Infortrend has traditionally been known for storage arrays accentuated for the Enterprise market and based mostly around SAN solutions. Until recently, the SMB NAS activity was really negligible; this seems to have changed with the resources within its software division has enabled Infortrend to include features that are not only enterprise level, but also ones that have missed the mark previously in the SMB segment. The EonNAS range consists of the 1100 – 4-bay, 1310 – 8-bay and the 1510 – 12-bay NAS, the 1310 has 2GB DDR3 memory with the Intel Celeron Dual-Core 2.5GHz processor – 2 x Gigabit LAN ports, whilst the 1510 features 8GB DDR3 memory with the Intel i3 Dual-Core 3.3GHz processor and 2 x Gigabit LAN ports with optional six Gigabit LAN ports, as well as other 1510 models with 2 x 10Gigabit LAN ports.

The protocol support is impressive as well as advanced features including data de-duplication and compression for optimized resource utilization and the ZFS file system for end-to-end data integrity. Snapshot is another feature that seems to have eluded many of the competitors due to the complex nature of deployment within a Linux kernel. Snapshot is an integral feature of the ZFS file system, and thus is a mature feature.

The packaging is adequate and the system fits snuggly into a second internal box, both boxes providing the level of protection a system of this nature demands. Considerable thought and effort has gone into the packaging to ensure prevention of transit damage. The accessories box holds all the screws required for 3.5” and 2.5” form factor drives and a quick guide with CD which has all reference notes including a User’s Manual, relevant Ethernet cable and power cord.

NOTE: Buying a system pre-populated with drives? Do not fret. eAegis provides all its customers with a comprehensive QA checklist detailing all the product serial numbers for asset and warranty management. In addition to the system being prepared with the customer preferred RAID all tested and ready to use out of the Box.

In this model EonNAS supports software RAID. The IP address can be left as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for the unit to determine an automatic configuration protocol on the network, enabling locating the NAS on your network without having to mess about with settings.

The EonNAS 1310 has a solid case and is not overly heavy for a 2U and pleasantly compact with 8 hot-swap lockable trays allowing for 3.5” and 2.5” drive integration. The hot-swap drive trays are good quality and not the normal thin plastic feel that almost always gives the impression of crumbling away when you apply any kind of force!. The airflow is impressive with 3 of the 4 installed fans operating to ensure the drives remain at sensible temperatures. Overall, a neat and compact looking unit that has all the necessary requirements to deliver a powerful storage solution..

The overall dimensions and form factor are a 2U, 19" Rack mount measuring 88.3(H) x 443.2(W) x 651.4(D) mm

Connectivity on the 1310 consist of 2 x RJ45 (Ethernet) ports supporting 10/100/1000 modes with WOL supported. USB support comes in the form of 6 ports (4 x USB 2.0 and 2 x USB 3.0) all located at the rear of the unit. There is also a reset switch that requires insertion of a pointed tool to activate. The system fans consist of 2 x Smart 8cm fans allowing a reasonable amount of air flow to provide the necessary cooling required. As an entry level 8-bay NAS the EonNAS 1310 is amply endowed.

EonNAS 1310 ensures you get the most out of your available storage capacity. EonNAS 1310 comes with inline, block-based data deduplication, a feature often seen only in enterprise storage solutions. Duplication calculations are performed as each new data block enters deduplication-enabled volumes. When the system sees that an identical block is already present in the volume, the new block will be discarded and only a pointer will be created for reference to the existing block. By removing duplicate data blocks, the technology offers storage space savings of around 90% in backup applications, 70% in virtualization environments and 40% for common office files. When conducting real-time data replication, implementing deduplication on the primary system can greatly enhance replication efficiency.

Granular recovery points are extremely important. The finer the granularity, the better you're able to keep data intact when accidents happen. EonNAS 1310 protects shared folders and iSCSI volumes with snapshottechnology. Multiple recovery points can be created at minimized time intervals, space requirements and management effort. In the event of data corruption or accidental deletions, you can restore data in an instant.

To mitigate a disaster's impact on business continuity, data loss and downtime have to be minimized. The built-in pool mirror function on EonNAS 1310 helps you perform real-time data replication between two different systems. When the primary system goes down, the standby system, which features exactly the same data, can seamlessly take over services at minimized downtime.

