DreamQuest N100 Mini PC Running Linux: Benchmarks

The DreamQuest N95 is supplied with a 512GB CF400 SSD. It has the M.2 2280 Form Factor.

We tested the drive with KDiskMark, a free and open source graphical frontend to Flexible I/O. The software provides an easy to view and interpret comprehensive benchmark result.

Here are the results for the 512GB SSD.

The M.2 SSD’s performance is pretty bog standard for an SSD, but much slower compared to many mini PCs. We’re not familiar with the CF brand, but whatever the reliability of a drive, you should always perform regular backups. Then again, if you value your data, make sure you backup on a regular basis whatever the disk manufacturer.

WiFi

We generally prefer network connections over ethernet rather than Wi-Fi. And the DreamQuest has dual 1G ethernet. That’s a big advantage.

But Wi-Fi does has some advantages over ethernet. There’s no wire clutter, and you can connect anywhere in your home. Almost all modern devices can connect to Wi-Fi from desktops to smartphones. And you can have many devices connected and streaming simultaneously.

To test typical day-to-day performance, we placed the DreamQuest on a different floor to our router. That’s intended to mirror a fairly representative setup for home Wi-Fi systems where it’s not convenient to locate a PC fairly close to the router.

Here are performance statistics using the iperf utility. The local machine (IP 192.168.1.206) is connected to the router via wired ethernet.

The DreamQuest N100’s WiFi transfer speed is excellent courtesy of its WiFi6. Compared to the performance of WiFi5 found in the DreamQuest N95 (any many other low-cost mini PCs), it’s a huge improvement.

The DreamQuest automatically connects to the 5 GHz band, as confirmed by wavemon’s output below.

Next page: Page 5 – Specifications

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / System
Page 2 – Processor
Page 3 – Memory / Graphics
Page 4 – Disk / WiFi
Page 5 – Specifications

Complete list of articles in this series: