I finally got my (used, from eBay) ReadyNAS NV! I've had the original ReadyNAS 600 for several years and loved it so I thought I'd give it's little brother a go this time.
Basically these are small Linux-based (Debian) computers which accept up to four hard drives. They connect to the network via Ethernet or (if you add it) wireless and are managed through a (excellent) web-based interface. These boxes were originally produced by Infrant which has now been purchased by Netgear. The newest version of the firmware OS (called RAIDiator), 4.01, is (surprisingly) universal to all ReadyNAS boxes so that even the oldest boxes have (with some minor performance or hardware differences) the same capabilities as the newest ones. The new firmware supports up to one terabyte SATA hard disks and multiple levels of RAID (0,1,5). The boxes also support a custom "X-RAID" configuration which supports dynamic expansion of volumes (you can upgrade from smaller to larger disks without losing data). The differences in my two units are stark. The original unit is small as computers go: about nine inches across by eight inches high. The ReadyNAS NV is the same height but only 5 inches across... it looks positively miniscule next to its older brother. The original ReadyNAS 600 required powering down and case disassembly to install or replace disks. The ReadyNAS NV has a spring loaded door in front and allows for true hot-swapping of disks. They both feature multiple USB ports (they can access USB hard disks as additional storage, work as print servers for USB printers or take advantage of USB WiFi dongles). Upgrading memory still requires disassembly for both units, but how often do you do that? I've upgraded both of mine to one Gig of RAM (the maximum) using standard DDR SODIMMs. The default RAM, 256 Meg is perfectly usable - I only upgraded since I was tearing everything apart anyway. RAM has become so damn cheap. My only frustration was that I had purchased the unit used (and diskless) and bought the drives separately. Unfortunately the previous owner had never upgraded the firmware for the unit so it didn't recognize the Terabyte drives I had purchased. Accessing the OS requires that a drive is installed (if I had a spare, smaller SATA drive my troubles would have ended) so I was left with the "last ditch" recourse of forcing the upgrade down the units throat. This entailed connecting directly to the unit via Ethernet, chaning my PC's network configuration, running a TFTP server and cajoling (but holding the "reset" button down for 20 seconds) the ReadyNAS to seek new firmware. This is the process used to repair a corrupted firmware, but it worked in my case. Long story short: if you buy one, make sure it's _already_ upgraded to 4.01 if plan on using very large disks. My original box has four 400 Gig drives for a total of 1092 GB available under X-RAID. The new box, with four terabyte drives, provides 2776 GB under X-RAID. Of course RAID makes the storage redundant and fail-safe: any disk can fail and be replaced with no loss of data (indeed, with no loss of service since the boxes will rebuild the array in the background while still servicing requests). The units can be configured to be as cautious or reckless as you wish... by default they're very cautious. ;^) They can shut themselves down if the temperature gets too warm or if they determine a drive (especially a second drive) may be failing. They can, using one of the USB ports, monitor a UPS allowing them to shut down gracefully in the case of power failure. They inform you of all of this by automatically sending emails to any specified address. The storage configuration is deep and I've never scratched the surface of it. You can (I never have) configure multiple shares with multiple security levels (you can use local, group or domain security models) and configurable quotas for storage. The units support wake-on-lan, drive sleep schedules and other power/heat saving options. They can also define and schedule backups from many sources (local network shares, websites, FTP sites, USB devices, etc). I've got one of them automatically backing up my production web server (using FTP) every second night. Very cool. One of the most useful features of the units is the wide support for streaming services and file protocols. Out of the box the units support CIFS, NFS, AFP (yes, these boxes are very Apple friendly), FTP, HTTP, HTTPS (using self-signed certs) and Rsync. They support UPnP and Bonjour discovery services. They support SlimServer (used for the Squeezebox line of network music players), iTunes Streaming Server, UPnP AV/DLNA server (allowing Windows, XBox Media Extender, the PS3 and other supported players to stream from the NAS) and the IO-Data Home Media Server (used for the excellent "Avel Player" line of networked DVD players). Finally, as if that we're enough, the units support an open architecture for additional services. Two are provided standard: a BitTorrent Client (yes you can queue file downloads on the NAS directly without involving your main PC) and "ReadyNAS Photos" which provides (via an assocaited client application) basic photo manipulation and album construction. With it you can easily share photos over the internet with friends (the ReadyNas even sends out emails telling people about the pictures and providing viewing options). If you're willing to (possibly) forgo support you can even install add-ons that enable system root access with SSH. You can also enable APT for Debian package management (again, risking support) to install essentially anything you like. I'm still in the (LABORIOUS) process of transferring data from the old, smaller unit to the larger unit (transferring a terabyte of data over 10/100 Ethernet is painful to say the least) but both units are happy as clams. The new unit's size seems to have no effect on heat dissipation since both units are averaging (after over 24 hours of continuous copying) disk temps of about 43 degress Celsius. I've got them both set to turn off the hard disks after 10 minutes of inactivity so those temps will be much lower for average use. The new unit seems quieter than the older one, but that may simply be because the fan is mounted to the rear while the older unit had a front-mount fan. Since they're occupying the same shelf in the closet it doesn't really matter. I use the units primarily for media (video, audio and image) storage and streaming and love them. I (with the new box,at least) can store everything in a single place and it's accessible from every computer, video game console and connected doo-hicky in the house. (In fact using the PSP to remote control the PS3 lets me watch most of my video from any WiFi hotspot... very cool.) The primary limitation is the speed of your network. I can't recommend the ReadyNAS line enough. If you need reliable, highly configurable network storage in a small package I doubt you can do better. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:256548 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
