Test 100 vs. 300 Series: Just order the 300!

I now have over 3 weeks with the various devices employed me and this compared. I had initially ordered a ReadyNAS 104 (average requirements). However, this was after 7 days back, since it is also the LCD was way too slow and in the end for me still defective. Now I have a ReadyNAS 312 (High Requirements) here, which works well. For this more in detail.

Operation (102, 104 and 312):

The installation of the panels is very simple and is without tools: The hard drive frame is pulled out. After pulling out of the ordinary hard drive rail out (safety lever again press and hold until the rail is pulled halfway out). The rail has 4 tabs, in the hard disk needs to be hung. After the rail is moved along with the now in the nose is overhung hard drive back into the frame. Now you can insert the frame into the NAS and finish.

More complicated, however, designed to commissioning if the hard drives are pre-formatted or have been used previously. Although the operating system of the NAS is in the flash memory, however, must be installed when commissioning to the hard drives. The process is automatic, works only if at least one of the inserted hard disk is completely empty. Compline is empty in the case: Not a single partition. Stupidly, nowadays even a whole new hard drives under mild when delivered a partition table with one partition and the device fails to respond. So I have taken the plates back out and using a PC and the GParted Live CD / Ultimate Boot CD a new partition table (type MS-DOS) is written to the hard drives. After the plates were then put back in the NAS, the installation process was error-free from about 10 minutes.

Note: you can use 2 hard drives all SATA, as long as they are completely empty. The "Compatibility List" by Netgear includes proposals for hard drives, which are particularly suitable.

The NAS now brings with DHCP from the network an IP address and displays it in the case of the ReadyNAS 104 on the LCD display. You can set up the NAS via either the Ready cloud side of Netgear, or by accessing via HTTPS (Web Browser) on the IP address. When ReadyNAS 104 can as I said this reading, the LCD display, in which 102 and 312 you have to get these from the router either, or install the program on CD Supplied RAIDar, which examined the NAS on the network.

To arrive at the admin page to select a language. Here, I first chose German, the NAS now running but in English, because the German translation is wrong. ("Volume" - So 'drive' is translated as "volume" and "Left" as 'Remain' is translated in progress reports with "links".)

Once registered, it is observed that the NAS has already made some unasked facilities independently. It specifies a RAID type X-RAID2 on all inserted hard drives. This is a proprietary RAID system from Netgear. This has at least 2 hard disks fault tolerance for exactly one disk (RAID1). In order to work reasonably safe so you need 2 hard drives, although the NAS also can work with only one (JBOD). Additional hard drives to expand then the capacity of the NAS.

In this one volume RAID (data) with the Btrfs filesystem is created. The latter is used as one on this simple snapshots (ie snapshots) can create that created the NAS automatically every 24 hours. So you have a history of files and folders available and can go back to an older state.

There are the 'data' Volume turn 4 shares ('Shares') (pictures, music, videos, documents and Ready Drop) on the network * any * via Samba (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) and AFP (Mac OS) and can be accessed via HTTP. Additional shares can naturally be applied. Likewise, you can set up users, and grant them access to a share or deny. Other volumes can also create, to however the XRAID2 must be resolved. The NAS then offers the possibility of individual disks to RAID0, 1, 5 and 6 to close together. External Hard Drives (3x USB, 1x eSATA) can indeed connect, but not integrated into the RAID.

But beware: The NAS that I got from Amazon, all firmware versions of 6.0.4 to 6.0.8 had installed. In the firmware 6.1.5 file system has been revised, so that it provides better performance. - According to the manual (which can be found only in the release notes for firmware 6.1.5) must be reset after installing the NAS to factory settings. This deletes all data and settings - and then you get a new, faster file system in the NAS. - So who buys the new part, should update to only the firmware, make a so-called "factory reset" and then proceed with the facility continues..

Features (104 + 312):

All NAS described here run with ReadyNAS OS 6, a Debian Linux derivative, Linux kernel version 3.x. I tested the 6.1.5 firmware.

All NAS offer an antivirus feature that is disabled from the factory. This also has its reasons. Activating this is hardly to use the ReadyNAS 104 as the 1.2GHz single-core processor is too weak. Copy operations to and from the NAS take more than 3 times as long. During data transfer, the CPU of the NAS is busy always 100%. The size 312 still runs due to the faster 2.1GHz dual-core processor with Hyper Threading somewhat, but noticeably slower. I'll be on average 30% lower transfer rates when size 312 if the AV function is on. Therefore, I have this off again. - Antivirus has meaningful way indeed on the PC.

The provision of data via Samba and AFP (ie for Windows and MacOS) runs correctly. The ReadyNAS 104 reached a maximum data rate of 20 MB / s in my tests. The ReadyNAS 312 reaches more than doubled: 65 MB / s. The provision of data via DLNA (photos, music, videos) and iTunes (music only) works for me without problems on all devices. On the 312, however, felt 4 times faster than on the 104er. However, I have only 2 DLNA devices (iPad, Windows 8.1 PC) tried.

