Patriot Memory Javelin S4

[BadIntentions]

A whole new world compared to the previous NAS units offered by Patriot. It went on sale this weekend, and i have been playing with a release unit for a few weeks now. This thing is AWESOME compared to the Gearbox (no comparison) and the Valkyrie. Dollar for Dollar, its a seriously powerful unit.

As a REAL WORLD EXAMPLE (not some synthetic benchmark) here is a screen shot and Video of it streaming SIX 1080P x264 media streams at about 12 mBit/s per stream. These are different streams, different files, and I was able to randomly seek on all of them FLAWLESSLY. Over CIFS/SMB/SAMBA/Windows File Sharing (just CIFS from now on.)
Link to Larger Pic


And video (soundswapped to prevent copyright claims, but you get the idea)


Overall performance is quite good. I enabled iSCSI, used the windows iSCSI initiator, and it was up and running. Formatted my new volume, and then ran ATTO. Results were acceptable for a consumer NAS.



I ran the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, but my Host PC has 16GB of ram, and therefore the results were invalidated (I was suspicious when i saw 200MB/s...)

I am working on using a system with less ram to run the test now.

FTP performance is quite good as well. Across a batch of 6 8GB files, it averaged 85MB/s when downloading, and 45MB/s uploading.

None of these tests were run with jumbo frames, as I figure most people are incapable of using jumbo frames within their network. I will probably rerun with jumbo frames support enabled when i find some more time. The NAS was configured with 3x 1TB 7200RM Desktop Drives in RAID 0.

I am still working on technical details, but i have secured Root access, and managed to figure out how plugins can SORTA be installed. I am working on the actual plugin container format. I have also started creating a build environment for it, since it uses a standard setup. The CPU is in the PPC family. It has a Promise Raid Controller. It supports SAS (ha!) drives when I tested them.

I will perform more testing when I get the chance.

[BadIntentions]

Just wanted to add that I have had this unit running non stop for about 7 days now, and the Drive and CPU temps are nice. The unit is warm, but only slightly, to the touch. The fan is relatively quiet. It is not any louder than a modern mid-range desktop PC.

I have also dissected the unit, and found what is POSSIBLY a serial port, I wont know until I slap a logic probe or o-scope on the thing. The default firmware isnt half bad, and the hardware presents some interesting things, including the presence of a Hardware Accelerated RAID controller, which explains its stellar performance and low CPU usage.

[Temukahn]

Since it sounds like your steps can be duplicated and others can make it happen with relatively limited experience, then it's a winner. That means the Javelin S4 can be used for more things than just regular storage alone.

I'm slapping a big fat Charlie Sheen "winner" sticker on it. How about a couple photos of the unit powered on and posing?

[rickhsaw]

I have been looking at this unit. Can you tell if the system memory can be upgraded? What is the CPU installed?

You mentioned that the unit is using a hardware raid which is a very positive thing. Can't wait for more review on this unit before I decide if I am getting this.

Thanks,

[BadIntentions]

The CPU is an AMCC 800MHz PowerPC Family CPU. It is NOT a well documented part. The part number only shows up in a few binning companies in Taiwan, and in a small amount of documentation from AMCC. The RAM is not upgradeable, as is standard for devices in this price range. It is fitted with quite a bit of RAM however, ~256MB.

For more detailed information, including how to gain root access to your S4, please see the new thread I created today. http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/...m-For-Everyone.

[rickhsaw]

Hi BI, so how is this NAS so far? Is there a list of drives that is compatible with this NAS or pretty much any drive will work? I still can't find any review on the web. Since you've been playing with this unit for a bit now, would you recommend it (compare to other brand of the same ball park price)?

Thanks,

Rick..

[BadIntentions]

Hi BI, so how is this NAS so far? Is there a list of drives that is compatible with this NAS or pretty much any drive will work? I still can't find any review on the web. Since you've been playing with this unit for a bit now, would you recommend it (compare to other brand of the same ball park price)?

Thanks,

Rick..

The NAS is solid, and has been behaving well in my 4 1TB drive RAID 5 setup (using Western Digital WD10EADS drives). If you look at the NAS devices in its price range (4-Bay, Gigabit, 300-400 dollars) its a solid competitor. You have others like the Thecus 4100 Series and the Synology DS411x series that offer similar capacity, but lower performance (Using outdated or slower chipsets). One thing the Javelin REALLY has going for it is its hardware assist raid controller. It helps offload the CPU significantly when using raid.

I would recommend it, if I were in the market for a lower power, quiet, and standardized/easy to use device. If I need serious customization, more flexibility, or more power, there are other options out there. For its price, its kicking ass.

[kevinkar]

I installed one 3TB Seagate Barracuda yesterday and set it up as RAID 0. It formatted quickly (almost too quickly which implies it did a "quick format" rather than a full low level format) and I transferred over my Music library (80GB of MP3 files) to it. Not sure what the time was but my PC network monitor reported an average speed of 80mbps which was great going through a D-link router connected to the PC and a Linksys router connected to the Javelin. Maybe I can increase the speed a bit if I connect directly to the D-link.

Speed dropped considerably when copying over the iTunes album art files (tiny files) but the ~8MB MP3 files went over quickly.

Popped in a second 3TB drive for a second RAID 0 volume for movie ISO files (my personal backups of my own DVDs, mind you) and it's taking some time to transfer over but the network monitor is still reporting a max of 80Mbps with an average of 65Mbps. That's from an Thermaltake external eSATA/USB enclosure connected to the eSATA port on my PC so there's a bit more overhead there than from the internal drive from where the music was located. Still pretty good. The Javelin system page is reporting 117Mbps though and I've seen that number go as high as 200Mbps! Not sure which I believe. I'd have had to time it manually to know for sure and I didn't do that for this go-round.

After this is done, I'll take the other enclosure with the remaining ISO files and connect it directly to the Javelin's eSATA port (as BadIntentions noted I'll need to reboot the Javelin to get it to recognize it correctly) and see how that goes.

Oh, and the internal temperature is being reported as a relatively constant 47-48 degrees.

So far so good.

Kevin