Pro 6 vs Ultra 6 Plus

[cguers]

I am a little confused and don't really know which model to choose.

What are the main differences between the Pro 6 and the Ultra 6 Plus? I see that the Pro can be integrated to Active Directory and has a 5 year warranty while the Ultra 6 Plus cannot be integrated to AD and has 3 years warranty, but are there other differences I should consider? I don't need integration with Active Directory.

I currently own an NV+ and have been VERY happy with it. I am looking at expanding to more disk space and interested in adding some of the new services, such as ORB. I mainly use my NAS to share a network drive between the different computers at home (mostly OS X, but some Win too).

Thanks for your help untangling this!

[mdgm-ntgr]

The CPU is the other main difference. See CPU Specs of the ReadyNAS

The Pro 6 CPU is faster than the CPU in the Ultra 6 Plus.

You can also have a read of the Comparison Charts. The Ultra 6 Plus lacks business features such as NIC Teaming.

Also note that as the NV+ is a Sparc ReadyNAS, you'll need to transfer your data e.g. across your network to your new x86 ReadyNAS.

[cguers]

Thanks for the quick reply! The CPU speed is definitely better, so I'll probably lean towards the Pro.

I find that the Comparison Charts are not very useful when comparing between the two lines of product. Maybe if I printed both on paper and compared feature by feature, but I have not done that.

I was planning on rsync-ing my NV+ and the Pro.

Thanks!

[mdgm-ntgr]

Note that whilst the Pro 6 e.g. RNDP6310-200 has a faster CPU than the Ultra 6 Plus, the Pro e.g. RNDP6000-100 does not.

Yes it is difficult to compare between the home and business lines with the separate comparison charts. Printing them out could be a good idea.

Good plan. I'd use NFS for the first backup, then switch backup job properties to use Rsync for the incrementals.

[jmirabil]

Anyone ever compared a Pro Business RNDP6000 w/ E2160 cpu to an Ultra 6 RNDU6000 w/ dualcore atom and using the same drives?
I'd love to know that comparison -- performance, power comparison, etc... Anyone done that in detail? THx..

[sgibbers17]

I am also looking to get a readyNAS for home use and was wondering if the extra processing power of the pro 6 make a big difference in normal use or is the extra power for rebuilding the array and increasing array size when upgrading? I assume that the bottleneck is the network speed during normal use and not the processor.

I see the the Pro 6 also supports Link Aggregation/Teaming does the ultra 6 or ultra 6+ also support Link Aggregation/Teaming? I can't find it referenced on Netgear's site. The Ultra 6 and 6+ also has 2 Ethernet ports, if Teaming is not supported why are there 2 Ethernet ports?

[StephenB]

sgibbers17 wrote:

I am also looking to get a readyNAS for home use and was wondering if the extra processing power of the pro 6 make a big difference in normal use or is the extra power for rebuilding the array and increasing array size when upgrading? I assume that the bottleneck is the network speed during normal use and not the processor. I see the the Pro 6 also supports Link Aggregation/Teaming does the ultra 6 or ultra 6+ also support Link Aggregation/Teaming? I can't find it referenced on Netgear's site. The Ultra 6 and 6+ also has 2 Ethernet ports, if Teaming is not supported why are there 2 Ethernet ports?

I went with the pro 6, I don't have any ultras to directly compare it to.

Link aggregation is a business feature, not available in the Ultra. There might be some third party add-ons that give you some of the features. Though my advice is to go with the pro if you want that. In the ultra, you do get failover, and you can connect the 2 Ethernet ports to separate networks (at least I believe you can).

If you only want to use the NAS as a file server, then any of these systems would have enough CPU performance. If you want to do media transcoding, or use the NAS for other applications (for instance, as a web server), then the extra speed of the pro line would be an advantage.

BTW, the warranties are also different.

[sgibbers17]

Link Aggregation is not a make or brake feature but would be nice since I have a Netgear switch and multiple Intel NICs that supports Link Aggregation.

What are others getting for transfer speeds with/without Link Aggregation? If i believe that without Link Aggregation is too slow I may decide to get the pro since I do not plan on using this for anything other than file sharing over the network.

[B52hbuff]

Check out this discussion.
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=53729&start=30
...follow to the end. There is some great info from the board regulars about comparison.

I went with the Pro. If I want to save electricity, I can always choose to put the device on a power schedule and save $$ that way...

[sgibbers17]

What kind of transfer rates would I see with the Ultra 6 Plus?

[yoh-dah]

sgibbers17 wrote:
What kind of transfer rates would I see with the Ultra 6 Plus?

http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=3962#Performance

[B52hbuff]

yoh-dah wrote:
sgibbers17 wrote: What kind of transfer rates would I see with the Ultra 6 Plus? http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=3962#Performance

Interesting. I I compare with:
http://www.readynas.com/?p=711#Performance

...it looks like Ultra 6 Plus is just a little higher performer. Do I read that right?

[dbott67]

B52hbuff wrote:
...it looks like Ultra 6 Plus is just a little higher performer. Do I read that right?

Yes, however, those numbers are based upon a single client accessing the ReadyNAS. When used is a multi-computer environment, the Pro 6's ethernet teaming capabilities can deliver read performance of 240 MB/s and write performance of 140 MB/s.

From http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=363

A single PC might not be able to max out the Pro, however, if you have multiple gigabit clients simultaneously reading and writing to the Pro, it will be able to keep up. Using 802.3ad LAG, the ReadyNAS Pro has achieved 240 MB/s read speeds and 140 MB/s write speeds when being accessed with multiple Macs.

FWIW, that information came from one of the developers.