Buffalo 5810DN 8-Bay 32TB Preloaded NAS Review

Introduction Today, I'm welcoming a new brand into our NAS review category: Buffalo. Buffalo has been on the market with storage solutions for a very long time, but this is the first of their NAS devices I have the pleasure to test and review. And what a start it is. The TeraStation 5810DN (product link) is quite the impressive device with 10GbE capabilities and a quad-core processor. It also comes pre-loaded with drives in various configurations, from 16TB to 64TB raw capacity. Why Should I Get a Pre-Loaded NAS? To some people, a NAS pre-loaded with drives is a good thing, to others, it's a bad thing. To me, it's neutral. There are ups and downs to both sides. Since this NAS comes with drives loaded, let's focus on the benefits of that. The most obvious benefit is the one-stop shopping experience. You get everything you need in a single box and don't need to worry about compatibility and similar things. That fact also makes it very easy to set up as there is no hardware installation necessary. Just unpack it, connect it, and power it on. That's truly as easy as it can be. Another advantage is the support. When you get everything from one place, there's also just one place to go for support. You don't need to worry about what part there's something wrong with, it's the same people you have to talk to. Speaking of when something goes wrong, what if a drive fails? That is one of the scenarios where you truly will enjoy the benefits of this setup. Buffalo offers a 3-year standard warranty on the unit with 24-hour HDD exchange service. By now, the benefits are clear. Especially for business users and office setups where you don't have dedicated technical personnel. Buyers will also have access to the technical support hotline. What's inside the TeraStation 5810DN? The heart of the TeraStation 5810DN is an Annapurna Labs AL314 quad-core processor with 1.7GHz. There's also 4GB DDR3 ECC memory. Since this is a pre-loaded NAS, there are a bunch of drives inside too. You can get the TeraStation 5810DN fully loaded with 8 drives or half loaded with 4 drives. The choice of capacity includes 4TB and 8TB drives. With that, the math is easy. You get options of 16TB or 32TB with four drives and 32TB or 64TB with eight drives. Connection Options A NAS is no good without connection options, and the 5810DN surely has those. To start with, there is a dual Gigabit Ethernet setup for standard fail-over and load-balanced connections. But it doesn't stop there. Buffalo has made great strides for the 10GbE adaptation and the 5810DN is part of this wave. It has a single 10GbE port which will go great in a setup with the BS-MP2008 switch. I tested and reviewed the switch not long ago and you can check out the full review by clicking here. External storage drives or an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) can easily be connected to the three USB 3.0 ports. The drive bays are easily accessible and the installed drives are hot-swappable. Drive Setup and Sharing Cross-platform sharing is more or less a given these days and it is no different for Buffalo NAS'. Whether your client systems are Linux/Unix, MacOS, or Windows, you'll have easy access to your network shares. FTP and SFTP are also part of the package, but without additional settings options. Last but not least, you also get Rsync options. You can configure the drives as RAID 0/1/5/6/10 and also use them in single drive mode. Additionally, iSCSI is available for direct storage pool sharing. Backup and Replication The TeraStation 5810DN comes with a full backup solution as well as real-time replication. Bundled with the NAS are 11 licenses of NovaBACKUP Buffalo Edition. NovaBACKUP provides a complete all-in-one data protection solution for small and medium businesses. It will work with Windows clients, server, and VM systems. Replication is synchronising a folder on two separate TeraStations in almost real time. However, it's only one-directional and not bi-directional; from source to destination. It is possible to set-up the function in LAN as well as WAN. The WAN setup includes the remote connection using port forwarding and a VPN setup. For more information on this subject, you can check out the official Replication PDF by Buffalo. Feature Highlights Quad-core Processor and 4GB ECC DDR3 memory 8 Drive Bays, pre-loaded with up to 64TB 10GbE Port and dual 1GbE ports 3-year warranty with 24-hour drive exchange NovaBACKUP with 11 licences included USB 3.0 ports for drives or UPS Package and Accessories The TeraStation 5810DN from Buffalo is a business NAS and as such, there is no need for a fancy full-colour package. It comes in a simple brown box with a small label holding the important details. You do need to know what's inside and that you'll find that information on the attached label. However, the important thing is what's inside the box. There is, of course, the device itself, but also an accessory bundle with everything you'll need. You get a power supply cable that fits the region where you purchased it. In my case, there is an EU/DE and a UK cable included. You also get a flat RJ45 cable which is 10GbE capable for the network connection. After all, a network attached storage device isn't much use without a network connection. There's also a cable security strip which can help prevent accidental removal of the power cord as well as two keys for the front-facing drive door. You also get a couple of notes, such as the warranty guide and quick setup instructions. As a bonus, you also get some stickers to label the device - a useful thing when you run multiple devices. Specifications and A Closer Look Buffalo TS5810DN Specifications The specifications are taken directly from the manufacturer's homepage and they're valid at the time of review. They may be subject to change in future revisions of the product. Front View Now that we know what the TS5810DN can do, it's time to take a closer look at the unit itself. The front door covers all the drive bays, giving it a sleek appearance. The drive trays are all labelled for easy location and identification. Above the drive trays and the cover door, is the connection and information area. There's a power button, several status LEDs, and a USB 3.0 port. You also get a lovely status display for general information and notifications. The USB port is hidden behind a rubber cover. The drive bay door is covered with a mesh netting, preventing too much dust from entering the unit. Rear View The rear side has two large fans to keep everything running cool and quiet. Next to them, you'll find two USB 3.