The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the WD My Cloud, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, Iometer and the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit. The device was connected to the computer using CAT6 ethernet cables and a gigabit Netgear switch.
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.
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WD doesn't really say what kind of speeds the My Cloud is capable of. Using CrystalDiskMark we can see that the NAS is able to read at nearly 58 MB/s and write at 35 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the My Cloud'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.
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The My Cloud performed better when tested with ATTO. This time around, the unit topped out at 76 MB/s when reading and 45 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 My Cloud's sequential read and write speeds using blocks ranging from 512B to 2MB in size.
The My Cloud performed relatively well when tested with Iometer. The NAS was able to write at speeds as high as 55 MB/s and read at more than 100 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.
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The My Cloud 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 and from the NAS.
