Netgear NAS

About NETGEAR

Founded in 1996, NETGEAR has consistently made their presence known in the technology industry as a company bringing the newest innovations in networking solutions to consumers, with a special focusing on small businesses and personal use.  Headquartered in California, NETGEAR also has local offices in about twenty other nations.

Though NETGEAR might be a bit better known for its lines of routers, switches, and firewalls, they incorporate virtually any networking product they can into their lineup, and network attached storage devices are no exception.  Fortunately, like with most of their products, their NAS products are top of the line, offering speed, flexibility, and simplicity in compact packages.  Though their products often cost a little more, customers know that they're buying a solid product from an established source.

One unusual feature that NETGEAR offers is that many of their products are often shipped with hard drives already included within the NAS itself.  While installing a drive into a NAS is already simple practically by definition, this further streamlines the NAS acquisition process as the consumer isn't required to provide their own drive, instead simply ordering the entire product from a single source.

Netgear NAS

NAS, Network Attached Storage, is dynamically conformed data storage that is connected into a network, and has proven to be an excellent, transformative concept. On a system that has multiple users, typically businesses but more and more this is including the private sector, this type of storage is a superior choice to file sharing in multiple user environments.

File sharing is a configuration that has a network-attached computer that provides access to shared storage, but NAS systems are network appliances organized into logical, multiple containers. This concept unleashes much faster access, easier configuration and more straightforward administration.

This all started with computer scientists at Newcastle University in the 1980's. They developed a system for remote file access for a group of UNIX machines and file sharing was off and running. Advancements quickly came from Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and 3Com—3Com with the first purpose-built server for open systems. Auspex created an integrated NetApp filer and the business of proprietary NAS devices began. There is now a number of firms offering clustered NAS products, one of the standouts being Netgear NAS. It is interesting to note that within the last few years, Netgear was one of the first to introduce Online Backup for disaster recovery.

Netgear has a superb line of products in networking for both commercial and home use.

A look at some of the devices and services available—

- The ReadyNas Pro Series. Desktop storage systems for small businesses and remote branches that come in 2-, 4- and 6- bay versions. Enterprise class features, cross-platform sharing for PCs, Macs and UNIX/Linux while supporting block-level access, integrated and optional applications. Have problems with your business storage data? Not anymore, you don't.

- The ReadyNas NVX. File sharing and application storage in one device = half the needed network storage. NAS and SAN both supported in one powerful device, providing you with flexible file serving and backup to disk operation and virtualization environments.

- The ReadyNas 4200. Cost-effective file sharing and virtualization platform. High density unified NAS and SAN architecture and 10Gb Ethernet support providing maximum throughput scalability. Protect and share data, create disaster recovery solutions, consolidate servers.

Netgear NAS continues its great line-up into home use applications.

- The ReadyNas Ultra Series. So, your family needs the power to run killer apps and store huge amounts of multimedia they can take anywhere? Of course, they do! And they have it with this. The Ultra Series has two Gigabit Ethernet Ports which means ULTRA fast. Three USB ports for the flexibility needed for storage, printers and digital cameras. Hot swappable and lockable trays, embedded 128 MB Flash Memory for OS, Kensington Lock security hole, software controlled 80 mm chassis cooling fan. You're home.

- The ReadyNas Duo. This network storage unit is diminutive in size and consumes a very small amount of power but don't be fooled. Duo Network Attached Storage Device, two Serial ATA channels, Hardware-accelerated RAID, Auto-Expandable X-RAID, easy browser-based interface. It can stream photos, videos and music to network players even without a computer. Its management UI speaks six languages so you're probably covered there, too.

Two of the most dynamic components of Neatgear NAS are the ReadyNas Vault and the ReadyNas Remote.

ReadyNAS Vault is essentially another copy of your hard drive kept on the net in a highly secured data center. The data centers themselves are redundant, so there are several copies of your files under exteme lock up but ready in case something disruptive happens to your physical location. The service is browser controlled and extremely easy to activate and use. In addition, you can access your files from anywhere, using any device with ReadyNAS Remote. No tricky to use File Manager or complex router set up. Business owners, IT professionals, anyone can have absolute protection and access for your data that is a snap to use.

It is not surprising that NetgearNAS continues to draw positive attention and reviews. For example, InfoWorld just released a piece citing the company product line as full featured and flexible, pointing out that although the industry and the company have changed these past few years, Netgear has stayed with its mission of delivering devices, software and services to vertical market integrators who need reliability but also want some flexibility for customization.

The company truly has accomplished the ability to cross-compile an incredible array of Linux applications. Developers have gratefully and enthusiastically turned to this platform for solutions and extending capabilities. This has been invaluable in servicing data protection and streaming applications.

As StorageReview.com pointed out recently when awarding ReadyNAS their Editors's Choice, the products are high-end network storage that's user-friendly, flexible and well constructed. Enterprise-level experience for home or small business gear. That's Netgear.

Netgear is a communications equipment company founded in 1996 and based in San Jose, California.