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and one 10GbE port. At the top of the uni is a sticker with all the relevant information. This includes the units serial number as well as the MAC address for all three network connections. Next to it and above the 2nd fan is the power connector. It is a default PSU connector, making things easy. Below the power connector, is the hole for the PSU cable security. Side View The sides don't have any features as such, but there are a few air-intake holes. Bottom View The bottom is highly unspectacular. The only thing we see here, are the four large rubber feet which will make sure the unit has a firm stand. They also help prevent vibrations from travelling between the unit and its surface. The initialisation and User Interface Locate Your Buffalo NAS Locating your Buffalo NAS device is easiest with the NAS Navigator. It is a free download and the location is given in the included Quick-Setup guide. The initialisation of your New Buffalo TS5810DN There is no need to initialise anything as such, everything is ready to use out of the box. That said, there are a few things you'll need to do to get going. You need to decide how you'd like to pool your storage drives and change the default administrator password. The rest is optional, but you should take a look at it. We'll go through the various options on the next page. Welcome to your new Buffalo NAS Before we dive into the available settings and options, let us have a look at the initial welcome dashboard. The GUI design is similar to that you know from network devices and as such, it should be easy to use for any system administrator. The dashboard has various fields with hardware, file, and status information. The large banner at the top will also quickly notify you if there are events which you need to pay attention to. The fields can be rearranged and collapsed to your liking, allowing you to create the dashboard most useful to you. The navigation menu can also be collapsed for a wider content area. The layout will adjust to your screen width with a minimum-width requirement of 795 pixels. Most mobile systems have this today, making mobile control just as easy as using your computer. The whole GUI is the control panel on this Buffalo NAS which is different than what we're used to from other mainstream brands. Instead of allowing you to expand with lots of apps, Buffalo's TS5810DN focuses on productivity and doing its job: serving files. After all, that's what NAS stands for. User Interface: File Sharing Before we get to the performance testing, we'll take a tour through the various settings and options available. The first of those are those for the file sharing, which is a great place to start. Shared Folders Shared folders are a cornerstone of a NAS as they offer up the files as network-accessible shares. It isn't the only way to connect to your NAS, but it's one of the main ones. All shares are listed in a single window with quick-view on the settings. More shares can easily be added. How many and how to configure them is of course up to you. A bonus feature is the ability to change the access rights for subfolders. While this probably isn't used often, it's awesome to have at your disposal. User List The only default user is the administrator. There's also a guest user, but that one is disabled by default. You can easily add many more users with quota settings and group assignment in a single step. User Groups Instead of micromanaging each and every user, it is a lot simpler to create user groups and give them access rights instead. It is more than likely that a lot of your users will have the same needs for access rights, so why not set them in a single location. That makes future changes a lot easier. User groups have all the same settings as users, except for the password. That's still user dependent. File Sharing Services It isn't every file service that has settings, but those who have also have them easily accessible. Web Access The web access can be configured here too and that includes access via BuffaloNAS.com. This is an easy way to remotely connect to your NAS despite having a variable external IP address and without using any third-party options. Another function found here is the UPnP setting for automatic port forwarding in your router. Rsync Rsync is one of the simplest, yet most effective automatic file transfer protocols. Naturally, this is supported on the Buffalo NAS too. User Interface: Storage Before we can add our shares, we'd probably need to configure our drives to our liking. All storage settings are found in settings-group by the same name. Drives You can get a full view of all the installed drives, their assignment, and their status. You can also check up on the S.M.A.R.T. from here. USB Drives Connected USB drives are listed in this group. It should be noted that the NAS didn't detect any drive I tried in my SilverStone TS11C USB docking station. Dedicated USB drives such as the Toshiba Canvio Basics were recognised instantly. RAID Arrays There is a good chance that you'll want a RAID setup for your drives. I doubt that there will be many who run a setup like this with single-drive configurations. You can have up to four drive arrays at