We are hosting an extended 4 week Ask Me Anything AMA for the NETGEAR ReadyNAS line of products and we would love to answer your ReadyNAS questions. Best of all, posting your question below enters you in a sweepstake to win a ReadyNAS 214 with 4x 2-terabyte hard drives. *Update - 9/14 - The Winner has been contacted - We will announce soon. Learn more about NETGEAR ReadyNAS products for Home and ReadyNAS for Small & Medium businesses. Sweepstakes rules and alternative means of entry: How to ask a question and enter: In the discussion thread below post a question for our ReadyNAS team about ReadyNAS products. During the Questions & Answers and entry period: 7/26/2017 – 8/28/2017 a ReadyNAS rep will visit this thread and answer relevant questions Monday-Friday. After the Q&A is finished one lucky respondent will be chosen at random to receive a ReadyNAS 214! We look forward to your questions. Good Luck Update 8/29 - The AMA Period is now closed. Thank you to everyone for submitting their questions about ReadyNAS. Register to post your question

Um, I get this contest is a great way to get everyone use to the new forum but it's not effective for responding to questions. This whole conversation is listed as a single topic, so many of the people who are asking questions will have to scroll through all the responses to get answers, and that's not the best experience with a new forum. However, I would like to say I like the digs.

Rottenweiler wrote: Does the 214 run OS6? How does an ARM processor compare to Intel models? Can you use the 10TB drives in this system? Thanks. Simply put, Intel processors are 64-bit, ARM processors are 32-bit. Of course, a modern ARM processor outperforms against a 2004 Intel processor. So, you do need to look at the architecture, the speed, etc. etc. But in general, if you are buying a new product from the same vendor, it is safe to assume that a system based on Intel processor is faster than one that is based on ARM. In the example of ReadyNAS, you have a quad core ARM in RN212/214. It is still slower than a dual core Intel in a RN420 (422/424/426/428). The size of the drive does not have any relevance to the overall performance (tiny bit, almost not noticeable). It runs the same, slow or fast. It is the conduit (i.e. interface) between the HDD and the mother board in the ReadyNAS that determines the speed. Of course, the spec of the motherboard.

Tofu87m wrote:How does this model compare to the qnap 451+ as far as streaming plex and capturing and streaming gameplay to places like twitch, YouTube, ectThe QNAP TS451+ has an Intel based chipset which is perhaps similar to the ReadyNAS 314 or the newer 400 series, also on price about the same. ReadyNAS 214 has an ARM based chipset more like the TS431+, specs and price also similar. For streaming, I think the answer is much simpler: can the RN214 stream content and even transcode, and the answer is yes it can. If you want to know which has more processing performance, then the answer is also pretty easy in this comparison, and that is the QNAP TS451+. However, I think you need to consider what you are trying to achieve and figure out the best NAS for the task. With your current question I think they can both do that task quite easily.

daspiel wrote:Why NetGear over any other brand?ReadyNAS is generally very reliable and stable and as a central file storage it is excellent. Afterall, your data is what you value most! I'm not saying there are no issues, but I observe excellent stability for this basic function. I find the backup modes also very good, if a little confusing to start with. When expanding capacity, popping in an additional disk and have ReadyNAS x-raid expand automatically was seamless the times I have done it. The fan on the Duo v1 was noisy (so I changed mine), the NV+ v2 is not as bad but not silent. There is no way to turn the fan off for example when the disk are sleeping and the temperature is sufficiently low, which would make the unit totally silent when not in use. The newer RN200 series have larger fans that are quieter I believe, so less of an issue now. When I have looked elsewhere, let's say QNAP (I have one) and Synology (I don't have one), the community forum here is by far superior in my opinion. Always helpful and I don't recall a time where the pros were sarcastic or flat out abusive (which I have observed on some forums). Having said that, I do feel the ReadyNAS lacks advanced features compared to the others, especially Netgear provides little (useful) add-ons. There was a time when Netgear wanted to go for fee based add-ons (even for community contributors who did not want to charge), that was a real joke and fairly offensive to consumer level users. The community add-ons are limited, so I suggest you take a look for yourself in the appropriate sections to check if there are any features missing. From personal experience, the ReadyNas NV+ v2 ReadyDLNA had tagging problem in early versions, I raised the issue here and one of the developers created a patch to resolve it. That was rolled in to the next release. I haven't experienced any other issues, and I've had 4 NAS units over the last 10 or so years. I am a bit disappointed that Netgear end-of-lifed the NV+ just a few months after I purchased it, and in fact it was only on the market a short while. I do understand the reasons and I accept that sometimes you just have to move on. The NV+ has still served me well for about 4 years (purchased Jan'2013) and is still my main NAS, so I can't really complain. Personally I would highly recommend the ReadyNAS and my own next purchase will likely be a RN214, which I think offers best value for money, performance and features that I need. I've got in to the ReadyNAS ways of doing things and don't want to change, but I'm sure other NAS units are also pretty good. It will mostly come down to preferences on the interface and whether the unit has the features you need.

Danila wrote: hi! what can possibly convince me to switch to new model from my current model ? (RN 10400) Best regards, Danila The 104 is good as a basic file server or backup storage where speed is not a concern. Once you want to do more than that you'll really benefit from using a more powerful unit. I want our ReadyNAS customers to be happy. If you're happy with how your NAS is performing and what it can do now you don't have to rush into upgrading.In my opinion it's better to choose a unit that is more powerful than what you need than to choose one that's not powerful enough. I started out as a ReadyNAS customer before I joined NETGEAR. If I was buying a unit for myself now I'd buy the RN628X. At the same time I know the performance of that unit, the 8-bays and the price is way overkill for most home users and will remain so for years to come. I'm not the average user. We have a wide range of units to suit various needs. You can just move your disks across to the RN214 (it is advisable to get both units up to the same firmware first, put a scratch disk in the RN214, update the firmware if necessary, verify the firmware update was successful, power down both units, remove the scratch disk and move the disks across keeping the order the same).If you want to move to an Intel model (e.g. RN424) then I'd suggest uninstalling any apps you've got installed first. It's nice to know that you can move your disks to a newer ReadyNAS model when the time is right for you to upgrade whether it's now or later (of course it's best to check back when you do decide to upgrade to make sure that's still the case).

AMA - Ask Us Anything About ReadyNAS and You Could Win a ReadyNAS 214!

217 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion

coffee_lover
Aspirant
Aug 01, 2017
Old infrant readynas nv+ user here looking at the changes. How big of a hdd can it theoretically support ie. 12/14/16/20 TB? Does the DLNA server support subtitles?
yukkevchuhau
Aspirant
Aug 01, 2017
How does this unit compare to my aging ReadyNas Ultra 2 & Synology DS1513+?
Is it compatible with Western Digital Red drives?

How easy would the migration of data be, from the two NASes above?

I am currently using the DS1513+ as web, file, video, audio, MS Office-like server.

My Ultra 2 is iSCSI Server to backup and archive mail from the email server.

I'm looking to replace my Lenovo m73 Mid-Tower e-Mail Server. Would this NAS fit the bill and how easy would the process be to migrate over?

What network security feature does it have to prevent intrusions and hackers, bots, malware and virus; when it's accessible on the internet?
Lv2Travel
Aspirant
Aug 01, 2017
Can you connect the RN212 to an Wifi Range Extender and get the same quality of service? Will the quality of service be there if you added a wifi adapter and connected by wifi only?
- aks
  Virtuoso
  Aug 01, 2017
  Lv2Travel wrote:
  Can you connect the RN212 to an Wifi Range Extender and get the same quality of service? Will the quality of service be there if you added a wifi adapter and connected by wifi only?
  The ReadyNAS 200 series has two gigabit wired connections, so I'm not sure you can expect that level of throughput over wifi currently. Why is it you want to locate away from the router/switch?
mlswayze
Aspirant
Aug 02, 2017
Will there be a NAS unit with double power supplies at some time?
- douglas_cheung
  NETGEAR Expert
  Aug 02, 2017
  mlswayze wrote:
  
  Will there be a NAS unit with double power supplies at some time?
  
