Is it possible to use 102 as a caddy + ether and Usb?

Any storage device that uses ethernet will have an operating system. In any event, the 102 has one, and cannot be used without it.

Of course you don't need to use the webui if you don't want to. And if you don't need to activate readycloud.

Things who can do more can also do less most of the time. In this case once you shared are configured, you don't have to go to the interface. You also could configure everything from SSH if you want to. That said, I don't think the NAS will go any faster if you disable those services (honestly apache web server isn't that ressource hungry, although some people seem to think so and use lighthttpd or nginx instead). I don't think you can use the NAS as an external USB disk, you will have to use network to access it, USB is for backups so I don't see how you could do any simpler than what the NAS is already doing.
You can't disable the operating system, without it, the NAS isn't worth more than a paperweight. It's the OS that handles network, hard drive detection and sharing (amongst other things). You can shut down things from the web interface but it won't really affect overall performance I think, nor ease of use. So I don't get the idea. Can you develop your thoughts ?

Hi both and thank you for replying. I understand why you are asking, it is a strange requirement!

I just don't get on with the interface, the configuration of the shares, and the security and the terminology and the speed of it.. gah!

I think part of the reason is because I'm a 'windows' man and have been for as long as I can remember. Nothing against any other O/S, I'm just used to doing things Microsoft way. I also don't like that it if a take a disk out, it is a mission and a half to read it in another windows machine.

So i just wanted to make it an external drive caddy. I was hoping that the o/s could be disabled and that there would be some kind of on-chip drivers for the ethernet, but for usb i would need USB host port...

I sooo don't get along with it. I wish it didn't try to cover some many different scenarios and tricks. For me, If there was a version dedicated to windows networks, that looked like a windows application, that would be ideal. But I realise there would be licensing issues and therefore expense! (I don't even think you can buy windows home server operating system anymore can you? )

So i just wanted to make it a dumb external drive.

For the future I'll use an old pc for a NAS. It's not as power friendly, but it is more user friendly for me. With terminology that I recognise and probably faster.

Thank you guys again for replying. If you do think of a way of turning it into a caddy only, do let me know as i like the case and the drive trays and the look of it in that respect.

Rob

I don't know for home server, I'm more used to fully fledged version of windows server (Since I have free licenses with MSDNAA I usually go with datacenter edition ;) )
Actually I think you can make disks work with windows but it will require more manipulations than for reading it. (you would have to format disks, recreate share and users manually via SSH). We can strip the OS down to a bare minimum but doing so will also require more work and is way more complex than using the OS as it is.

Microsoft way of doing things is actually nearly the same as other OS. Microsoft way of creating software is more questionable though (I hate registry stuff, RAM Hungry stuff...). The vocabulary used is the same across OS, a user remains a user, a share = a share, a protocol = a protocol... Only the way they are handled changes, but since the interface takes care of it for you...

That said there is actually a way to manage the NAS from windows. Set the NAS as an iSCSI target, connect it on your computer, it should be recognised as a normal hard drive (you might even have to format it from the drive manager). I don't know if windows has iSCSI integrated though, I believe so since Hyper-V should have it to be somewhat usable in enterprise environnement.

robbie73-

I agree that the ReadyNAS isn't all that simple. Probably its competitors would create the same issues for you. I don't think the issue is really licensing though. It's because there is a relatively small market for these servers, and there are significant groups of customers that need each of the scenarios. If the market were bigger, there probably would be more segmentation (software for small businesses, etc). But the trend is actually moving in the other direction - OS6 runs on both the home and business ReadyNAS with the same feature set.

Once it is set up, it can/does look like a normal network drive to the PC. But it will take a bit of effort and learning to set it up the way you want.

Anyway, there is no way to turn it into a caddy. There are some USB drive arrays that are basically RAID caddies, but they don't support ethernet.

Sounds like in an idea world he would like to drop some version of Windows Server on it. Or even XP at a push. I doubt this has been dabbled with though as it seem a waste of time and effort, maybe even impossible.

I've just dropped XP on to my wife's old netbook (Win7starter originally) to revive it and save her wasting money on a new tablet device. I hoped she'd use and like Linux Mint 16 Petra - MATE-32bit but she just wouldn't persevere.

I'm thinking that a windows server might not be that much easier anyway. User accounts, file permissions, sharing permissions show up there too.

StephenB wrote:
I'm thinking that a windows server might not be that much easier anyway. User accounts, file permissions, sharing permissions show up there too.

Possibly right, I was going with the idea that a familiar UI might help but you are right.

I dislike windows for "normal people".
Windows is more secure than OS X and many Linux distributions (but since it's more attacked...) and adapted for gamers. Enterprises will find that Microsoft provides great tools for management (Exchange, Sharepoint, WSUS, AD...). That said, Linux is king for personalisation, portability and performance and is now quite simple to use. OS X is the simplest to use and Open BSD is the most secure OS I know of.
There is no fully fledged version of windows running on ARM. You get a slimmed down version with Modern UI only, pointless when you can't even plug a screen or a keyboard on a RN102.
For netbooks I don't see the point of having a Windows, I like windows 8.1 for tablets but netbooks have no touch screen and with XP support stopped, that's not a safe bet. I would have put a linux with LXDE, XFCE or enlightenment instead.

The only escape I see from Netgear's interface is to use iSCSI or to install something to replace it, webmin ? As I pointed out, vocabulary is the same across interfaces, being windows or not. With iSCSI sharing is not a necessity though, you can use it as local storage. That said, I'm using iSCSI for ESX, not for Windows so I don't know how to configure it for windows.