, the unit reached read speeds in excess of 65 MB/s. When it came to writing, though, RAID 0 had the clear advantage as the N2A2 was able to reach a maximum speed of 43.79 MB/s.
Intel NAS Performance Toolkit:
The Intel NAS Performance Toolkit (Intel NASPT) is a file system exerciser and analysis tool designed to enable performance comparisons between network attached storage (NAS) devices. Intel NASPT focuses on user level performance using real world workload traces gathered from typical digital home applications: HD video playback and record, data backup and restore utilities, office productivity applications, video rendering/content creation and more.
 RAID 0 |
 RAID 1 |
 Individual Disk |
The N2A2 reached some respectable speeds when streaming HD video and copying large files to and from the server. Unfortunately, its transfer rates dropped considerably when creating content and copying directories full of small files to the NAS.