  The high-end rackmount ReadyNAS have double power supplies. But not yet in the desktop models.
Blackflyjim
Aspirant
Aug 02, 2017
I just purchased a Nighthawk R7000 router in the hopes that it would play nice with my Ready NAS NV+ RND4000v3. I have had a lot of trouble over the years getting time machine to work reliably with the NAS. I was hoping that compatible equipment from Netgear would make this easier but so far my nighthawk doesn't specifically recognize the NV+. Are there settings in the frontview that I can change to make the NAS more reliable? SHould I remove passwords or quotas?
thank you in advance
j
- douglas_cheung
  NETGEAR Expert
  Aug 04, 2017
  Blackflyjim wrote:
  
  I just purchased a Nighthawk R7000 router in the hopes that it would play nice with my Ready NAS NV+ RND4000v3. I have had a lot of trouble over the years getting time machine to work reliably with the NAS. I was hoping that compatible equipment from Netgear would make this easier but so far my nighthawk doesn't specifically recognize the NV+. Are there settings in the frontview that I can change to make the NAS more reliable? SHould I remove passwords or quotas?
  
  thank you in advance
  
  j
  
  To be really honest, it is time to upgrade your NAS. You just bought a modern router with 802.11ac technology, 3x3, dual band, all the great spec and all the great features. I am really not sure if the ReadyNAS NV and RND4000 are good pairing for the router. (Forgive me for using a word that will come up often over the weekend, pairing, like wine and cheese, or slim cut shirts and baggy jeans).
  - douglas_cheung
    NETGEAR Expert
    Aug 04, 2017
    douglas_cheung wrote:
    
    Blackflyjim wrote:
    
    I just purchased a Nighthawk R7000 router in the hopes that it would play nice with my Ready NAS NV+ RND4000v3. I have had a lot of trouble over the years getting time machine to work reliably with the NAS. I was hoping that compatible equipment from Netgear would make this easier but so far my nighthawk doesn't specifically recognize the NV+. Are there settings in the frontview that I can change to make the NAS more reliable? SHould I remove passwords or quotas?
    
    thank you in advance
    
    j
    
    To be really honest, it is time to upgrade your NAS. You just bought a modern router with 802.11ac technology, 3x3, dual band, all the great spec and all the great features. I am really not sure if the ReadyNAS NV and RND4000 are good pairing for the router. (Forgive me for using a word that will come up often over the weekend, pairing, like wine and cheese, or slim cut shirts and baggy jeans).
    
    A good entry model would be RN212. That will do a great deal of Plex streaming, excellent backup of all your personal data, with built-in public cloud backup tools for Dropbox, Amazon Cloud (at this moment my personal favorite because of its unlimited capacity for a Prime account user), Google Drive, etc. You connect a SLR camera to it by a USB port, the RN212 will suck all the photos and create a folder in the SHARE with a name suggestive of the camera.
    
    All in all, a much, much better product and much better use of your time.
    
    Good luck...
    
    p.s. If you are nuts about streaming, go for RN420s for multi-stream HD streaming; RN520s for 4k streaming.
wdunn
Aspirant
Aug 03, 2017
Is the ReadyNAS 102 (2bay) capable of using the WD Red 8TB drives (2x8TB) in RAID1 with the latest Firmware?
Specifically the WD Red 8TB with 256 cache.
If so, is there a specific process flow for building the disks?
Thanks
- douglas_cheung
  NETGEAR Expert
  Aug 04, 2017
  wdunn wrote:
  
  Is the ReadyNAS 102 (2bay) capable of using the WD Red 8TB drives (2x8TB) in RAID1 with the latest Firmware?
  
  Specifically the WD Red 8TB with 256 cache.
  
  If so, is there a specific process flow for building the disks?
  
  Thanks
  
  Yes, RN102 supports WD Red Drive. There is no special process flow to follow. Just following the admin UI to build the disks.
  
  Just a word a caution, RN102 is no longer in production. Some of the more advanced features may not run well on that model. A great replacement is RN212. You can use the same drive from RN102 for it so the incremental investment is contained.
  - wdunn
    Aspirant
    Aug 07, 2017
    
    douglas_cheung wrote:
    wdunn wrote:
    Is the ReadyNAS 102 (2bay) capable of using the WD Red 8TB drives (2x8TB) in RAID1 with the latest Firmware?
    Specifically the WD Red 8TB with 256 cache.
    If so, is there a specific process flow for building the disks?
    Thanks
    Yes, RN102 supports WD Red Drive. There is no special process flow to follow. Just following the admin UI to build the disks.
    
