What transfer speed should I expect?
Applicable Products
All QNAP NAS
Analysis
As networked storage devices, QNAP NAS is generally constrained by how it connects to your network. For example, using a single gigabit ethernet (1GbE) connection will have a maximum theoretical transfer speed of 125 MB/s.
Transfer speed is also limited by the storage devices installed in your NAS. For example, using a single 10GbE connection will have a maximum theoretical transfer speed of 1.25 GB/s, but unless your NAS uses solid-state drives (SSD) you are unlikely to fully utilize this available bandwidth.
This speed is also further impacted by how many users are accessing the NAS at the same time and what tasks are currently running. You should not expect to get high transfer speeds if your NAS is being used in an office during peak office hours, or if it is currently running a huge backup task.
Data transfer between your NAS and client devices (such as a PC, server, or mobile) will also be limited by the network connection and capabilities of the client device. For example, if you have an old server that is limited to 100 megabit ethernet, then it can only transfer 12.5 MB/s.
Recommendation
You should check how your NAS connects to the network, and what storage devices (hard drives, SSD, external JBOD/USB) it uses. Once you have determined those speeds you should be able to estimate the theoretical maximum transfer speed.
You should also check the same network connection and storage device of your client devices as well.
There are various applications and software available for benchmarking the transfer speeds of your NAS, and you can also try copying large files to/from it to your client devices. You can also check the general performance of your NAS on the QNAP Product Performance page for the results of QNAP's own testing.