Scientific experiments have shown that in 1TB of data, 2 to 3 files can be "silently" corrupted by errors not detected by common file systems. This poses a significant threat to business applications, in particular when disk space grows. The ZFS file system embedded in EonNAS 1310, featuring a hierarchical checksum mechanism, effectively detects data affected by silent data corruption phenomena and repairs affected data with self-healing features, ensuring end-to-end data integrity.

With comprehensive network protocol support on EonNAS 1310, files can be easily shared among local and remote workstations featuring Windows, Mac or Linux platforms. Access control for folders and subfolders allows you to easily meet different user requirements in the office. For consolidated management, you can also choose to import account information from Windows Active Directory (AD) to EonNAS 1310.

The built-in iSCSI target support on EonNAS 1310 enables you to deploy IP SAN and serve applications such as mail servers, databases and virtualization. All EonNAS 1310 models are compatible with VMware, Hyper-V and Citrix virtualization platforms. With CHAP authentication, iSCSI data can be kept secure from unauthorized initiators. Capacity utilization is further enhanced by thin provisioning technology. By dynamically allocating capacity to applications on an as-needed basis, EonNAS 1310 eliminates pre-allocated yet unused data volumes and simplifies storage resource management.

Core business assets are protected with robust, enterprise-class features. EonNAS 1310 features RAID protection, which ensures data, stays intact even during simultaneous failures of up to two disk drives. When a drive failure occurs, a pre-assigned hot spare will be automatically leveraged to rebuild the original RAID configuration. In addition, disk drives are hot-swappable, meaning they can be replaced without disrupting your applications on the EonNAS 1310 system. In rare cases of system failure, you can quickly restore services simply by removing the drives on the old system and putting them into the replacement system. After initial setup, all your data and settings can be recoveredCourtesyof Infortrend

The only mainstream manufacturer to implement ZFS file system in the SMB sector, indeed very brave as performance, seems to be important to all users that have been hoodwinked into believing that NAS servers have to be fast!, traditionally a misconception as NAS heads were designed for reliability with scalability and compatibility at the most as cost effective as possible without compromise. Now our expectations of the 1310 were going to be middle of their performance as a result of the ZFS implementation.

Test Environment

Thecus EonNAS 1310 (4x3TB Enterprise Class) – all other specifications were standard as supplied out of the box.
Firmware Revision: Version: v 3.6.1 Build0302
RAID set to Level 5 (RAID 5)

Test Method

There are two tests that we used to measure performance on the Windows platform:
Real-World testing utility that consist of workload traces gathered from typical digital home applications, traces of high definition video playback and recording, office productivity applications, video rendering/content creation as well as a broad range of different applications, using 1024 KB sequential block reads and writes on a 2 GB test file, as well as Drag & Drop of a 2 GB file over CIFS, Windows default network protocol.

The Real World Test performances results are an average of twelve full test cycles. The Infortrend EonNAS 1310 performs exceptionally well and beyond our expectations especially considering we had reservations about using the ZFS file system, this model bucks the trend. Read and Write speeds were an astonishing 139.8 MB/s and 133.4 MB/s respectively. The Infortrend absolutely wipes the floor with all other competitors in the area of backup and restoring data with a gap of almost twice faster than the nearest counterpart tested by us, an astonishing turn of speed.

Drag and Drop is a methodology used by a majority of users to move data back and forth on their individual systems. As such, we feel this method should form an integral part of our testing of products and to ensure a return in results depict realistic processes. Drag and Drop results for the EonNAS 1310 are the fastest we have recorded to date.

The EonNAS 1310 performance was staggering and a clear leader in our test labs, the fastest NAS server tested to date. Backup, Security and Sharing are the basic elements of NAS servers, and the EonNAS 1310 excels beyond belief in these categories. Head and shoulders above its competitors the EonNAS 1310 is the NAS to beat! Outstanding performance with Snapshot and Deduplication this will be hard to follow, without a doubt the fastest 2U 8-bay NAS we have tested. – October 2012

This review is courtesy of eAegis.com Product Testing and Evaluation Division. Please email reviews@eaegis.com for any comments you may wish to share with us. We welcome customer feedback. October 19, 2012.

Rating 5