I have three ReadyNAS models, and have absolutely only great things to say about them. They have been rock-solid performers, reliable, and Infrant/NETGEAR has provided top-tier support when rarely (fortunately) required.
Not so with this RN104.
It has been crap out of the box. Slow, klunky, noisy, ornery and just a downright time-sucking annoyance and nuisance. So much buyer's remorse.
One would think purchasing a new model unit would mean even a modicum of better performance. Anything but.
The most irritating of the many issues (external power block [I kinda get the rationale for that], app install problems, share settings) is the USB implementation. It's absolutely horrific. A Seagate GoFlex USB3 drive attached to either a 3 or 2 USB port (tried both) is excruciatingly slow to enumerate large folders, whereas when the same drive was connected to an Ultra 4 Plus there were zero issues. And now I learn I cannot name the USB drive because naming a USB drive is not supported on the 104 and this OS 6.2.0 (the interface, incidentally, I do like).
What a joke. Are you kidding? You release a product that is crippled by that kind of ridiculous limitation, and expect it to be taken seriously? That defies any logic. On some level I feel like I am beta, even alpha, testing this product. I am rather offended at paying money for a computing device that can't even do something as basic as name a drive, regardless of how it's connected, especially when that functionality has been a part of the older ReadyNAS units in my storage fleet.
And now, Windows 8.1 cannot access the USB drive despite proper authentication credentials and NAS share properties (the Mac has no problems; just super, painfully slow).
It's not at all what I expected as a repeat ReadyNAS, satisfied, user. It's my stupid fault I erroneously assumed and attached a good ReadyNAS experience to a current ReadyNAS product. Bad, bad, bad move.
I wanted to share this experience, as clearly something not-so-great is afoot at NETGEAR for them to release this miscreant machine, definitely not worthy of the ReadyNAS label.
The only thing this RN104 NAS is ready for is the junk heap.
