Netgear's Marvell Based ReadyNAS NV+ v2 Review
by Ganesh T S on November 9, 2011 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- NAS
- NetGear
The introduction of the ReadyNAS Duo v2 and NV+ v2 shows that Netgear is still interested in catering to the economical prosumer segment of the NAS market. While players like Synology and QNAP also provide offerings with similar hardware specifications, they often carry a premium due to advanced firmware features that many consumers don't end up using.
The benchmarks indicate that the ReadyNAS lineup members based on the Marvell Kirkwood 6282 perform almost on par with those from Synology and QNAP. By sacrificing some features such as NFS and iSCSI and cutting back on the DRAM, Netgear has managed to deliver the members at half the price of the competition's offerings. In such a situation, it is hard to not give Netgear our seal of approval for the ReadyNAS NV+ v2 and Duo v2 units.
Our seal of approval doesn't mean that Netgear can rest on its laurels. The ReadyNAS Vault cloud backup service is slated to be available in the Duo v2 / NV+ v2 firmware sometime in the beginning of next year only. Unlike QNAP units, I don't expect out-of-the-box support for backup to storage services such as the Amazon S3. But, that is perfectly acceptable (It is conceivable that some add-on could be created for this purpose).
There is still lot of work that needs to be done with respect to the add-ons. While the redesigned FrontView interface is a pleasure to use, some of the key options (such as setting up of the FTP service) are not placed in a prominent manner. The RAIDiator 5.x interface is much improved, but it still needs some tweaks. However, these drawbacks don't take away the fact that the Duo v2 and NV+ v2 offer the best value for money for a majority of the consumers in this market.
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Wardrop - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
Not sure if I want my NAS to look like an 80's boombox.therealnickdanger - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
You want to look at it?Ratman6161 - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
Its going to be hidden in a closet anyway. I don't care what it looks like.Fake-Name - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
There are iSCSI add-ons for the NV+. It shouldn't be too long before they're available for the NV+ v2.The "Ultra" series used the same basic codebase as the NV+, and the firrmware is mostly open source, so it shouldn't bee too long before someone pulls dwn the source, and compiles the iSCSI module for the NV+.
The downside is since it's an add-on, you may have to do some tweaking using SSH (I did to get it working on my NV+).
On the other hand, it's been pretty impressively stable so far.
iwod - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
Netgear's ReadyNAS lineup is very well respected in the industry.??? May be company will buy them because of their Name.In Consumer NAS market, there are only two options, Qnap and Synology. Others dont even come close on features, price, performance.
ganeshts - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
I didn't want to quote from the PR, but, it looks like Gartner did some market research / analysis and determined that Netgear is the leader in the sub-$5K market:http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/09/4041443/netgear-r...
nasuser - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
I think the reviewer needs to go back and look at his comparisonsThe 2 bay consumer NAS from Synology is the DS211j & the 4-bay unit is the DS411j
A quick search shows the DS211j available for around $200 ie the same price as the new Duo, and the DS411j costs around $350 - which is $50 cheaper than this described NV+
So to claim
"By sacrificing some features such as NFS and iSCSI and cutting back on the DRAM, Netgear has managed to deliver the members at half the price of the competition's offerings." .
is highly misleading
ganeshts - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
The DS-211+ is the one based on the same hardware (Marvell 6282). We didn't review the DS211j, so can't comment there.ganeshts - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
Just confirmed that the 211j is based on the 6281, has 128 MB DRAM and is more of a competitor to the LG NAS solution, rather than this one. I am sure the Duo v2 will have more performance than the 211j.. But, the 211+ could just surpass the Duo v2 based on the presented benchmark results.nasuser - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
There is very, very little difference in performance benchmarks (as far as you can trust vendor supplied numbers)Couple that with the fact that many home users do not have PCs that can sustain such transfer speeds
Note that Synology no longer list the DS211+ on their web site as it appears to be replaced by the (cheaper) DS212... Plus there are many other vendors in the 2 bay market...
Bottom line - Netgear ain't that cheap which is why I don't completely agree with the thrust of your conclusion, but I appreciate you responding and looking into this
Maybe a review of the 2 bay NAS market in the near future?