Netgear RND2000 NAS - Any Good?

georgemac_2

I have just ordered on of these from Amazon - always fancied a NAS drive and itunes server, and something which could stream media to the PS3. Also comes with a free 500 Gbyte hard drive (through redemption) if you buy before the end of Sept. On offer just now for £139.99

Can take 1 or 2 hard drives, 2nd will be mirrored off first, also print server and can backup to USB drive. I like netgear products so hoping this will be OK. I already have an SC101 NAS but it is only a network storage device.

Full netgear details from their website

gbellamy

I have a friend that has one of these and raves about it. Quite fancy it myself, but alas, no room

nitr02007

Recently got one of these from Ebuyer. Set it up yesterday - you need to have a fair knowledge of tech as the manual seems to be missing some vital info.

I had difficulty booting it to start with but then I did a factory reset and it all started working. The manual assumes the 1st drive is pre-installed, and doesnt lead you through installing the 1st drive yourself. There is a ReadyNAS forum though which has lots of info - however they describe upgrading the firmware via a USB stick - a process that I'm glad I didnt have to do. The factory reset did the trick for me.

Ebuyer was also doing the free 500GB drive - however I didnt read the offer properly and thought it would come installed with it. After searching the box wondering what the hell is going on. I went back to Ebuyer, read the offer more carefully and I find I had to claim separately for it and it can take up to 6 weeks to arrive.. DOH!:o Luckily I had another drive I'm using for now.

Dammit - I'm normally a pretty savvy shopper but its £20 cheaper on amazon than Ebuyer. Double DOH!

Overall I'm well pleased with the device - its well built, tiny, quiet, and setting up laser printer on it was a piece of cake. I'm going to order another 500GB drive so I can have my data fully secure when the free one finally arrives.

nitr02007

To answer the guy in the Amazon review - the disks are readable in Linux. So if the unit fails you should still be able to access your data by connecting the drive to your PC and booting up a Linux Live-CD. I'll try this when I get time.

georgemac_2

nitr02007 wrote: »

To answer the guy in the Amazon review - the disks are readable in Linux. So if the unit fails you should still be able to access your data by connecting the drive to your PC and booting up a Linux Live-CD. I'll try this when I get time.

I don't have any systems with linux on - I guess it would be easy enough to do a dual boot system.

I have ordered a 1 tbyte drive for this and will use the free 500 for a desktop upgrade I am planning in a couple of months.

I have also read when you fit a drive to walk away and leave it for a while, it formats the drive and think the light stays flashing until this is done.

nitr02007

Thats what I read - however I'm very impatient, and the fan speed is on full too so it was making a hell of a racket.

When I first turned mine on - it appears to be working - the RAIDar software (on your PC) can see it and you can ping it - however after a couple of mins it disappears from the network and you have to pull the plug to switch it off (the power switch on the front is unresponsive). To me this means its crashed. Tried this several times - same each time.

Found the instructions on the net to do a factory reset. Followed em and had it up and working in minutes. The RAIDar software finds it and it asks how you want the disk set up (X-Raid or Flex Raid). It then initialises the disk and boots - job done. The disk was only a 120GB spare I had lying around so it formatted it pretty quick. Also whilst it was formatting the disk RAIDar could see it and report on its status.
I wouldnt leave it for hours thinking that its "doing something" especially if its no longer visible on your network.

I'd say the software onboard was crashing because the disk isnt initialised correctly. Maybe the first disk needs a hot plug in - so it gets detected properly... I'm not sure, but the factory reset did the trick for me.

also this PDF has a lot more info than the so called "manual" - well worth a look.
http://www.hantechnology.com.sg/download/readynas/nv+gsg_eng.pdf

nitr02007

You can boot Linux from a bootable CD/DVD so no need for dual boot.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD

have got an old copy of Knoppix kicking around somewhere...should do the trick
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html