Game Data

This tests consists of a 96.2 GB game library that is copied as is from an NVMe SSD on the host computer to the NAS and then back from the NAS to the host PC. Everything is timed and converted to transfer speeds in MB/s. Here the Asustor AS5404T again edges out the TerraMaster F4-424 in most of the tests, even if it's within the margin of error in testing in some of the RAID modes and the TerraMaster is faster in a few of the RAID modes. SSD caching didn't add much of a benefit here, at least not until we throw in SMB multichannel and only look at cached read performance, which more than doubles the performance versus the uncached 2.5 Gbps tests in RAID 5 and RAID 1. It's unclear to us why the benefit isn't as big when the drives are set up in RAID 0, since there's a clear benefit of using SMB multichannel and RAID 0 as a combination without caching.

Single Large File

Next up we copied a single 66.9 GB large file to simulate something like a large video file or a compressed backup file being copied to and from the NAS. Here the AS5404T trails the F4-424 in most of the tests, but many are again within the margin of testing error. The TerraMaster seems to be better at maxing out the read performance when SSD caching is used as well, even if we're just talking a couple of MB/s here, but on the other hand, Asustor manages to reap the benefit of write caching performance here, something we don't see with all NAS devices that we test. We again see some impressive performance gains from SMB multichannel, but once again, RAID 0 appears to have some issues and reaps zero benefits from the SDD caching when copying a single large file.

Photos

Our third and final test consists of 10.6 GB of photos across 4,084 files. Here Asustor once again outperforms TerraMaster, especially when copying the photos to the NAS, but loses out once the SSD caching is enabled. Here there are no major benefits to enabling SMB multichannel in most RAID modes, but with the exception of RAID 1, it doesn't hurt, either.