Filed under: Macworld, Hardware, Video
Show floor video: Netgear ReadyNAS stores and plays it all
Netgear's ReadyNAS is a NAS, yes, but it comes pre-configured with an iTunes server, bittorent, wireless disk and printer support and more. Quite the plug-and-play darling, Netgear was kind enough to create some Mac-friendly tools to manage the thing (it's got a Widget!). You can configure the thing to your heart's delight , which makes it that much more versatile. The ReadyNAS line was previously sold by Infrant prior to the Netgear acquisition, so the products are distinct from Netgear's earlier NAS products. There are several flavors of ReadyNAS: a rackmount server for business folk, the Duo series, and the terribly gorgeous NV+ series -- Netgear also sells a cute entry-level NAS called Storage Central. The sweet spot for most people will likely be the Duo or NV+, as the Storage Central doesn't have the extensive RAID tools every other model does (and as noted by our commenters, the older/cheaper devices can't be administered from Mac OS X).
Prices for the NV+ with a whopping 4TB of X-RAID storage ran from roughly $2,000 to $3,000. By comparison, the old Storage Central lines can be found online for around $70 (hard drive not included, $90 from Netgear), but the new line, Storage Central Turbo, was floating close to the MSRP of $200 (shows $189.99 on the Netgear store).
Check out the demo with Scott after the jump.
Video also available from these fine bit vendors:
YouTube
DailyMotion
Crackle
and the video host: Blip.tv
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pauldy said 11:19AM on 1-25-2008
One thing to note for users is this device and other NAS boxen in its class is the speeds are fairly slow around 20-30MB/s. I have one and like it but I miss the speed of my older homegrown setup.
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wififun said 11:43AM on 1-25-2008
As an owner of a ReadyNAS, who just last night finally recovered from a hardware failure, I feel first credit needs to be given where it is due. In my IT experience, Netgear hardware has neither been reliable nor has their support been of much use. These RedayNAS units were recently acquired by Netgear with the purchase of Infrant Technologies. As an oner of 3 of the rack-mount units for exactly 2 years, I can say the quality and support has been very good. However, recently I had a hardware failure on one, and the Netgear support were not at all helpful. There solution was to just buy another to recover my 2TB of data. However, the older Infrant web support guys were stellar and managed to restore the RAID volume and get this sorted out. They did not need to do this, based on their rather weak warranty policy, but they were awesome. It was just unfortunate it took so long with dealing with Netgear first.
Looking at these new units, Netgear is now offering a 5 year warranty. An option much better than the original 1 year. The units are great, but I am hesitant to deal with Netgear's support. Your milage may vary here, and if you have had good experience in the past then go for it. Prior to last week I would not hesitate to purchase the new 1100 model. However now, that I am in the market again I am shopping around at what else is out there.
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Jemaleddin said 12:00PM on 1-25-2008
I don't think I really understand these systems. I get being able to offload your files and use them for back-ups, but the iTunes server seems strange. You'd still need to have your files on your actual computer if you wanted to sync them with your iPod, right?
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Gwydion said 12:31PM on 1-25-2008
I have a ReadyNAS and I have all my music files and TV Shows on it.
In my computer I have a iTunes Library which points to the share.
Joe said 12:19PM on 1-25-2008
You guys know the Storage Central (aka $70 boxes) don't work with Macs... AT ALL... right?
SC101, SC101T have ZERO Mac support. They require custom, proprietary drivers that are Windows (32bit) ONLY.
Tom said 12:34PM on 1-25-2008
The iTunes server (and the more industry standard uPNP server) come in handy for streaming and sharing media to any device in the house without requiring a certain computer to be on and iTunes open. My PS3 and 360 can play all of my media, along with my Mac Mini under the TV, plus I can also play music on my laptop without having to have the entire collection synced locally.
You can also hold option when launching iTunes to put your library on the NAS, and designate that machine the iPod syncing and CD importing box. That way you can sync still, and have the NAS share out those files to all the other machines/devices.
