Comparison of ReadyNAS to other brands...

[PredatorVI]

I bought my ReadyNAS NV+ when it was Infrant and I now need both speed and capacity upgrade, but I want it to continue to be as reliable. As I always do, I like to look at the state of the art before purchasing but have loved my NV+.

However, I find that the big review sites such as Toms Hardware and CNET have little or no real information on speed or other benchmark data related to anything ReadyNAS related (see http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/netw ... ,1907.html).

I find this very frustrating!! Why doesn't NetGear throw their hat into the ring with these sites? Are they masking something?

QNAP, Synology and Thecus seem to be on top of most benchmark tests, but I don't know about reliability and longevity or usability. I want to make sure my next NAS will continue working like my NV+ has for the next 6+ years and prefer real data in lieu of "gut feel".

Many of the reviews I do find are NV+ or Duo and not much with the Ultra 6 Plus or even the bigger rack-mount devices.

Anyone know of current information/benchmarks/comparisons in both benchmarks as well as reliability and usability with the larger ReadyNAS products?

[Marto731]

To Predator,
Can I ask what product range you are primarily interested in, and TeraB size.

Re speed, there are so many variables, like port speed, teaming, and write
speed of the mating disks used.

I cannot dig up data on the competition, but I can make enquiries about ReadyNAS.

Regards Marto

[PredatorVI]

Marto,

Thanks for the response.

I have a Dell PowerConnect 2748 48 port web managed switch that I can use to team the NIC's and supports Jumbo Frames and VLAN's/segmenting. It also has the expansion ports to allow 10Gbe or fiber uplinks but I don't have any modules for those yet as none of my devices support 10Gbe yet.

I am storing my DVD and BluRay collection, Music, my home movies/photos. My wife is doing photography with her Canon EOS T4i (RAW files are fairly large) and lots of scrapbooking with Photoshop and making slideshow movies/DVD's for friends special occasions. I also need more space to store backups for the 6 computers at home although my NV+ could probably be used for that.

I want to be able to support streaming 4 or 5 concurrent HD streams directly (Boxee, NetGear EVA8000, XBMC) via SageTV or PLEX server.

I'm also a software developer and running a source repository (git or svn) is also something I do.

The obvious things I'm trying to compare include:

• warranty


• expansion bays


• cost


• performance

Netgear wins hands down on the warranty. But expansion is a solid win on the Synology side. In terms of cost, it is a toss-up with Synology slightly favored due to the 8 disk version being close in price to the 6 disk ReadyNAS.

For the desktop NAS units, the real tie breaker may be performance, but I can't find a lot about ReadyNAS in this regard. Most semi-current reviews are of the Duo or Ultra 4.

Additionally I do have a server cabinet at home and would really like a rack-mount unit, but the costs are crazy high compared to the desktop versions (is there really that much more hardware cost in them?) From an expansion perspective, the ReadyNAS 3200 would win me over if I could afford it (solve the expansion conundrum) but a diskless version doesn't seem to be available.

Not sure if that helps but performance benchmarks with a baseline config streaming, writing large files (DVD/BluRay) would be good.

Most of the review sites (CNET, TomsHardware, SmallNetBuilder) seem to be fairly consistent in how they control benchmarking and also outlining the differences in config/setup/disk layout so I don't know why NetGear isn't giving demo units out more for evaluation.

Anyway, thanks for any info you can provide.

[TeknoJnky]

fyi, if you come across a good deal on the 3200 (or 4200v1) keep in mind;

ReadyNAS 3200 and 4200 are limited to 2TB on channels 5-12. Channels 1-4 supports 3TB+ drives with RAIDiator 4.2.16+.

only the first 4 channels support 3tb+.

[PredatorVI]

Good to know...I hadn't seen that info.

[mdgm-ntgr]

Also worth noting on many of the rackmount units the fans run at full speed all the time. They are intended to be placed in a server room not anywhere near to where you intend to spend much time

[convergent]

PredatorVI wrote:

I bought my ReadyNAS NV+ when it was Infrant and I now need both speed and capacity upgrade, but I want it to continue to be as reliable. As I always do, I like to look at the state of the art before purchasing but have loved my NV+. However, I find that the big review sites such as Toms Hardware and CNET have little or no real information on speed or other benchmark data related to anything ReadyNAS related (see http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/netw ... ,1907.html). I find this very frustrating!! Why doesn't NetGear throw their hat into the ring with these sites? Are they masking something? QNAP, Synology and Thecus seem to be on top of most benchmark tests, but I don't know about reliability and longevity or usability. I want to make sure my next NAS will continue working like my NV+ has for the next 6+ years and prefer real data in lieu of "gut feel". Many of the reviews I do find are NV+ or Duo and not much with the Ultra 6 Plus or even the bigger rack-mount devices. Anyone know of current information/benchmarks/comparisons in both benchmarks as well as reliability and usability with the larger ReadyNAS products?

Check out the reviews and comparison tables at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/view . They also have a very active forum for comparative NAS discussion.