    Just a word a caution, RN102 is no longer in production. Some of the more advanced features may not run well on that model. A great replacement is RN212. You can use the same drive from RN102 for it so the incremental investment is contained.
    The WD 8TB Red drives are synching now, ETA about 26 hours. The issue was they were preformatted.
    
    I'm very confident I'll win the drawing for the Readynas 214. :)
    On the off chance, I don't, what's the story on the ReadyNas 312? I'm seeing Out of Stock, and clearance on this item. I understand they have different processors (2core vs 4core), is there a reason to pick one over the other.
blindguy
Aspirant
Aug 04, 2017
Thanks for the contest! I'm curious where I would find what types of cameras the ReadyNAS surveillance supports?
- douglas_cheung
  NETGEAR Expert
  Aug 04, 2017
  blindguy wrote:
  
  Thanks for the contest! I'm curious where I would find what types of cameras the ReadyNAS surveillance supports?
  
  Good news.
  
  NETGEAR is just about to release a Milestone Arcus on ReadyNAS app on the community site. It is downloadable from the ReadyNAS OS 6.8 admin UI.
  
  With that software, ReadyNAS supports all ONVIF cameras. When you are shopping for a camera, make sure you select these two terms "IP", and "ONVIF". The "Milestone Arcus on ReadyNAS" is a great surveillance video management software for the small businesses.
  
  Good luck.
  - voodoogts
    Aspirant
    Aug 04, 2017
    Great to hear it will support IP cameras! It would be nice to have run along with my Lorex IP cameras.
featherjade80
Aspirant
Aug 04, 2017
What does ReadyNAS 214 do and what does NAS stand for? Hey you said "Ask Us Anything"
- douglas_cheung
  NETGEAR Expert
  Aug 04, 2017
  featherjade80 wrote:
  
  What does ReadyNAS 214 do and what does NAS stand for? Hey you said "Ask Us Anything"
  
  A NAS is a network attached storage, kind of like a USB HDD except that it is an intelligent device, can function independently of your PC, and can do a lot more, like media streaming, automatic data backup from PC, smartphone, automatic data backup to your public cloud account, etc. ,etc.
  
  ReadyNAS 214 is a prosumer product with 4 hard drives in the device. The 4 hard drives provide not just capacity, but redundancy so that any one HDD fails, your data is still good.
  
  In short, ReadyNAS 214 makes you happy. :-)
WaywardTech
Aspirant
Aug 04, 2017
I see you guys have bit rot protection enabled on this unit and some others. Could you give a bit of a technical explanation on how this works on your devices and how it differs or is superior to this sort of protection offered by other vendors? Are there any real downside to having it enabled?
- mdgm-ntgr
  NETGEAR Employee Retired
  Aug 08, 2017
  WaywardTech wrote:
  
  I see you guys have bit rot protection enabled on this unit and some others. Could you give a bit of a technical explanation on how this works on your devices and how it differs or is superior to this sort of protection offered by other vendors? Are there any real downside to having it enabled?
  
  Bit-rot protection protects against bit-rot media degradation. There are some good generic articles on this e.g. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/bitrot-and-atomic-cows-inside-next-gen-filesystems/
  
  Our implementation uses the BTRFS filesystem and the md software RAID. md software RAID is mature and a much safer choice than BTRFS RAID.
  
  We link enabling/disabling bit-rot protection to enabling/disabling CoW (Copy on Write) although they are two separate things. CoW is useful for some kinds of data (e.g. videos that don't change a lot) but with other kinds (e.g. databases, virtual machines with a huge number of writes in place) you'll get a lot of fragmentation and a big performance hit.
  