the same time. Available modes are RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. LVM and iSCSI A modern NAS needs an iSCSI option too, which, of course, is present. It is a different, and more efficient, way to share your pool space. User Interface: Web Services and Apps The Web Services and Apps are two sections that we'll get through quickly. There isn't a whole lot here, but it's still worth showing. Web Services The Buffalo NAS can connect to Amazon-styled services and also sync with Dropbox. The setup is made quickly, assuming you can remember all your details. Applications There's only a single application available and that is the Antivirus. It isn't a lot, but it's a great thing to have. After all, you wouldn't want anything infecting your files or network. You can configure a quarantine folder and the port it uses. User Interface: Network and Backup The network-option is a cornerstone of any NAS, so let us take a look at this section. We're almost through the interface options at this point. IP Address List The first option will list all the device's network connections and their status. Port Trunking The two Gigabit Ethernet ports can also be trunked into a single bond, should you want that. Whether it's for throughput or failover, it can be a smart option. Service Port Restrictions Various services can be restricted on specific network ports. Ping Tool There's also a simple ping tool included in this section. It isn't anything fancy, but it does allow you to check the connection from NAS to any other networked device remotely. Backup Options There are various backup options in Buffalo's NAS OS. You can schedule jobs, replicate, configure a failover NAS and set up Time Machine for MacOS. Backup jobs are easily created and scheduled to your liking. Failover Option The failover option is a vital feature for many companies, and as such, it's awesome to see it included in this business-class device. User Interface: Management We've reached the last section in the Buffalo NAS' graphic user interface, the management settings. Most settings here are fairly self-explanatory with their names giving away the options. There are a few things worth showing here too, such as the ability to import and export all your settings ontyo a USB drive. You can also migrate to another Buffalo TeraStation's users, groups, shared folders, and access restriction settings. You should always make sure that you run the latest firmware version. The update function will automatically check for new updates and let you install them. Notifications can be shown on the front panel and the unit can alert you with sound too. Of course, it can email you too. You can also configure the parts which should be reported. There might be things you aren't bothered with while other things are too important to miss. Test Methodology & Setup Most of the test system hardware for NAS testing isn't an important factor when it comes to benchmarks, most of it comes down to the network infrastructure and drives. I am using 10 GBASE equipment which means that I should max out any Gigabit Ethernet connections with ease and I got a second port to aggregate with, in case one isn't enough. The benchmarks will be performed with Seagate IronWolf 10TB NAS drives and through a 10GBASE managed switch which should give us some great benchmark results. Test system: Supermicro C7Z97-OCE Intel Xeon E3-1230L v3 Exceleram EP3001A 2GB PC3-10666 OCZ VX500 512GB SSD Sapphire R7 240 2GB be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Noctua NH-D15S Windows 10 Pro Drives and Volumes Western Digital WD RED 4TB NAS Toshiba Canvio Basics 2TB WD RED 4TB NAS drives are loaded into the NAS system. Available drive modes depend on the model tested, but I test all available modes. That includes RAID 0/1/5/6/10, JBOD, and single drive setups, but also SHR1 and SHR2 where available. I will also test different file systems such as EXT4, ZFS, and Btrfs as well as folder and volume encryption whenever they're available. We use the best benchmark result from each test, and each benchmark is run five times five times. In the event of large differences, multiple charts will be created to show the different performance results. Network Setup The NAS connects through a D-Link DXS-1210-12TC managed 10GBase switch which connects to the rest of our network. All client systems use 10GbE adapters of varying origin, but the main NAS and network test system has a D-Link DXE-820T dual 10GbE network interface card. D-Link DXS-1210-12TC Switch D-Link DXE-820T NIC Software With a device of this sort having so many different applications, Intel's NASPT software covers all the bases and also gives us a set of results that we will be able to utilise and compare those against other similar systems. Intel NASPT (Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit) performs its test by transferring varying sizes and quantities of data to and from the device based on twelve different scenarios. Intel's NASPT software does require us to drop the memory down to 2GB, as using any more would lead to data caching and skew the results. But it's a great and free app, allowing you to run your own comparisons. Media Performance Single Video Playback This test reads a single 2GB file from the device. The file is read sequentially in 256 kb blocks. That simulates a 720p HD video streamed over the network. Dual Video Playback This is the same test as before, only this time there are two HD Video Playbacks at the same time. This simulates streaming to two different media players at once. Quadruple Video Playback In the same way that the 2x Video Playback streams to the equivalent of two external media players at the same time, the test here doubles up on that to a four-player simulation. Video Recording The HD Video Record test is, as the name suggests, a test where we write to the NAS box. It writes a single 2 GB file in 256 kB blocks sequentially