Customer Reviews
Not too bad but not all that good. 
2008-06-18
Ive had my readynas for a little while now..
So depending on what version you get you may not have the same troubles I've had.
1) the PowerSuppy in the unit is crap i was preforming some very heavy backups to the readyNas 2tb the unit was striped as raid 5..
so all the drives were working very hard after about 20 hours power supply died. cost to me $150.00..
Yes the unit is warrenteed but I can't put the data I've already backed up on the unit at risk by returning the system for service.
2) If for any reason you acedently remove more than one drive from the raid. that will destroy the content of the raid..
Thats not really a fault with the readyNas it's more of the fault of trying to run raid 5 on a raid with 4 drives...
3) It's not all that fast.. I don't need most of the features of this unit if I could return it.. I would buy drobo.
Not an auspicious beginning 
2008-05-11
I opened the box and set up the unit, anticipating the great benefit of networked storage. Sadly, The unit begins booting, only to crash with a kernel panic. After re-seating memory, and running various diagnostics for tech support, it turns out my brand new unit is a brick... right out of the box. So, I'm waiting for another week to see if the replacement unit works any better. If not, I'll be returning for a refund.
Not perfect and over-sold, but good 2008-04-26
The ReadyNAS is a wonderful idea - abundant storage available on your network without requiring an additional computer. Additionally, this unit supports a wealth of streaming media protocols (e.g. iTunes, RTSP, etc.) and the standard services you'd want in a server (FTP, HTTP, rsync). It's as if a room full of computer geeks who love media designed this device.
That said, it's not perfect. The fan is too loud. You can replace it, but at a cost of reduced cooling and, due to the compact design, the ReadyNAS runs hot. Even with a silent fan, I find it annoying, though I live in a small condo and lack a quiet closet to place it in.
The marketing copy on the device misleads you to believe it is fully reliable - it's not. You can configure the device to be redundant RAID (proprietary or RAID 5), but the device remains a single point of failure. I bought all my disks at the same time, tried to save money while doing so, and had two fail after replacing another while I was rebuilding the volume. If you lose more than one disk, you've lost data. Also, there is only one power supply and one logic board. If there is a firmware error, you can lose your data. It's best to have your data on two separate devices, if you desire reliability.
I just lost some data due to losing multiple disks during a re-build, so I am a bit disappointed. Still, I should have bought different disks from different vendors and manufacturers to spread out the mean time of failure between disks. I didn't and lost data.
Taking the unit apart to service for replacing the memory, power supply or the fan creates a pile of screws. After the first 12, you get annoyed and then later, you wonder what, exactly their fear of thumb screws or a larger form factor is all about.
Despite the fan noise, difficultly to service and the lost data, I bought another unit. It's good, but the design makes a few assumptions that annoy me.
Extremely unreliable 2008-02-18
This is one of those things that you really want to love. Unfortunately, the only way you'll love this thing is if you're not that attached to your data. If you're looking for a data black hole, then this is your solution. Data cannot escape its pull.
Multiple problems with this thing, including shares that constantly drop and become unavailable, slowness, and extreme pickiness in the drives it will deign to use. I've done computer repair for over 20 years, and still can't make this thing work satisfactorily. The latest escapade was a "corrupt root" error that comes up on boot. The device itself gives a bad firmware message. Reloading the firmware repeatedly as per Netgear's site gained me exactly zilch. The only fix I found was restoring to factory settings, which of course fries your data.
If you are unfortunate enough to buy or have one of these thrown at you, do ***NOT*** upgrade the firmware to version 4. There is a thread in their support forums with complaints about what version 4 did to the NAS (extreme slowness for one). I can testify to this, it slowed it down to absolute unusability - any copy would time out. The fix is to return to version 3 which requires...drum roll...a factory reset. Bye, bye, data. Don't expect a fast fix from Netgear on this issue. As of today the thread is about 6 weeks old with no solution in sight.
Solid high-end NAS server 
2008-01-14
I've been using a company-owned device for over 6 months and liked it enough to purchase one for myself. While somewhat pricier than certain competitors (e.g. Drobo), it also has a much more extensive feature list. Personally, I use this device to share files between an iMac, a PowerBook, two PCs and my network media player (Zensonic Z500).
