Netgear ReadyNAS Duo V2
When I reviewed the ReadyNAS Duo V2 back in January, I thought that this nas had the potential to go from good to excellent if the range of add-ons available to other ReadyNAS products were ARM compatible. Whilst this hasn't quite materialised yet, Netgear's Smart Network Apps are on the way which will bring add-ons to its latest ARM-based ReadyNAS devices.
Even if you buy it now, the Duo V2 gives you ReadyNAS Remote which is one of the most seamless remote file access systems available. There's also the little matter of performance where you'll find everything runs respectably around 60MB/s. Oh, and there is USB 3.0 on the back too. It is a touch expensive when populated though, so maybe best to buy your own disks.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £150 (no disks), £300 (1TB), £400 (2TB)
More info Netgear
QNAP TS-219P II
Instead of going for Intel chippery, QNAP has used a Marvell Kirkwood MV6282 CPU clocked all the way up to 2GHz to power its second-generation TS-219P. With that speedy processor you also get 512MB DDR 3 memory, three USB 2.0 ports and two eSata ports, making this the only nas here with three separate interface standards.
You also get some client-side software as well as all that hardware; QNAP includes its QGet app which allows you to remotely control HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent downloads over the web from any PC or Mac. NetBak Replicator is a Windows-only backup manager that's present too.
To top it all off, this box offers a pretty decent performance, with all sequential operations hovering in the 70MB/s region. It's boon for Mac users too, as it can read HFS+ volumes attached to its external interfaces which gives it an edge over most alternatives. This nas may be pricey but it does it all.
Reg Rating 85%
Price £295 (no disks)
More info QNAP
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COMMENTS
Re: These are just for the lazy and technical illiterates.
Always amazed that the technically literate still are not clever enough to realise that most folks out there are not technically literate hence why most IT projects fail and hardware purchases never realise their full value.
The Tech Literates never bother to give the less able what they actually need and just push the wrong solution.
I have seen many small businesses languishing in tech nightmare with a £3000 Windows 2008 server that some Tech guru said they needed (then cleared off when they got too small for him to bother with) when in fact a £400 NAS would have worked perfectly for their simple file sharing needs with a little redundancy.
Tech Literates? Muppets who like wasting other peoples money more like!
Know your customer and work with them. If they trust you you can raise them up from IT befuddlement. It just takes a little time.
I went down the DIY route
HP Microserver N36L, now the N40L. The N40L offers AMD Turion Neo II (1.5GHz), 4 drive bays, 6 USB ports, Gigabit ethernet, VGA out and 2 PCI-E slots. You get a 250GB HD and 2GB RAM included. Power consumption is under 45W. Certified for Windows and RHEL.
Ebuyer sell them for £230-240, and HP have been offering £100 cashback on them for months now. Stick something like Open Media Vault or other OS of choice on there. Far more flexible option if you're that way inclined.
A friend of mine did the same as me, using Open Media Vault, and he was complaining that it all just worked. He was expecting hours of tweaking and fiddling.
Less power use, less space taken up, less to fiddle with, so more time to spend doing something else.
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