For testing, I’m going to go ahead and use SiSoftware Sandra Lite XI.SP2, because it’s one of the most widely used benchmark programs, because it’s free, and because it’s easier than dragging and dropping files while timing with a stopwatch. I would like to point out that SiSoftware tests are “synthetic,” meaning that they’re not “real world.” What-ever.

First, I’m going to test the NS312 using a USB 2.0 connection.

The drive faired pretty well. Nothing amazing, but 25MB/sec isn’t anything to sneeze at. It very well could just be my motherboard’s USB connection that’s not letting it run at full capacity. I think 30MB/sec is about as fast as USB 2.0 can legitimately go, so 25MB/sec is pretty darn close.

I will now test out the NS312 with a wired ethernet connection through my Belkin Wireless G Router’s IEEE 802.3 100Base-T Fast Ethernet port.

The test showed a data transfer rate of about 7.4MB/sec through the wired ethernet connection. This is pretty fast, and definitely quick enough to stream music, and even super HD videos. Sure, the USB connection is more than twice as fast as the ethernet connection, but this thing is made to be hooked up to a network, not to be used as a USB drive. I’m not sure what kind of ethernet controller they’ve used in the NS312, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that it’s not a gigabit connection. I’m okay with that, ’cause my router isn’t fast enough to handle anything more than 100Mbps. It would have been cool had they used a 1000Mbps controller, though.

Now, wirelessly:

Wirelessly, it was a little less than half as fast as a wired connection through my router. These numbers will differ depending upon which kind of ethernet card and router you have. I think that 3MB/sec is fast enough for everyday use, because you’d have to theoretically have to stream more than 24000 kbps in order to need it to be faster. Considering most MP3s are 128kbps and a good quality video clip is around 1000-2000kbps, you should be fine. Theoretically.

Now all that’s left is look into positive aspects of the NS312, the negative aspects, and a conclusion/summary to wrap it all up.

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