NetGear expands ReadyNAS line

That Infrant acquisition sure looks like it's going well for NetGear, which just announced five more ReadyNAS storage devices. The desktop ReadyNAS NV+ line (pictured) gets the big expansion, with new 1.5TB, 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB models, but you rackmountin' fools out there are also getting a little love with the new 4TB ReadyNAS 1100. All the units sport the same Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, RAID 0 / 1 / 5 support (as well as NetGear's proprietary X-RAID system), and hot-swap support as always, but NetGear has improved the management apps and added support for USB drive sharing as well. Pricing starts at $1099, and it looks like the new models are live on NetGear's site now.

[VG @ Dec 21st 2007 11:25PM]

what are those? Networking storage drives?

[Rad Hatter @ Dec 22nd 2007 12:08AM]

It also comes with a built-in AM radio.

[RyanTV @ Dec 22nd 2007 12:16AM]

I still have my Infrant ReadyNAS kicking over here. It's great.

I'm hoping that NetGear doesn't suck the lifeblood out of units.

[yaya @ Dec 22nd 2007 12:36AM]

Plus the vendor ships 'em with an extensible build of Linux and accessible shell prompt. Awfully, awfully tempting. They cost about $300 more than the equivelants from Buffalo and IOMega, but they get much better reviews. Frighteningly constant theme of the reviews is that the customer support royally sucks, though.

[siriusfox @ Dec 22nd 2007 1:06AM]

Now if only they'd update the firmware so that it works with Time Machine I'd be happy. My 1.5TB of storage are doing me no good as far as time machine goes. And Retrospect just isn't cutting it.

[Jon @ Dec 22nd 2007 4:39AM]

This is an Apple limitation, not the ReadyNAS or any other NAS device out there. However, there is a workaround: http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/10/how-to-enable-time-machine-on-unsupported-volumes/

[Tired_ @ Dec 22nd 2007 2:29AM]

My experience with NetGear's Storage Central device was so horrible, they'd have to work very hard indeed to win me back (and I'd still be leery about support after the purchase).

[Jon @ Dec 22nd 2007 4:43AM]

This thing is nothing like a Storage Central device. Netgear acquired Infrant Technologies, the original creators. Numerous people have had back luck with Netgear support, though I had no problems at all when my ReadyNAS needed to be replaced due to a failed power supply. So support is probably a YMMV situation. However, Netgear did go and jack the price by over $200 after taking over.

[Will @ Dec 22nd 2007 2:45AM]

That's alotta byte!

[Reid B. @ Dec 22nd 2007 3:42AM]

While the ReadyNas has always impressed me, Netgear has not. Most of their networking stuff seems very middle of the road and not great quality. I gave up on them after two new routers in a row took the plunge. I've not seen anything to make me go back. Their purchase of Infrant happened just as I thought I was going to buy one of the ReadyNas, but that put it on a wait and see. I am thinking now that building a Windows Home Server (Hello Lian Li!) may be a better answer.

[earthling @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:38AM]

The readynas line of products is pretty reasonable, lets hope netgear doesn't screw it up.

[SuperQ @ Dec 22nd 2007 2:50PM]

Lol, how is this news? This is the same 2 ReadyNAS models with bigger hard drive options. You could get the empty version of these two and buy the drives for the last year. I know, I've had a 4x750 NV+ for almost that long. They work great, and the 4.0 firmware finally opens things up (officially) for hacking.

[Evan @ Dec 22nd 2007 5:11PM]

It would be nice if the UI to these didn't crawl, and if the units could achieve more than 11MB/sec writes in practice in any configuration other than RAID0 with no journaling.

[Eugene @ Dec 23rd 2007 4:06PM]

Actually with the new firmware the nas gets 25 writes and 30 reads.

[Evan @ Dec 23rd 2007 4:23PM]

Eugene, are you from the future?

[dennis @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:01PM]

The ReadyNAS NV and Squeezebox combination is one of the best tech purchases I've ever made.