Feature highlights: Retrospect Remote backup included, CIFS/AFP/NFS/RSYNC/HTTPS support, UPnP media server, iTunes server that understands your iTunes respository, online RAID expansion, GigE, USB printer server (with limited scanner support)
Great Storage Solution 2008-01-14
RND4000 was designed specifically for home offices, small businesses and workgroups. Never before has there been available a cost-conscience Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliance packed with robust high-end server features, including Gigabit Ethernet, hardware RAID, system monitoring capabilities and built-in backup. ReadyNAS couples out of the box deployment and easy management with robust file serving and data redundancy.With an easy web browser interface and setup wizard, ReadyNAS can be configured with minimal effort - saving you valuable time. Traditional file servers can take hours to configure and, even once up and running, don't have built-in system monitoring and email alerts. Available with ReadyNAS, automatic alerts give you the peace of mind that things are running smoothly because if trouble should arise, you will be notified.You already know how important it is to backup your pictures, digital media and business files, but the truth is, you need it to be easy as well as bullet-proof. ReadyNAS was built to facilitate your backup strategy.
Great NAS Network Storage - A must have for any small network 2008-01-13
I have owned mine for 10 months now, am back here to buy another. Will actually buy a 3rd soon to gift to my parents.
Why do I love this thing? I used to use USB external hard drives to back-up data, but about 50% of the time after a few years those would die on me, and I have a lot of computers in my house and needed a lot of those to do not as much as one of these does. This thing holds 4 hard drives and runs on fully redundant raid (meaning if and when a hard drive fails, you just pop in another one and you have no loss of data). I put it out of sight and mind and just connect it to the network and now have one machine that every computer in the house can connect to and store/retrieve data.
Put a link to it on your desktop and basically every computer now has a HUGE extra hard drive. I used 4 500 GB drives which after 1/3 is allocated for the raid redundancy gives us 1.3 Terabytes of storage, that's 1300 GB. We share music, photos, files all effortlessly no matter what computer we use without having to put it on a USB drive or memory stick and move it around, and we know our data is safe from loss from a hard drive failing.
I recommend buying the one that comes with no hard drives, then installing the drives yourself. You can insure that you get the best drives and save a little bit of money. Installing drives yourself is extremely easy for a non-techie, just pull out a tray (there are 4 that hold drives), place it in, secure it with the provided screws, and push the try back in. Done.
One problem these used to have according to it's user forums was a heat issue which they resolved with a firmware update, I made sure to shop for hard drives in which user comments said ran very cool to the touch and sure enough the ReadyNas runs very cool with them in it. If it helps I bought the SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives, from a diff website (shhh - new egg dot com, I only say this because looks like Amazon still does not carry them), which now go for $109 a piece there and I am buying 5 more for the next one, 4 for the NV+ and 1 to store as a back-up for both machines.
The reason I am going with 2 machines is because some of my data is mission critical for work, so I am going to have one machine back up the other, and also configure it as a media server and these are able to serve as media devices for streaming HD movies and such to a TV and I think my Tivo, but I have yet to try this so can't say how well this feature works yet.
Can't go wrong with this. Is pricier than 2 disk or 1 disk systems, but if you love your data and like reliability this is well worth it. 5-stars!
Great Home Office/Entertainment Storage Solution 2008-01-08
I've owned this device for only 2 weeks. Purchased with 4 Seagate 750GB Baracudas running in X-Raid (similar to Raid 5). It took longer to un-box the hard-drives than it was to install them in the drive trays. Setup was a snap, easy web interface to the device. Running on a Gigabit Ethernet and am able to sustain around 30 MB/s read and write on larger files (dvd rips, etc) and around 15 MB/s on small files (pics & mp3's). Using as a uPNP server for my Sony PS3 without any issues.
This thing is smaller than I expected. It's only about the size of a tall 2 slice toaster. Front panel displays led's for HD status and text display showing you the IP address and other info as needed.
I can't speak for the included backup software as the previous posters have, as I'm not using it. My backup process is manual for better control over my photography digital images, but
would consider alternate backup software if I needed an automatic scheduled process.
I am considering a 2nd device for "offsite" storage that will mirror this device using the onboard backup utilities (you can backup across the internet to other storage devices). 5 stars in my book!
Brickware -- it loses your data!!! 2008-01-07
On paper, this product looks great. Sadly, the software in the box is unstable and you risk losing ALL your data if you store it on this device. As has been reported on the infrant forums (and has happened to me), the system will run for a while, then start to act up and finally lock itself up taking all your data with it.
Ironically, the trigger for this seems to be the backup application, so just when you are in the process of updating your backups (and at your most vulnerable), the device can turn itself into a brick.
Avoid unless you like losing all your data.
Must have for digital storage 2008-01-04
Works great, expandable, quiet, just great to know that my library of digital pictures are safe and will not be lost if my PC hard drive fails.
This is a must have for all your digital images and documents. It is a little expensive but for peace of mind it is well worth the cost.