The Time Machine backup is running a little shaky on both devices with me. The reason I do not know yet. The volume will be found from the Mac immediately and can be filled with data. However, sometimes it comes to crashes. During the next backup cycle it then runs again correctly. (Apparently it has something to do with the new Mac OS Mavericks, Netgear working on it.)

Via the web interface can be quite enjoyable manage the files and copy / move. I have for example. a USB flash drive to the 16GB photos it should connected to the front USB 2.0 port and the images directly to the web interface then copied it. Went smoothly and quickly than if the stick would have been connected to a PC.

The built-in backup makes me still the most serious problems. I want every day saving all data to an external USB 3.0 hard drive with FAT32 file system, so that in case of failure of the NAS I have this still accessible. In addition I have created a backup task that copies the volume 'data' on the external hard drive. This process also runs, but brings the 104er NAS regularly to hang himself. Here I hope this will be rectified in a next ReadyNAS OS version. Manually, you can easily copy the data viz. On the size 312 NAS backup process is running smoothly so far.

Mobile Apps / Cloud Services (104 + 312):

There are several free iOS and Android apps for this NAS. Unfortunately, you had the time of this review (11/01/2014) say that these are mature neither iOS nor Android. The Ready Cloud App on iOS met the basic requirements (access to files + Upload), can be under iOS currently use but only in portrait mode and crashes like after about 10 minutes. It is also at times very slowly. The Ready DLNA app is really a joke. You can watch a video or a music piece or an image. Then you have to select from the list necessarily the next file. This is unacceptable when listening to music or a slide show. Other DLNA apps work with the NAS as well, and then at a normal level. Here, then, the Netgear apps are too weak.

Addons (104 + 312):

The system has the ability to install addons. So you can MySQL, PHP, CMS, an online shop or a wiki, a download manager (Bittorrent, pyLoad, ...) additionally operate on the NAS. Here we must not forget, however, that especially the 104er NAS on a 1.2GHz ARM processor with 512MB of RAM is based - that is not a high-performance web server. On the size 312 NAS with 4 times as strong process location and 2GB of RAM, the addons are going well.

Since the NAS OS 6 is based on Debian you can also all Debian Download packages also by APT and install it on the NAS. For this but you should have some experience with Linux.

In addition, you can the so-called. Activate "Genius + Market Place", then you theoretically have access to a kind of App Store. - Unfortunately this does not work for me. - And if I understand correctly, the Netgear forums, this will soon be discontinued and replaced by the already integrated Addon Store. The application can give themselves so.

The NAS offers the free a few addons / features that are actually quite interesting, but unfortunately costs. As was called for a Ready Surveillance. This addon allows the NAS as a video monitoring system for max. To use IP 16 Kammeras. The licenses are not cheap at 70 / camera. There is also a "Replicate" function, with which you can synchronize 2 ReadyNAS via the Internet. (Rsync can the NAS even this but you can not use not when the ports are not released.) This license is for it also 60th

As an additional service NETGEAR offers a volume and time tariff "Ready VAULT", in which certain 'shares' may secure online. That is also when compared to other online services extremely expensive, you get 2 GB currently, however, free.

Conclusion:

The price of the Ready NAS 104 is extremely far below the other 4-bay NAS in the desktop segment. For this you get a NAS that provides the basic functions. The hardware can but definitely not a top performance to.

The ReadyNAS 312 has only 2 hard drive bays, provides for 50 euros more but also 4-times better Hardware: 512MB RAM at 102/104 to 2048MB RAM at 312; 1.2GHz processor (single-core, no HT) at 102/104 against a 2 core Atom processor with HT (ie 4 parallel computations) in size 312. - The better hardware brings the size 312 NAS to perform well in my tests.

I personally attach great importance to good performance and get clear with 4TB, so I'll keep the size 312. The 104er can provide 16TB storage ready, but is much slower. Are accessed via WLAN or 100 Mbit network with only 1-3 PCs to the 104er enough, otherwise you should pick up the size 312.

As for the software to recognize all devices, which the manufacturer has a lot of plans and still stuck pieces of software in development. Especially the additional apps for mobile devices currently disappoint.

When purchasing should also be clear that the Netgear NAS can not keep the only backup measure ago due to its proprietary RAID technology. When a hard disk, your data is still there. Fallen (in X-RAID2 mode) two hard disks at the same time from which data is already corrupt. If the NAS fails completely, the data is gone until you (ie a Netgear) have a compatible replacement. In an additional, external data backup, you should not do without therefore definitely.

Note: The data disks can be used only in the same series devices. So you can install the panels of a 102 into a 104 and the data retained. In a 312, you can install this though, but the data can not be made available in a simple way. (Conversely, the same.)

Oh, in case you're wondering, for what the HDMI port on the NAS 300 series is good: You can connect to the NAS monitor, and USB keyboard and then the BIOS or the NAS OS6 (Linux) on the console (text mode ) work. - Sure you could here take in a forthcoming firmware versions that you can represent something more on the screen. - At the front, the 300 NAS has also installed an infrared receiver, which is also currently without function.

** Update 02.05.2014 **

If you want to access the NAS 8.1 with Windows, you need at least OS 6.1.6 RC13 NAS. In all versions with this release, there may be slow or not at all functioning access from Win. 8.1 coming to the NAS.