Server 2008 vs. Server 2012 vs. CentOS NAS Performance
All modern operating systems provide built-in network-attached storage (NAS) capabilities allowing one to share files between users and different devices,
backup data and stream rich media content. Different operating systems provide different NAS capabilities, use different file systems and therefore
the performance of a NAS device greatly depends on the used operating system. The purpose of this review is to compare the performance of NAS
capabilities in the following operating systems:
Windows Server 2008 (64-Bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-Bit)
Windows Server 2012 (64-Bit)
CentOS Linux v6.5 (64-Bit)
In order to test the performance of NAS capabilities in mentioned operating systems, we have used 4 identical virtual machines with each one configured
to use 4 CPU cores, 4 GB of system memory and installed on the same 8-core physical server with 32 GB of system memory running the Windows Server 2008
R2 (64-Bit) host operating system.
Host Server Configuration:
Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2 8-core CPU
32 GB of System Memory
Gigabit Ethernet Network
Crucial M550 256 GB System Disk
Crucial M550 512 GB Data Disk For Virtual Machines
Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-Bit) Host Operating System
20 GB System Disk Located on Crucial M550 256 GB SSD
256 GB Data Disk Located on Crucial M550 512 GB SSD
An identical set of tests with an identical set of files has been performed on each operating system and before each test the virtual machine has been restarted.
All tests were performed using DiskBoss v4.7.28, which is capable of analyzing disk space usage, classifying files, searching
duplicate files, synchronizing files, copying files and deleting files using a number of parallel threads. Each operating system has been tested using an identical
set of benchmarks including:
Test 1 - Small Files Write To NAS Test (20,000 Files, 1 GB of Data)
Test 2 - Small Files Read From NAS Test (20,000 Files, 1 GB of Data)
Test 3 - Medium Files Write To NAS Test (200 Files, 2 GB of Data)
Test 4 - Medium Files Read From NAS Test (200 Files, 2 GB of Data)
Test 5 - Large Files Write To NAS Test (20 Files, 2 GB of Data)
Test 6 - Large Files Read From NAS Test (20 Files, 2 GB of Data)
Test 7 - Disk Space Analysis Test (1,000,000 Files, 100 GB of Data)
Test 8 - Duplicate Files Search Test (1,000,000 Files, 100 GB of Data)
Test 9 - File Delete Operations Test (1,000,000 Files, 100 GB of Data)
Average NAS performance results from all tested operating systems were normalized and compared relative to the maximum performance for each specific test.
According to the normalized NAS performance results, which show a normalized average NAS performance for all types of benchmarks for each operating system,
the Windows Server 2012 delivers a slim 1% performance improvement over the CentOS Linux v6.5 and a 3% improvement over the Windows Server 2008 R2 while
the Windows Server 2008 delivers approximately 20% slower NAS performance results compared to other operating system.
For users required to write a large number of small files to a NAS storage device, the CentOS Linux v6.5 is a clear winner with up to 30% improvements
over the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 while the Windows Server 2008 delivers significantly slower results.
For users required to read a large number of small files from a NAS storage device, the Windows Server 2012 delivers the best results with the Windows
Server 2008 R2, Windows Serer 2008 and CentOS Linux v6.5 following with a minor performance degradation.
For users required to write medium-sized files to a NAS storage device, the CentOS Linux v6.5 delivers the best results followed by the Windows Server 2012
and Windows Server 2008 R2 with an approximate 10% performance degradation while the Windows Server 2008 delivers significantly slower performance results.
When reading medium-sized files from a NAS storage device, the CentOS Linux v6.5 delivers the best results followed by the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows
Server 2012 with a slim performance degradation while the Windows Server 2008 delivers significantly slower performance results.
When writing a small number of large files to a NAS storage device, the situation changes and the Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deliver
the best results followed by the CentOS Linux v6.5 with an approximate 6% performance degradation while the Windows Server 2008 delivers significantly
slower performance results.
When reading a small number of large files from a NAS storage device, the CentOS Linux v6.5 delivers more than 20% of performance improvements compared
to other operating systems making it a clear winner for these specific operations.
For disk space analysis and file classification operations, which mostly require to read directory structures from a NAS storage device, the Windows
Server 2012 delivers significantly higher performance results with up to 8,000 files/sec of disk space analysis speed followed by the Windows Server
2008 R2 with up to 7,000 files/sec of disk space analysis speed. The CentOS Linux v6.5 and the Windows Server 2008 deliver significantly slower
results with up to 6,000 files/sec and 5,300 files/sec of disk space analysis speed respectively.
For duplicate files search operations, which require a large number of random read operations, the Windows Server 2012 delivers the best NAS performance
results closely followed by the CentOS Linux v6.5 and Windows Server 2008 R2 while the Windows Server 2008 delivers significantly slower performance results.
For file delete operations, the Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deliver the best results followed by the Windows Server 2008 with a 20% performance
degradation while the CentOS Linux v6.5 delivers significantly slower performance results.
Conclusions:
Windows Server 2012 and Server 2008 R2 - both of these operating systems deliver balanced results for all types of NAS performance tests and are highly recommended for a wide range of general usage scenarios.
CentOS Linux v6.5 - this operating system provides a clear advantage when writing large numbers of small and medium-sized files to a NAS storage device. On the other hand, this operating system suffers from a significant performance degradation when analyzing directories and performing file delete operations making it slightly less attractive.
Windows Server 2008 - this operating system delivers significantly slower NAS performance results for almost all types of benchmarks and it is highly recommended to upgrade to the Windows Server 2012 or Server 2008 R2.
* This performance review has been prepared for information purposes only and we strongly advise
you to make your own performance evaluations using your specific hardware components and datasets.
