Community centre
All of these configuration choices are gracefully handled by the RAIDar software that’s available in Windows, Mac and Linux flavours. RAIDar locates and helps you configure any ReadyNas device on your network. Although the setup itself is relatively easy, I had to leave it overnight to complete a full restore to factory defaults and configure a new X-RAID2 array.
Backup location
Once you’re up and running the FrontView web interface takes over for the rest of your ReadyNas journey. This latest version is considerably smarter in appearance than that featured on earlier SPARC and x86 models. It’s also considerably faster, with the ARM chip proving very snappy and responsive and it's a quiet box too, thankfully. Browse around FrontView and you’ll find all the usual compliment of Nas features such as user configuration, filesharing, DLNA media streaming, personal web hosting and more.
Backup schedule
Previous models have notched up quite an extensive library of third party software add-ons courtesy of the ReadyNas developer community. What’s on offer has taken somewhat humble hardware to levels of functionality Netgear likely never imagined. I was looking forward to all of this and more with the Duo v2, only to be disappointed that the introduction of the new ARM CPU has rendered nearly all of these software add-ons incompatible.
Instant backup options
Click for a larger image
At time of writing there were just a handful of ARM-compatible add-ons: ReadyNas Photos II, ReadyNas Remote and Transmission (the popular BitTorrent client) as well as PHPMyAdmin (browser-based SQL manager) and Sabnzbd a binary newsreader.
Next page: Remote control
COMMENTS
Or....
If you're in the market for this sort of thing AND you know your way around Linux, you could consider an HP MicroServer N40L. Currently £140 from Dabs after a £100 cashback. Much faster CPU, more RAM + 250GB drive and allows for 4 drives.
http://www.dabs.com/products/hp-proliant-microserver-g7-n40l-nhp-eu-svr-7RMD.html
A reasonable amount bigger than this and obviously doesn't come with the ReadyNAS software (which for some people is a bonus), so I understand that that it isn't a direct alternative .
Just puttin' it out there :-)
Why not give your backup one to an IT-savvy friend? Then you'll have off-site backup and will be protected against fire....
not yet fully baked
No NFS at this date. Nor FTP nor Squeezecenter compatibility nor user's quota nor HTTPS... it is seriously lacking most of the stuff that used to be in the previous ReadyNAS DUO (v1 with SPARC architecture).
Looks nice, but do these boxes have a built-in NFS server ?
What a great idea
Got one of those sitting idle in the cupboard right now that I'll try that on. The Stora standard software is utterly appalling.
