Ab Work Outs: NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+ 4-Bay 0TB (Diskless) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It's a little more expensive than other brands I've seen, but I'm very happy with it and didn't mind spending a little more to get exactly what I wanted.

It works great with my Linux and Windows computers at home (and also works with Mac, although I don't have one to test with). For Windows you map a drive through Windows Explorer, for Linux you run "mount" using NFS.

I was able to share and use the same files/directories on both operating systems without any problems. The fact it works so well with Linux was a big reason I bought this over other brands I looked at. However, note that according to its documentation, its print server only supports Windows and Mac clients. For me that's less of an issue since I primarily use my Linux for development and can print everything on Windows.

It came ready to go out of the box, the disks were already set up for X-RAID, their proprietary RAID technology that's basically RAID-5 but manages volume expansion so you can add/replace disks more easily. It also offers RAID 0, 1 and 5, although since it has 4 disk drive bays and drives are so cheap now, I'd recommend only using RAID 5 or X-RAID. It's hot swappable so you can replace disks without shutting it down. If a single drive fails, you can replace it without losing any data (except RAID 0).

If you want to use RAID 0/1/5 instead of the default X-RAID, change it before you move files to the system (or back them up first), since according to their documentation changing it will erase all of the data.

It supports gigabit ethernet speeds, but my PCs don't yet, so the transfer rate copying files to the ReadyNAS was about 3-4 MB/sec, and about 9-10 MB/sec copying from it. According to CNET's editor review, they were able to write a 5 GB test file to it in 18 minutes, and read the file back from it in 13 minutes (the 13 min read time was the fastest of any of the NAS servers they tested).

The RAIDar software it comes with found it on the network right away. Among other things, RAIDar shows you the current RAID status, disk usage, fan speed, and the temperatures of the unit and each drive.

The web interface provides alot of control over it. One feature I really like is that you can configure it to send alerts to multiple email addresses (and text messages to your cell phone) for various conditions such as drive failures, excess temperatures, disk quotas exceeded, power failures (if UPS connected), etc. Another feature I like is an option to let the drives sleep after a configurable period of inactivity.

With the latest firmware, I was also able to use SSH to connect directly to its filesystem. Obviously you want to be careful if you do this to avoid changing/deleting system files. That would not be good.

Only a few issues so far:
- I can't access the ReadyNAS while connected to my office's VPN, but that's a security "feature" of the VPN software to secure the company's network and also to prevent IP address collisions. Just thought I should mention it in case other people have the same problem. The VPN software is configurable to disable this, but turning it off leads to other problems since my home network subnet is also used at work (they tell us to use a specific subnet at home to avoid collisions but my router doesn't allow changing the subnet).
- The web interface uses javascript alert pop ups for every confirmation, which gets a little tiring. But I can live with it, considering how much control the web interface gives you over the ReadyNAS. Hopefully they'll change this in a future firmware update.
- Its built-in SMTP to send the email alerts didn't work for me; I had to provide my own email account's SMTP settings to get it to work. Their user guide indicated that some network issues require this, although I'm not sure why mine did.
- As mentioned above, the print server doesn't support Linux.

I haven't used all of its features yet, but so far I really like it and am glad I went with this one.

UPDATE 10/29/08: The latest firmware updated the web interface. It doesn't work with Firefox 3.0, but I have the IETab Firefox extension so I set it up to use Internet Explorer.

Click Here to see more reviews about: NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+ 4-Bay 0TB (Diskless)

Product Description:
Robust Features Coupled with Easy Management- Serves files easily- Backs up data effortlessly- Streams music and video quickly - Shares printers with ease - Works with Windows, Mac, and Linux - ReadyNAS NV+ was designed specifically for home offices, small businesses and workgroups. Never before has there been available a cost-conscience Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliance packed with robust high-end server features, including Gigabit Ethernet, hardware RAID, system monitoring capabilities and built-in backup. ReadyNAS couples out of the box deployment and easy management with robust file serving and data redundancy.

Get 6% OFF