Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ Review

Netgear ReadyNAS NV+

When it comes to NAS products there exists three distinctly different types of devices, single disk devices, dual disk devices and multi disk devices. Having a single disk device is a very small step upward from a standard USB connected disk, the only difference being the network connectivity. Having two disks in your NAS gives the possibility to use mirroring (RAID 1)  to secure your data. The most resource effective solution is having a multi disk solution with three or more disks. This will allow you to use a resource efficient configuration such as RAID 5, giving you good redundant configuration. Going for a multi drive NAS will bring you the highest storage capacity and generally the most features and one of the best in this class is the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+.

Features of Netgear ReadyNAS NV+

Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ have four hot swappable drive slots supporting SATA and SATA-II drives up to 1TB sizes. It has one 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet port and three USB 2.0 ports. Netgears’s patent-pending X-RAID technology provides a very simple way of configuring your disk. Normally, setting up a RAID system means that all disk have to be of the same size and there is no way of changing from a RAID 1 configuration to a RAID 5 configuration without a total reconfiguration meaning a total data loss. With X-RAID, you can mix any disk sizes and also start with fewer disks adding new disks when needed. X-RAID will automatically use the available disks in the most efficient configuration without your intervention. You can start with one disk and when you add one disk, the system will automatically switch to a mirrored mode to provide redundancy. Adding a third and fourth disk will make the system switch to a RAID 5 type configuration which provides the best balance between redundancy and utilization.
Expanding the disk sizes will be utilized in the best possible way by expanding the available storage when possible.

Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ with drives

Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ provides support for the following networking file services: CIFS/SMB (for Windows), NFS (for Linux/UNIX), AFS (for Mac), HTTP/HTTPS for web browsers, RSYNC and FTP/FTPS. This gives a very good multi OS environment support, with lots of flexibility in how to configure your network file sharing.
The core functionality of a NAS is of course to provide network file services but there are several other feature that a NAS can provide in an efficient way. Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is no exception and it provides media streaming capabilities (supporting DLNA Compatible UPnP AV, Logitech SqueezeBox, SONOS Digital Music Center, Network DVD player compatible, Windows MCE compatible, Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360 and Apple iTunes compatible), print server capabilities, photo handling, built in bit torrent client and integrated backup capabilities.
Managing the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is done through a well designed web interface that is both powerful and flexible.

The verdict

X-RAID promises a very flexible solution for redundancy and expanding storage, but does it deliver? The answer is yes, it does. Going through a cycle starting with one 500 Gb drive, adding another 500 Gb drive, and then adding two 750 Gb drives and then finally swapping the two 500 Gb drives for two 1Tb drives. The transition have increased the storage from 500Gb non-redundant to a 2Tb fully redundant configuration and has been done without having to move any data from the unit and without any hick ups or data loss. The print server works flawlessly and the media streaming capabilities have also proved to be very robust.

Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is a very competent NAS that provides a unsurpassed flexible storage solution using the X-RAID solution. The hot swap/ hot insert capabilities provides a very redundant and secure solution. This combined with the rich feature set that the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ sports makes this a very compelling NAS that can only receive the highest recommendation.

http://netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASNVPlus.aspx

http://www.readynas.com/

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