Netgear RND4000-100NAS ReadyNAS NV+ 4-Bay Desktop Network Storage (No Disk)

List Price: $1,450.00 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Advanced Network Attached Storage device enclosure; ideal for small businesses and work groups
• X-RAID technology for automatic data redundancy; supportsindustry standard RAID 0/1/5
• Built-in printer server, iTunes server and streaming media server for DLNA-compliant devices such as NETGEAR EVA8000, Sonos Digital Music System, Logitech Squeezebox,Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 372
• Whisper quiet operations; advanced power controls for energy-efficient use
• Measures a compact 7.9 x 5.2 x 8.7 inches (HxWxD); 5-year warranty

Accessories:

LaCie 301257U 1 TB 2big Network Attached Storage Hard Drive with 2-disk RAID

Customer Reviews:

Solid high-end NAS server [Posted on 2008-01-14]
I've been using a company-owned device for over 6 months and liked it enough to purchase one for myself. While somewhat pricier than certain competitors (e.g. Drobo), it also has a much more extensive feature list. Personally, I use this device to share files between an iMac, a PowerBook, two PCs and my network media player (Zensonic Z500).

Feature highlights: Retrospect Remote backup included, CIFS/AFP/NFS/RSYNC/HTTPS support, UPnP media server, iTunes server that understands your iTunes respository, online RAID expansion, GigE, USB printer server (with limited scanner support)

Extremely unreliable [Posted on 2008-02-18]
This is one of those things that you really want to love. Unfortunately, the only way you'll love this thing is if you're not that attached to your data. If you're looking for a data black hole, then this is your solution. Data cannot escape its pull.

Multiple problems with this thing, including shares that constantly drop and become unavailable, slowness, and extreme pickiness in the drives it will deign to use. I've done computer repair for over 20 years, and still can't make this thing work satisfactorily. The latest escapade was a "corrupt root" error that comes up on boot. The device itself gives a bad firmware message. Reloading the firmware repeatedly as per Netgear's site gained me exactly zilch. The only fix I found was restoring to factory settings, which of course fries your data.

If you are unfortunate enough to buy or have one of these thrown at you, do ***NOT*** upgrade the firmware to version 4. There is a thread in their support forums with complaints about what version 4 did to the NAS (extreme slowness for one). I can testify to this, it slowed it down to absolute unusability - any copy would time out. The fix is to return to version 3 which requires...drum roll...a factory reset. Bye, bye, data. Don't expect a fast fix from Netgear on this issue. As of today the thread is about 6 weeks old with no solution in sight.

Not perfect and over-sold, but good [Posted on 2008-04-26]
The ReadyNAS is a wonderful idea - abundant storage available on your network without requiring an additional computer. Additionally, this unit supports a wealth of streaming media protocols (e.g. iTunes, RTSP, etc.) and the standard services you'd want in a server (FTP, HTTP, rsync). It's as if a room full of computer geeks who love media designed this device.

That said, it's not perfect. The fan is too loud. You can replace it, but at a cost of reduced cooling and, due to the compact design, the ReadyNAS runs hot. Even with a silent fan, I find it annoying, though I live in a small condo and lack a quiet closet to place it in.

The marketing copy on the device misleads you to believe it is fully reliable - it's not. You can configure the device to be redundant RAID (proprietary or RAID 5), but the device remains a single point of failure. I bought all my disks at the same time, tried to save money while doing so, and had two fail after replacing another while I was rebuilding the volume. If you lose more than one disk, you've lost data. Also, there is only one power supply and one logic board. If there is a firmware error, you can lose your data. It's best to have your data on two separate devices, if you desire reliability.

I just lost some data due to losing multiple disks during a re-build, so I am a bit disappointed. Still, I should have bought different disks from different vendors and manufacturers to spread out the mean time of failure between disks. I didn't and lost data.

Taking the unit apart to service for replacing the memory, power supply or the fan creates a pile of screws. After the first 12, you get annoyed and then later, you wonder what, exactly their fear of thumb screws or a larger form factor is all about.

Despite the fan noise, difficultly to service and the lost data, I bought another unit. It's good, but the design makes a few assumptions that annoy me.

Not an auspicious beginning [Posted on 2008-05-11]
I opened the box and set up the unit, anticipating the great benefit of networked storage. Sadly, The unit begins booting, only to crash with a kernel panic. After re-seating memory, and running various diagnostics for tech support, it turns out my brand new unit is a brick... right out of the box. So, I'm waiting for another week to see if the replacement unit works any better. If not, I'll be returning for a refund.

Not too bad but not all that good. [Posted on 2008-06-18]
Ive had my readynas for a little while now..
So depending on what version you get you may not have the same troubles I've had.
1) the PowerSuppy in the unit is crap i was preforming some very heavy backups to the readyNas 2tb the unit was striped as raid 5..
so all the drives were working very hard after about 20 hours power supply died. cost to me $150.00..
Yes the unit is warrenteed but I can't put the data I've already backed up on the unit at risk by returning the system for service.
2) If for any reason you acedently remove more than one drive from the raid. that will destroy the content of the raid..
Thats not really a fault with the readyNas it's more of the fault of trying to run raid 5 on a raid with 4 drives...
3) It's not all that fast.. I don't need most of the features of this unit if I could return it.. I would buy drobo.

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