Is ReadyCLOUD ready to use?

NO ABSOLUTELY NOT

I own a small engineering company and I can tell you it was a complete and utter time chewing, frustrating experience trying to set this box up. I still don't have ReadyCloud up and running properly. My users are all messed up. I have it working so that the admin user can get into "manage" the device but can't see any deeper than one level on the shares. I place manage in quotes because that is kind of a joke. If manage means you can set up a user and see the other users then this thing is fully managed. However it does not meet my definition of manage.

I set up another user that can see deeper into the file structure with no problems but can't manage squat. The email links to the users are all messed up. You can't seem to delete users from ReadyCloud. What a freaking mess. No one at tech support can fix it and I can support myself technically better than they can after a few hours of usage, err trying to grind through the poor technical manual and firmware.

I have the Egnyte service (absolutely happy with Egnyte) and that part of the equation is working spectacularly. With the Egnyte application, I don't need the ReadyCloud crap, and thank goodness, because that is what it is at this stage of development, CRAP. Shame on Netgear for putting this out on the street.

My advice to people who are stuck purchasing the product because of Netgear's false misleading advertisement, is turn off ReadyCloud and all other related services and get Egnyte and forget about if for a while. Hopefully Netgear will have some shame and expedite the development of firmware that works.

Other than the ReadyCloud crap and associated applications, the rest of the simple file server box with the Raid and Snapshots is slick and fast. Everything else seems to be working really well. The access is very fast and it seems that the replication with Egnyte is working well. The application installation is intuitive and it worked flawlessly. Locally managing the unit is pretty easy and the web interface is nice.

I am not sure I would purchase this again. I might be inclined to get a cheap server and load VMware hypervisor and the Egnyte application to do the same thing with more confidence. The lack of stability with the firmware really bothers me and makes me thing what other more MISSON CRITICAL function is messed up. After all what liability does Netgear have with respect to preserving your data. NONE.

Let's see if the moderator lets this comment through. I have no vendetta against Netgear. I own several routers and switches. The above is my honest opinion.