I'm not sure if this will benefit anyone, or be taken on board but I'd like to give my feedback on about a years worth of usage with a ReadyNAS device.
Storage/File Sharing (On the LAN) To set the scene a bit, this was my first NAS device that I've purchased and used. The original intention was as a secure, home LAN based central storage device which I could use to store and backup all our devices too. For this purpose, the device has served it's purpose well. File transfers, backups etc. while on the home LAN were decent and my initial impressions were good.
Remote Access and Internet Sharing While it seems this is improving a little with ReadyCloud, it still seems very clunky. The client itself either doesn't conenct properly, or keeps logging out. I've never maanged to get it working consistently. Also, it's reliant on having the client installed. Secondly, I have to create seperate users accounts to connect from the internet? I don't understand why it can't hook in to existing internal users which I've already defined my groups and access permissions around. I didn't even bother going any further as I don't want to manage extra permissions.
What I'd really like is the ability to log in to a web interface with any user account I create and show the shares I have access to. As it stands, I can forward a HTTPS connection through my firewall, but it still only lets me access the Admin interface with the Admin user. As a cloud device, it really doesn't stand up well in my opinion.
Apps/Ecosystem As time went on, I started to look more into the apps and the whole ecosystem around the ReadyNAS. I started to try and migrate things like download clients, VPN, DNS etc. over to the NAS rather than on existing devices. While I was able to setup and run some of these, it was generally anything but a simple experience often involving SSH and manual updates (Which luckily I am generally confident doing). Apps in the ReadyNAS store were often very outdated, or broke the whole ReadyNAS interface. Some didn't work as expected, some not at all. While I understand that these are third party apps, I was still under the impression they were tested and approved by Netgear first?
Even some of Netgears own apps seemed a little sub-par. The photos app really appealed to me as a way to share my photography without relying on an online service, yet I never managed to get it working and from what I could see it seems to have been abandoned. (I noticed a thread saying a new version is now coming, but it's a little late for me unfortunatly)
Stability In general, I've not experienced a lot of problems, however the last few patches seem to have got worse in this respect. The most recent being uninstalling apps causing the web interface to crash. While I appreciated these things happen, that really seems like something that should have been spotted before release. Again, from a purely internal storage side, the stability is good. Throw in apps, and it gets worse.
Anyway, that's some of my thoughts. I've decided to call it a day with the ReadyNAS, and look to a competitor who seems to offer a lot more features and solves all the issues above. It's a shame as this was a great introduction to a NAS device for me, but unfortunatly it can no longer offer the features I wish for.
Hopefully as it develops further, Netgear can start to close the gap and bring a lot more of the features and ease of use to the OS. I wish you all the best and hope that this may provide some positive feedback!
Oh yeah, I understand a fix for the release version is coming, but it's a pretty major bug that shouldn't have even got to release in my opinion. I also feel that there should have been more urgency on patching something like that outside of a standard release schedule. Waiting nearly 2 months for a fix is a long time.
Either way, it's just another thing that makes me feel that ReadyNas is not as polished as other solutions, and there isn't anything that really excites me for it's future.
For the record, I'm not trying to bad mouth ReadyNas as it's a good unit for certain uses or scenarios and it's served me well for pure storage. But after looking at other solutions, I've realised there is much better out there for my needs. Just thought the feedback might be useful for the ReadyNas team.
