ReadyNAS or Synology for me?

My advice (but I've already drank the Kool-Aid --- I own or manage 7 different ReadyNAS devices between home and work) would be to buy the ReadyNAS Ultra, as the Duo is likely going to be phased out in favour of the Ultra. Here's a quote I posted for someone else a while ago regarding the differences:

dbott67 wrote:

Just a bit more information for you. ...although the Duo/NV+ is a great little unit (I bought one back in 2007), however, it is getting a little long in the tooth. The ReadyNAS developers have recently released an upgrade to the home-user market called the ReadyNAS Ultra in 2, 4 and 6-bay units. These units have a faster CPU and are more suitable for transcoding and media streaming functions going forward. The Duo & NV+ are quite capable at doing what it they were originally designed for (storing/sharing data and streaming media), but it's low-powered CPU is not suitable for doing some of the things that many folks who are into media are looking to do. All ReadyNAS products are based on Debian linux, however, support for the CPU included in the Duo & NV+ (it's a sparc-based CPU, as opposed to Intel Atom x86-based CPU in the newer Ultra series) has been removed in current generations of Debian development. This essentially is going to limit updates to the firmware. Development on the x86 line is much more active, and new features are being added regularly, both by the developers and the community-at-large. So, if it's in your budget, you may want to take a look at the Ultra line-up to offer the best performance and feature set over the lifetime of your purchase. Feel free to ask more questions or let us know some of the things you're looking to use your NAS for and we can help pick the most-suitable model for your needs.

The Ultra also has a faster CPU (1.5 GHz Intel Atom) than both the Synology (1.2 GHz ARM) and the Duo (280 MHz Sparc). See here for unofficial ReadyNAS CPU specs: http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=499

Benefits of the Ultra:
- faster CPU
- faster throughput (0ver 100 MB/s reads on the Ultra: http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=3962#Performance)
- more RAM (1 GB vs. 128 MB on the Synology & 256 MB on the Duo)
- longer warranty (3 yrs on ReadyNAS; 2 yrs on Synology)
- great online community forums (devs are active here and community-at-large is quite helpful)

You can compare the various ReadyNAS devices here: http://www.readynas.com/wp-content/uplo ... n_Home.pdf

On all of my units I use X-RAID for 2 reasons:

1. Protected volume. In the event of a single disk failure, I can easily recover by replacing the disk. Trust me on this - I've had lots: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=25794&p=269565#p298959

dbott67 wrote:

Another Seagate 500 GB drive is starting to go. For those keeping score at home, this is now 5 drive failures across 6 different ReadyNAS devices (3 on the Pro and 2 on the NVX). I have not had any disk failures on the NV+ nor on the 3 ReadyNAS 2100s at work. I have had a couple of other hardware issues (a failed chassis fan on the NVX and a burned out PSU on the NV+) that were all covered under warranty, not too mention a couple of remote assistance sessions by the Jedi's to help with some firmware issues (the price we sometimes have to pay when testing beta firmware or, in one case, not updating to the latest version 8) ).

2. Easy volume expansion. I have run out of space on both my Pro, NVX and my dad's NV+ and have expanded them both horizontally (by adding more drives) and vertically (by replacing smaller drives with larger ones). Process works exactly as advertised. Piece.of.cake. 8) If you use RAID 0, you run the risk of running out of space and not being able to upgrade without the proverbial "backup data, add new disk, create new larger volume & restore data" problem. X-RAID is your friend.

Have a drink! You'll love it!