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Forum Discussion
Open Question to Netgear - What are Your Intentions?
I have been a forum member and ReadyNAS owner since December of 2009. Certainly not as long a many of the add-on developers such as super-poussin and whocares, not as long as some of the more experienced users like claykin, mdgm, dbott76, TeknoJnky, sphardy, Papabear, fbmachines and stephenb and obviously not as long as the jedi - Yodah, Chirpa, Chewbacca, Jedi Knight, Han Solo and Oom-9. There are many others in each group I have unintentionally omitted but I write now because I am concerned for the future of the ReadyNAS line.
I don't post much anymore but have never stopped reading (daily) the ReadyNAS forum. I've committed my own money, that of the company I work for and that of my friends and collegeues that listened to the purchase of a ReadyNAS. From the Duo to the Pro - I use daily and depend on quite a few to do their job and I will say they have done that and done it well. What concerns me is that direction the forum has taken since the departure of Yodah and Chirpa. While both continue to provide support (and while other Jedi also do their best) it would seem judging from the comments of users and Jedi alike there has been a fundamental shift in Netgear's priorities. So fundamental I now question whether Netgear is the right choice moving forward. To wit:
As many have stated the forum was or is the reason to choose Netgear over the competition. I submit given Netgear's stance (the board itself is regularly unavailable) the forum can no longer be valued as it was in the past.
Existing issues are no longer being addressed, discussed or even acknowledged by Netgear staff as readily as in the past. I would submit this lessens the value of Netgear support further decreasing the value of the ReadyNAS line.
Existing web features such as the web simulator have been removed by Netgear without official communication and without remediation. This affects future purchases, reducing the user base therefore reducing the need to spend money on existing users.
Problems we have lived with - (iTunes server / forked daapd, ReadyDLNA, USB3 operation, Photos I and II, ARM add-ons (or the lack thereof), loss of Bittorrent, RAIDiator v5 for x86, lack of a directory / LDAP server, requiring workaround, registry hack or command-line fixes for common issues) - the list goes on - have not been properly addressed. I don't care about most and the ones I do don't bother me that much but there is an expectation when you purchase a product that it live up to the marketing and your own expectations and I would submit that may no longer be the case.
ReadyDATA hardware and software (what some existing programmers might be spending their time on) might be great - I will never know. For one, it is somewhat more expensive than a ReadyNAS but more importantly why would I give my money to a company that has begun to abandon an entire group of product enthusiasts that have have helped make the ReadyNAS line what it is today?
You can search the board to find support for any point I referenced but I think for most just a reminder is enough. Note I am in no way unhappy with the performance of any of the many ReadyNAS units I own and work with on a daily basis. I strongly feel like I am witnessing a protracted death of a product I feel has value and it is for this reason I'm asking Netgear -
What are your intentions?
I don't post much anymore but have never stopped reading (daily) the ReadyNAS forum. I've committed my own money, that of the company I work for and that of my friends and collegeues that listened to the purchase of a ReadyNAS. From the Duo to the Pro - I use daily and depend on quite a few to do their job and I will say they have done that and done it well. What concerns me is that direction the forum has taken since the departure of Yodah and Chirpa. While both continue to provide support (and while other Jedi also do their best) it would seem judging from the comments of users and Jedi alike there has been a fundamental shift in Netgear's priorities. So fundamental I now question whether Netgear is the right choice moving forward. To wit:
As many have stated the forum was or is the reason to choose Netgear over the competition. I submit given Netgear's stance (the board itself is regularly unavailable) the forum can no longer be valued as it was in the past.
Existing issues are no longer being addressed, discussed or even acknowledged by Netgear staff as readily as in the past. I would submit this lessens the value of Netgear support further decreasing the value of the ReadyNAS line.
Existing web features such as the web simulator have been removed by Netgear without official communication and without remediation. This affects future purchases, reducing the user base therefore reducing the need to spend money on existing users.
Problems we have lived with - (iTunes server / forked daapd, ReadyDLNA, USB3 operation, Photos I and II, ARM add-ons (or the lack thereof), loss of Bittorrent, RAIDiator v5 for x86, lack of a directory / LDAP server, requiring workaround, registry hack or command-line fixes for common issues) - the list goes on - have not been properly addressed. I don't care about most and the ones I do don't bother me that much but there is an expectation when you purchase a product that it live up to the marketing and your own expectations and I would submit that may no longer be the case.
ReadyDATA hardware and software (what some existing programmers might be spending their time on) might be great - I will never know. For one, it is somewhat more expensive than a ReadyNAS but more importantly why would I give my money to a company that has begun to abandon an entire group of product enthusiasts that have have helped make the ReadyNAS line what it is today?
You can search the board to find support for any point I referenced but I think for most just a reminder is enough. Note I am in no way unhappy with the performance of any of the many ReadyNAS units I own and work with on a daily basis. I strongly feel like I am witnessing a protracted death of a product I feel has value and it is for this reason I'm asking Netgear -
What are your intentions?