to the device. Combined Video Playback and Recording The HD playback and record test performs the same single record and playback tests as before, but simultaneously. This test is a good way t show how the system performs with quick changes between reading and writing two large blocks of data across the network to the device. Office Performance Content Creation The content creation test simulates access to the NAS from a video creation app. The test reads and writes 98 files in varying block sizes. It performs 12 MB reads and 14 MB writes. The activity is largely non-sequential and the majority of access time is made up of writing to the drives. There are quiet periods of activity interrupted by busy periods to present the drives with a bigger workload. Office Productivity The office productivity simulation is very similar to the content creation. The test writes and reads 607 files to and from the drive, making up a total of 1.4GB data. The majority of write access is made up of 1 kb writes. Photo Album You NAS will only load the images currently shown on the screen and then continue to load more as you scroll and they become visible. This test is meant to show how fast the NAS can fetch the new images. The photo album used contains 169 photos with varying file size to simulate dimension, quality, and detail differences. It sounds like a simple task, but it puts an unusual read load on your drives. It reads Metadata, constructs a thumbnail, and shows the image. File Transfer Performance File Copy to the NAS This test quite simply puts a copy of a single large file from the test system onto the NAS. The single write has a 1.4 GB file size in 64 kb blocks. File Copy from the NAS File Copy from NAS works in the same way as the previous test, just in the opposite direction. The single read has a 1.4 GB file size in 64 kb blocks. Directory Copy to the NAS The Directory Copy test copies an entire directory of complex files to the NAS. The file sizes vary a lot with an average size of 41.4kb. The test is made up of 2833 files that take up 247MB. This represents the content of a typical commercially available office suite. Due to the varying sizes of the files, only around 50% of the writes are sequential. Directory Copy from the NAS In the same way that the File Copy from NAS traces the same file back across to the test system, the directory copy from NAS does the same but to the entire directory that it copied across previously. Average Test Peformance This page shows the average throughput from each of the previous 12 tests in one, and it can serve as an easy comparison between products. Final Thoughts Pricing A pre-populated NAS will, of course, costs more than an empty one, that's a given. So don't be surprised by the costs. At the time of this review, the Buffalo TS5810DN with 32TB (8x 4TB) can be yours for £2642.68 or $2263.99. The included drives retail for £108.18 at the time of this review. Eight of them are thereby worth £865.44, making the actual NAS unit price £1777.24. That isn't cheap as such, but it isn't a lot either. Considering the equipment, support, and performance you get, it's a fair price. Final Thoughts It was a pleasure to have my first Buffalo NAS in the office. Not only is it a great looking device built with quality components, it's also a powerful file server. The asking price is a bit higher than with some other devices, but there's a reason for that. You get a fully populated device as well as an awesome replacement service in the event that something goes wrong. The OS was a bit of a surprise to me. Most NAS devices have nearly endless application options, but that's not the case here. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I like that the device focuses on what's important: serving files. Design Buffalo's TS5810DN is a great looking device, there can be no doubt about that. The mix of great and black with a light touch of red give works great. The hidden drive bays behind the lockable door also help with the visual appeal. But the door isn't just for the visuals, it also secures the drives. The unit features a status display too. It is used for general status as well as for notifications. The front-facing USB port is covered with a small rubber piece which further allows the unit to keep its smooth appearance without losing functionality. Performance Thanks to 8 available drive bays and the built-in 10GbE abilities, Buffalo's TeraStation TS5810DN speeds through all the benchmarks with impressive results. We go above 500MB/s throughput in a lot of tests, which is impressive. If speed is vital to your efforts, you know what to get now. OS The operating system doesn't offer as many options as you get with some other NAS systems. Instead it focuses on being the best file server it can be. Fewer functions also mean fewer conflicts possibilities and more system resources for the important things: serving you your files the quickest way possible. The GUI reminds of those found in network devices which should make it easy for system admins to navigate around and make the necessary changes. While it doesn't offer the same application options as others, it has everything a business setup requires. Surprising Discovery During my tests of the Buffalo TS5810DN, I made a surprising discovery. I could not get my usual USB dock to work. The Silverstone TS11C wasn't detected at all, no matter which drives I inserted. Ordinary portable drives, such as my Toshiba Canvio Basics was recognised without any trouble. Pros: Business Oriented OS Great performance with built-in 10GbE Pre-equipped with drives 24-hour exchange-service if a drive should fail Quad-core CPU and 4GB RAM Cons: Higher costs through pre-population "Buffalo's TeraStation TS5810DN does what it's supposed to do. It serves your files with extreme performance and features a business-oriented, clutter-free, OS experience." Thank You, Buffalo, for this review sample.