I have an old ReadyNAS that has served me very well. I'd have to look at it, it might even have the name Infrant on it! Power supply died once and I replaced it and it's run perfect otherwise. Anyhow, I'm interested in new unit that will serve as:
- Media Server (Plex or similar) - CCTV - File Storage
Transcoding and scrubbing is important to me in case that matters. CCTV could go on its own dedicated NAS if necessary, but first I want to start with one unit.
I'm not expecting any pro-Synology arguments here, I'm mainly asking if there are any strong advantages ReadyNAS has considering my goals listed above.
I may be missing something but when I looked at Synology it appeared as though I could get large 12-bay units for pretty reasonable prices, I didn't see any comparably priced 12-bay units from ReadyNAS. Not sure how they compare on the processor performance front though.
BTW, whoever does ReadyNAS website should be shot. Must be costing the company millions. For God's sake, make it easy to compare all units at a glance. Same could be said for Synology. These companies are designing state of the art RAID units and have websites that belong in the last century.
Media server comparison is about the same. Both support PLEX and a large host of additional add-on media servers. You can use ReadyDLNA for both local and remote needs using the ReadyCLOUD mobile app. But if you use PLEX you can do this as well.
Surveillance: ReadyNAS Surveillance has a much more feature rich solution. emaps, post processing video enhancements (visibility, sharpness, brightness, contrast, and grey scale) , advanced alerts like camera disconnected, intelligent search (general motion, foreign object, missing object, loss focus, and camera occlusion).
File Server: ReadyNAS is able to take automatic block level snapshots of your data so you can go back to previous versions of files or even virtual machine images. You can enable a no-fee real-time antivirus solution to protect your data if you are moving content from the internet directly on to the NAS.
The largest ReadyNAS desktop unit is 6-bays. You can add expansion chassis to that if you need additional capacity.
If you haven't seen the new ReadyNAS OS 6 interface, I suggest going to www.netgear.com/rnsandbox You can play with the interface and features. Look at the add-on apps available. Even install them.
I got the rnsandbox running and installed the Surveillance app. But looks like you can't get to the Surveillance app. The setup probably has the ports blocked. So I don't think you can play with the GUI using the sandbox emulator.