66 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- +1
Six months ago, I thought the forum was the norm and not a selling point.
Now I realise how wrong I was. There is still great help being provided behind the scenes but problems, fixes and the future all need to be acknowledged and discussed. The urn availability of the site has little effect on the performance of the hardware but has become symbolic of the problems with the product line. - Excellent post ahpsi, sentiments I agree with entirely. Whether NETGEAR will ever see your post, let alone act upon it, is debatable. But fair play for writing it.
:) - agree with you all, but lucky enough, we, the user, who pay their salary and dev. costs (<-- can i say more clearly Netgear) can move away from netgear, and go some other brand, like zyxel or d-link
- I too over the last 6 months have lost faith. I have heard rumblings of new software or future hardware releases, but nothing official or concrete. It would appear Netgear saw little ROI on supporting enthusiasts and new converts and has slowly turned into an iomega.
My 6Pro works fine and is very stable, but I long for new features, new OS, and the rich support and discussions we had here when I purchased my NAS Feb 2012. My office just bought a NAS, and I couldn't recommend NG, we went with QNAP.
If NG is reading please right the ship. I posted about this a ways back, but a bit of outreach with notes on future features and hints at new hardware would go a long way to improving morale. Just look at product leak buzz on an engadget/verge enthusiast site, people eat that stuff up. And saying it will gut sales or let competitors steal your ideas...
1. Sales of 3 year old tech are probably abysmal
2. Don't share super cool features, but toss us some bones - Sadly; I must admit that it feels as though the ReadyNAS product offering is slowly disintegrating. I have an NV+ / ReadyNAS NVX / ReadyNAS Pro. But when looking to purchase some new NAS hardware for work and home, I've unfortunately been disapointed over the development of the ReadyNAS product, when comparing it to the competition. Of particular concern is the lack of response from ReadyNAS themselves on this very valid comment.......
- I would echo this sentiment. Since buying two NV+s about 5 years ago I have been a staunch enthusiast. One Pro6 and one Ultra6 joined the family a few months ago, but I must admit that my further needs may not be served by a ReadyNAS.
Odd as it may sound, Gigabit ethernet (even with Link Aggregation) is not quite enough for me any more.
Products like the Drobo5D are able to capitalise on the massive bandwidth availabe on USB3 and Thunderbolt interfaces.
In short: I get the impression the ReadyNAS line is getting technically dated.
Now, I appreciate the Drobo is not EXACTLY the same as a ReadyNAS... but my point still stands.
I desperately want to see something new and exciting on this line. Really. :) - a.carneiro the ReadyNAS is a Network Attached Storage device. It's not a DAS. Having said that I could see the usefulness of USB3 and Thunderbolt for connecting external devices to backup a NAS or in the case of Thunderbolt connecting say an expansion chassis.
The 2-bay x86 devices have a USB3 port on the front and the Duo/NV+ v2 have two USB3 ports on the rear. The current 4-bay and 6-bay devices were developed before the current 2-bay devices. I think I said this months (maybe even a year or two) ago, but I'll say it again: I'd be very surprised if any future desktop ReadyNAS models don't have at least one USB3 port.
For rackmount models I'd perhaps see less value in USB3 as they're not as likely to be backed up to a USB device. They'd be better off adding stuff like a 10GbE option to those (in addition to the 4200 and the ReadyDATA 5200 which have 10GbE as an option/by default currently). - Well, let's see whether anyone at NetGear has guts enough to reply (I doubt so).
- Too sad. I was holding money to upgrade my old readynas to the next iteration from the ultra + line. It's been 2 plus years since that line has been out. I cant wait anymore. I think I'm going to go with a Mac mini (use it as a server) and attach a pegasus R6 or Synology to it.
- I only jumped into the NAS/ReadyNAS world as recently as this year. I couldn't decide between the choice of vendors but eventually Netgear seemed like the way to go. I also got an awesome deal on a diskless Pro 6.
However, over this past year of tinkering with it, following its development and spending time in the forums, the words of ahpsi ring very true. I too wonder what direction this product is going in and worry it could be killed off.
I'm kind of kicking myself in the pants for not looking more into QNAP or Synology. I work with a couple guys who have Synologys at home and don't stop talking about them. Both vendors I believe already overcame volume size limitations and when I search for mobile apps (I'm an Android user) for these two vendors, there are MULTIPLE types of apps from each. When I search for ReadyNAS on the Google Play store there is just an independently created piece of garbage. ReadyNAS Remote does exist but there is seemingly no development on it as it's not compatible with my tablet.
Anyway, I guess my point is the image I get from QNAP and Synology is that they have a very active development team that creates new features, OS upgrades, mobile apps and is more proactive about testing hardware to add to their HCL. In my short time working with the ReadyNAS it really does feel like it's dying, which is so sad. The amount of storage people are going to need in the future is only going to increase and I believe there will always be a market for and need for NAS products. I can't understand why Netgear wouldn't step up their game.
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