New admin design/functionality

Not sure about you, but personally I prefer stability over a new interface. The web-interface of the ReadyNAS has lots of features and works well provided you keep your firmware up to date. With the rapid release cycles of modern browsers if they break compatibility it could be a little while afterwards before a firmware update is released that addresses the issue. However having multiple web browsers and perhaps keeping one on a little older version (if needs be) is a reasonable solution.

Also looking at that link I read a new feature "Scheduled SMART scans to keep admins in the know before problems arise". Now, I'm not sure exactly what that's referring to, but I can tell you that the ReadyNAS has had daily scheduled short SMART online scans for as long as I can remember. If you look back at the firmware release notes you might be able to find when that was introduced.

Having said all that, recently NetGear released some new products the Duo v2 and the NV+ v2 with a new web-interface. You can read about it in the Duo v2/NV+ v2 software manual found here: http://www.readynas.com/docs

I think I may have read somewhere (though I can't find the post atm) that NetGear does have plans to release the new web-interface for x86 products but there's no ETA at this time. Edit: I could be thinking about the Debian distribution RAIDiator is based on, not necessarily the web-interface.

Edit: There is some speculation in the community as to whether this would be released for existing products or not (see http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=41981&p=331334#p331334). We'll have to wait and see.

Oh I certainly prefer stability. I'm absolutely not suggesting Netgear goes the way QNap went (sorry QNap, just hearing a lot of bad things about your firmware). I'm also not saying Netgear copies the interface of Synology's DSM. I would just like to have an upgraded interface that makes use of the capabilities of modern browsers.

Synology is getting hundreds of positive reviews simply because their admin works so incredibly well. It shows they've put a lot of effort in. Even novice users are able to navigate it, where Netgear's admin is a maze of buttons and checkboxes that causes novice users to go into panic mode.

It loads slow, it feels cloggy. The design is horrible, it's made to be fixed height to fit 1024x768 screens. Sorry, but that's not been practice for years now. I've got two monitors of 1920x1200 pixels, why are you not allowing me to use this? Why am I getting scrollbars in a very small box when there's 600 pixels of empty space below where the page could scale to?

The web interface on the new Duo and NV looks promising, but since I have an Ultra 6, that's not much use to me (this sounds a lot more grumpy than intended). Please understand that I really would not want to get rid of my Ultra6 in favour of a Synology simply for the admin. I just wanted to say that I'm disappointed with the ancient feeling of webinterfaces on Netgear devices. My WNDR3700 is by far the best router I've had in years, yet the admin screen again feels as if I've landed back in 2001 with frames everywhere. Being a webdeveloper myself, I might be a tad more naggy about these things.

In the end, I'm just hoping that the web UI will be of such quality (both technically and in UX design) I can show it to people who might be interested in buying a NAS. At the moment, I would just scare them to bits.

I'm sure NetGear's aware of your concerns as they've been raised several times before. Of course with a large well developed feature set, it would take quite some time to get a stable well developed new interface for it.

The advantage of the new Duo v2 and NV+ v2 products was they could start out with a smaller feature set and get a solution that works really well for the novice user, adding in some more features over time. I'd like to see the new web-interface on x86 products too, but I'd also like them to take the necessary time to get it right. As a web developer I'm sure you know these things tend to take longer than you think. So my advice would be to be patient and wait and see what happens.

I would really love to see the new interface on my Ultra 2 too. But I prefer to have a stable old-fashioned interface over a flashy unstable interface anytime.

About your router: Netgear has recently released a new firmware for my WNR2200 which gave it a complete new webGUI. It looks a lot better now and it is really easy to use. However, I noticed that my old WNR834Bv2 has not yet got an update available that might change it to that new interface.

While it would be nice to have a new Frontview interface, it is not something I am overly concerned about. Typically once I have the unit set up, about the only time I am back into Frontview, is frankly to answer questions from members or to check the logs. I also don't find the response time particularly slow on my NVX units (2) as it takes a couple of seconds to load the logon screen, then a couple of seconds to load the main page, and then a couple of seconds to load one of the option screens. It does take longer when changing a setting, but it is waiting on a response from the NAS.

I will welcome the new interface when it arrives, but I haven't lost any sleep over it.

PapaBear wrote:
I also don't find the response time particularly slow on my NVX units (2) as it takes a couple of seconds to load the logon screen, then a couple of seconds to load the main page, and then a couple of seconds to load one of the option screens. It does take longer when changing a setting, but it is waiting on a response from the NAS.

When changing a setting, I understand a delay. But it's those few seconds to load everything that bugs me (I just checked, it's actually 16 seconds for me at the moment from a remote connection with 10mbit upload). I'm a very impatient bastard when it comes to websites. They have to show up right away. That's where Netgear could benefit from AJAX and HTML5 features. Just load the page and display everything it can immediately render (such as menus and cachable configuration information). It can then display placeholders (we all know those loading scrollers) for items that actually require feedback from the device. Studies have shown that users mind those a lot less than seeing no page at all. With a scroller, they know that something is actually being done, because they can already see some results.

MueR wrote:
When changing a setting, I understand a delay. But it's those few seconds to load everything that bugs me (I just checked, it's actually 16 seconds for me at the moment from a remote connection with 10mbit upload).

The key here is the remote connection. On my NVX connected to a gigabit switch (Netgear GS108) as is my desktop (3 year old custom build with an Core2Duo E6750) it takes between 2 and 3 seconds on each load. I think that it perhaps is your remote connection. Even with a very fast upload, there is that remote delay of systems in between the two locations before the upload actually starts. Once it starts, it will be fast, however.

Now if it were on your LAN, it should only be a few seconds.