ReadyNAS Pro

ReadyNAS Pro

• Type: Desktop NAS
• OS: Windows/Mac/Linux
• Interface: LAN: 2xGigabit/100/10BASE-TX, RJ-45
• Storage range: 1, 2 TB
• Disks: 6 SATA II hot swappable
• RAID: 0,1,5,6 and X-RAID
• Price range (ex VAT): £1,196 (1.5 TB), £1,679 (3 TB ), £2,599 (6 TB)
• Expansion: Yes via 3xUSB 2.0
• Print server: Yes
• File Systems: CIFS, FTP, AFP, NFS
• Media Server: iTunes, UP&P, Squeeze
• Security: Workgroup/user and Domain
• Dimensions: 250x170x285 mm
• Weight: 7.5 kg
• Power Supply: 115W typical

The ReadyNAS PRO has space for six hot swap drives in removable carriers that look as if hot swapping was really intended. Fitting the full complement of drives provides up to 9TBytes of storage in fault tolerant RAID2 mode. You can also configure the system to use one hot spare with the consequent reduction in available storage.

The hardware is also more powerful than standard desktop NAS devices. The ReadyNAS PRO has a dual core 1.8Ghz processor and 1GByte of RAM upgradable to 4GBytes. Although you can use a number of different RAID setups the use of XRAID is the default. XRAID is a modification to RAID 5 and provides fault protection using whatever method is appropriate to the number of disks installed - 1 no protection, 2 mirroring, 3 parity etc. This expansion occurs automatically as you add additional storage. In addition, with XRAID 2 you can upgrade the capacity of a disk and it will be integrated into the RAID configuration without needing to take the device off line.

File Journaling is also supported so that the system can be put back online very quickly after crash or a restart. You can also configure an iSCSI target using some of the device's storage to provide raw storage to another NAS device. Two Gigabyte network ports are also provided to provide either increased throughput or redundant failover. This, along with UPS support, makes the unit more robust than a typical desktop NAS.

Network support is sophisticated for a NAS. The two network ports can be easily configured into any one of the standard operation modes, providing increased throughput combined with different levels of fault tolerance. You can configure the unit to act as a DCHP or WINS server. It supports VLANS and you can even configure a routing table.

Managing the unit is easy with the help of the web interface which is common to all ReadyNAS devices. By default, security uses the workgroup mode and you can set up users and groups and allocate access rights by share. It also supports domain mode including AD support. Joining a domain is easy, and users and groups are automatically imported.

You can allocate access rights and quotas by user or group but you have to use the AD names rather than fully qualified domain names. You also have to type in the names as there is no "browse" option in the security settings. Managing access isn't difficult but the security tab in the properties window of any client machine doesn't show a sensible list of users and groups nor permissions, and you can't use the security properties to modify permissions - that is you have to do everything via the ReadyNAS.

By default home shares are automatically created as users log on and if you don't want this behaviour you can turn it off. However, notice that existing non-empty home folders don't vanish as a result but equally don't show in the standard share listing. This makes home shares more difficult to administer than they need be.

The system has a range of other useful extras - media streaming support, automatic backup tasks, snapshots - and USB ports can be used to expand storage or to share printers etc.

Overall the ReadyNas Pro is powerful enough to be taken seriously for small to medium network storage. It's fast, it's easy to use and it has lots of storage capacity.

Read more about Desktop NAS in Labs

Netgear

ReadyNas Pro product page