RND2000 Duo v2

[Johnbu]

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying a RND2000 Duo v2.

But before I do, I need to confirm it will do my simple requirements.

The PCs in workgroup/network are all running WinXP.

Will it be able to:

Connect to the existing WinXP network?
Each WinXP PC to map a particular folder in the NAS as a drive, i.e. Z: ?
I will use Raid 1 for redundancy. Is software provided to automatically backup certain/folders to an external USB3 Drive attached to the NAS?

I'm certain it will, but wish to confirm before I order one. Sorry if they are basic questions, I've never used a NAS before.

[mdgm-ntgr]

Johnbu wrote:
Connect to the existing WinXP network? Each WinXP PC to map a particular folder in the NAS as a drive, i.e. Z: ?

Yes.

Johnbu wrote:
I will use Raid 1 for redundancy.

Personally I would stick with the default X-RAID2 which is effectively RAID-1 but expandable.

Johnbu wrote:
Is software provided to automatically backup certain/folders to an external USB3 Drive attached to the NAS?

Glad you're planning to backup your important data. Yes you can configure backup jobs using the Dashboard (web admin interface of the NAS) to automatically run on a schedule.

[Johnbu]

Perfect!

Thanks mdgm

I had to google X-RAID2 to see what it is.. looks good, but for my purposes I won't need to expand.

Currently, we only need to put less than 10gigs of data to be shared/backed up.

[mdgm-ntgr]

Still may as well as use X-RAID2.

10 gig isn't much, but once you have the storage you may be surprised at how fast the amount of data you have grows.

[Johnbu]

As you say it's easier just to run the default x-raid2.

It's just for shared documents, so the data will only growth at less 1GB per year...so in 5 years time, I'll be very surprised if the data exceeded 20GB.

Now question, I'm still not certain about the long term reliability of SSDs vs the traditional HDD ... would it be possible to run say one 40G Intel SSD and a WD Green HDD in x-raid2? Diversification of risk, I suppose.

[Johnbu]

Also,

How would you know if one of the SSD/HDDs failed in your X-RAID2 array?

[mdgm-ntgr]

The ReadyNAS does not support SSDs at this time. Please use disks from the http://www.readynas.com/hard_disk_hcl

The NAS alerts you if a disk fails. Be sure to setup and test email alerts.

[Johnbu]

Thanks you very much mdgm...

I didn't realise they were so picky on the drives.

I guess it's the newer WD Green drives it is then.

Actually, has I don't want to get bad batch of the same drives, would it be possible to run 2 different drives, i.e. one WD one seagate in x-raid2?

[mdgm-ntgr]

Johnbu wrote:
Actually, has I don't want to get bad batch of the same drives, would it be possible to run 2 different drives, i.e. one WD one seagate in x-raid2?

Yes.