  Bit-rot protection is part of a data protection strategy, but the most important part is backups. Don't store important data on just the one device, no matter what that device is. If the primary copy of important (e.g. irreplaceable) data is on the NAS then you need to backup that data.
Retired_Member
Aug 05, 2017
I'm thinking about using your ReadyNAS214 to host my iTunes library which currently has approx 800Gbs of data (AIFF encoded files) with cover art pulled in by iTunes automatically and manually installed as well as Time Machine backups for my macs at home.

I have two questions:

1. Does Netgear require third-party software like "iTunes Server" for accessing the iTunes media folder from the NAS214 and if so, will your version allow cover art to display that's either automatically downloaded from the iTunes store or manually inserted by me?

2. Would it be possible (and recommended) to create two RAID 0 partitions spanning two drives each - one for my iTunes library and one for my TM backups on the NAS 214?

thanks!

BDA
- aks
  Virtuoso
  Aug 06, 2017
  @blackdogaudio wrote:
  1. Does Netgear require third-party software like "iTunes Server" for accessing the iTunes media folder from the NAS214 and if so, will your version allow cover art to display that's either automatically downloaded from the iTunes store or manually inserted by me?
  ReadyNAS does come with an iTunes server, but, you need to be careful here. It's not the same as Home Sharing like the desktop iTunes, instead it is a basic audio server support Apple's DAAP protocol - it can stream to iTunes running on a desktop, but it cannot stream to iDevices.
  
  You can read more in the Netgear kb article here.
  
  2. Would it be possible (and recommended) to create two RAID 0 partitions spanning two drives each - one for my iTunes library and one for my TM backups on the NAS 214?
  Not sure why you'd do that, rather than have one volume (and with RAID protection)?
  - Retired_Member
    Aug 06, 2017
    aks wrote:
    @blackdogaudio wrote:
    1. Does Netgear require third-party software like "iTunes Server" for accessing the iTunes media folder from the NAS214 and if so, will your version allow cover art to display that's either automatically downloaded from the iTunes store or manually inserted by me?
    ReadyNAS does come with an iTunes server, but, you need to be careful here. It's not the same as Home Sharing like the desktop iTunes, instead it is a basic audio server support Apple's DAAP protocol - it can stream to iTunes running on a desktop, but it cannot stream to iDevices.
    
    You can read more in the Netgear kb article here.
    
    2. Would it be possible (and recommended) to create two RAID 0 partitions spanning two drives each - one for my iTunes library and one for my TM backups on the NAS 214?
    Not sure why you'd do that, rather than have one volume (and with RAID protection)?
    
    Tony,
    
    First, thanks for the reply and link.
    
    It's a shame it doesn't talk to iDevices but that's not a deal breaker as I'll mostly stream from my macs though possibly a Devialet Phantom system in the future. I'll speak with Devialet and see if they've got any expereince with ReadyNas storage systems however.
    
    My other concern was with iTunes cover art. I demoed a friend's Synology NAS that was up for sale and it couldn't retain some cover art whether downloaded automatically by iTunes or manually installed by the user. Completely hit or miss but definitley a deal breaker with a large library where a visual search is better that weeding through thousands of album tiltles in text form. Evidentely it's a known issue with their third-party verrsion of "ITunes server" software.
    
    My bad, I meant RAID 1 not RAID 0. My thoughts were to configure the four drives into two volumes with Raid 1. This would give me a disk mirror for my iTunes media folder and a separate one for TM backups.
    
    regards,
    
    Dave
- mdgm-ntgr
  NETGEAR Employee Retired
  Aug 08, 2017
  @blackdogaudio wrote:
  
  I'm thinking about using your ReadyNAS214 to host my iTunes library which currently has approx 800Gbs of data (AIFF encoded files) with cover art pulled in by iTunes automatically and manually installed as well as Time Machine backups for my macs at home.
  
  I have two questions:
  
  1. We use forked-daapd for our iTunes Server. Some users prefer to leave iTunes running on their PC and use their PC as the server but store for the library for it on the NAS.
  
  2. That's possible but not recommended. If either disk failed used by the RAID-0 volume all data on the volume would be lost. It'd be better to use a RAID level providing some redundancy e.g. the default X-RAID. The most likely hardware to fail is generally a disk.

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AMA - Ask Us Anything About ReadyNAS and You Could Win a ReadyNAS 214!