Wow now that is a nice interface

sphardy wrote:
@StavMavs - In the context of this thread if, what made you change if I assume from your statement you no longer use Synology? Is there anything, particularly in terms of useability that you really miss?

Well, I just happened to be looking on ebay and I got a good deal on the NV+. My storage needs are growing, and I wanted something with 4 bays vs the 2 bay Synology 207+ I have. I just got my NV+ yesterday and really like it. It has a lot of nice features and seems like a very solid well built unit. I still have the Synology, until I get larger drives for the NV+, so I will be using both of them. Between the two, the thing that I will miss the most is that interface. Its extremely user friendly, and quite snappy....Frontview, not so snappy, and I tried it in multiple browsers (firefox, safari, and opera-I'm a mac guy). I like the fact that the interface takes advantage of the entire window, unlike Frontview which has a small window that you to scroll view. Another nice feature is that alot of stuff is built in to the firmware....you have "Download Station" for NZB and Bittorrent, and you also have "Filestation" for managinmg your files and moving between shares. Granted these types of things are available as addons, its nice and handy to have them built in as a starting point. Today I plan on looking at some of these addons to bring these functionalities to my NV+, and I am certain I will be pleased with them. If I had one thing to gripe about though, it would be the speed at which the interface moves-thats the biggy for me (would upgrading the ram help this?). Oh, and that loud fan on the NV+....that has got to go since I use this in a home theater environment.

Hopefully that all makes sense. I understand the products target different segments in some cases, but Synology does use the fancy interface on their business models as well as consumer/prosumer products. Again, I havent really gotten a complete feel for Frontview yet as I've only spent one day with it...these are just my initial observations.

Edit: Forgot why I really changed.....big thing for me was the XRAID feature of the Netgear, plus I got a really good feeling from browsing through the boards here. The community seems a bit stronger than Synologys.

XRAID is the bomb but synology also stepped up with Hybrid Raid features.

Just upgrade the interface to WEB 2.0 guys and we have the best product all toghether...

@StavMavs: Thanks for that - makes sense

Re the NV+ Interface: Unfortunately you will have to live with that - the low speed (but low power) sparc processor in the NV+ is to blame and increasing the RAM won't improve the UI experience. All newer ReadyNAS devices are based on x86 processors and though they run exactly the same UI, it is much, much faster. I certainly don't have any complaints about the speed on my Ultra-4

hoave to agree that frontview is kind of dull and could do with a facelift :lol:

They launched DSM 3.0 and its breathtaking!

Netgear has a long way to go to get such a mature and WEB 2.0 interface... :-(

If they would add 5 years of warranty........... shit... then I would move i think...

Also Smallnetbuilder.com thinks the interface is way to old...

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas- ... 4-reviewed

I recently found that Promise make a large range of quality NAS systems and by the looks of the GUI in their user manual it also looks way ahead of anything Netgear have done. I've been using ReadyNAs devices for years now and there has been zero work on the GUI from what I recall.

That wouldn't be such a big problem, but when you've got scroling windows within scrolling windows once you have long backup links/folders, yet have a whopping 22" monitor on your desk.. it's a bit naff - especially as the PRO devices we run aren't exactly cheap!

Rich

Does NETGEAR have anything to say about this... is it on the roadmap?

I think as Richy_Boy has stated here - the GUI is at the point where it is now limiting functionality that is expected. The lack of feedback from the backend NAS functions into the GUI especially is a significant weakness.

Not for the x86 platform...

jeremyotten wrote:
Not for the x86 platform...

Sorry - don't know what that means or refers to