As for the NAS, I love my ReadyNAS NV+. Discard the Netgear name, as this is an Infrant box from the hardware and software design and is pretty nice. Mine hides in the closet with the router, powers down on its own, and is generally a nice and quiet way of having a large chunk of storage on the network for my 2 Macs and dual booting environments.
Joe said 12:21PM on 1-25-2008
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/NetworkStorage/SC101.aspx?detail=System+Requirements
Requirements:
# Windows® 2000(SP4), XP Home or Pro (SP1 or SP2), 2003(SP4)
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akatsuki said 12:35PM on 1-25-2008
The Netgear acquisition basically added a couple of hundred dollars, reduced support, and added a longer warrantly. Overall not as good of a deal. Plus Thecus has the faster throughput and Synology and Qnap have better support reputations nowadays.
BYO might be a bit harder, since it is hard to get the low power draw which is essential for these boxes, but it is half the price and twice the performance (use something like FreeNAS as your software...)
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Bryan said 2:18PM on 1-25-2008
What's the deal with Synology and QNAP? Some of the products are very similar in model number and specs, which makes me wonder if they're related.
And why is the ReadyNAS considered to be so slow? and what kind of throughput should I consider good or great?
tves said 12:59PM on 1-25-2008
Joe,
There's Mac hardware support.. There's no OS X ( or earlier) support.
OSX Mac
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Christopher Wilson said 2:03PM on 1-25-2008
thats a horrible shirt
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Maxwell said 2:09PM on 1-25-2008
@tves,
At least do Joe the courtesy of following the link he posted, where you will see, for the SC101:
Windows® 2000(SP4), XP Home or Pro (SP1 or SP2), 2003(SP4)
NO MAC. Just as Joe said. What makes you think different?
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Pauldy said 2:23PM on 1-25-2008
@Maxwell, I think he was making the distinction that Macintosh hardware is supported running bootcamp with Windows XP would work fine but there is no OS X support.
tves said 10:52PM on 1-25-2008
What makes me think different is that MAC doesn't equal OS X. OS X is not supported, my Mac is not running OSX, but one of the supported OSes. So (my) Mac is supported...
What makes YOU think different?!?!?!?
Maxwell said 5:40AM on 1-27-2008
Ah. Got it. There was a "not equal" sign missing at the bottom of the post, which should have said "Mac OS X". So when TUAW refers to the "Mac-friendly tools to manage the thing (it's got a Widget!)" they mean that these tools run under Windows/Bootcamp and the widget is a Yahoo/Konfabulator widget, not an OS X Dashboard widget. Makes sense - these boxes look ideal for folks who bought Macs solely in order to run Windows.
Maxwell said 6:03AM on 1-27-2008
Let's try again. Make that "should have said 'Mac ≠ OS X'".
Maxwell said 2:43PM on 1-25-2008
@Pauldy
Joe said specifically that the low-end ReadyNAS boxes do not support Macs. He is right. You need WinXP to manage them, and there is no AFP support. The high-end boxes do have Mac OS X management and support AFP. Different boxes, different specs. The TUAW post gave the impression that all of the ReadyNAS boxes were Mac-friendly, and that is not the case, as Joe thoughtfully pointed out. The fact that an Intel Mac running WinXP under Bootcamp might play nice with a server, but not the same Mac running OS X, just makes the distinction more annoying.
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geochick said 5:45PM on 1-25-2008
Weee that's a lot of storage... and er ah cash!
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Alva Elver said 5:46PM on 1-25-2008
All I've heard is horror stories on Windows about the SC101.
You're better off using something like NASLite.
Awesome, and super cheap, and supports AFP.
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Thom Brooks said 1:35PM on 1-26-2008
I love my ReadyNAS NV+. Bought it from eaegis and they were great. Got the 1 GB memory expansion and 4 x 750 GB drives.
I recently updated to 4.0 OS and now really love being able to ssh into the file system and see the root of the fs as the admin user (just like a Mac). I can finally change group permissions from the command line, which I was really needing before.
I also enabled Time Machine's "unsupported network volumes" support for backup (see infrant's forums for how to do this) and am successfully backing up all three machines (wirelessly even) to the NAS. Much more peace of mind!
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