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Networking specialist Netgear announced a portfolio of network attached storage (NAS) products, which run on the newly developed ReadyNAS OS 6 and are aimed at small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and home office users.
They are available in three new series of desktop models and a 1U rackmount. The entry level ReadyNAS 100 Series (RN102xx, RN104xx) is designed for home use and comes in two-bay and four-bay models that are offered as either diskless or populated with drives, while the ReadyNAS 300 Series (RN312xx, RN314xx, RN316xx) is optimized for small-business networks and remote or branch office needs, and offers two-bay, four-bay and six-bay versions that are either diskless or populated with drives.
The four-bay ReadyNAS 2120 has a 1U form factor for rack deployment in small data center environments and comes either diskless or populated with drives, and the six-bay ReadyNAS 500 Series (RN516xx), which offers the highest performance, is designed for SMB networks supporting up to 250 concurrent users, and also comes diskless or populated with drives.
Each ReadyNAS product features on-box data protection in the form of cloud-managed replication, and XRAID automatic volume expansion. In addition, each unit showcases native encryption, enabling business users to securely share, store and protect sensitive data across their network.
In addition, every NAS device in the ReadyNAS Series supports SATA (up to 4TB) and SSD drives. The ReadyNAS 300 and 500 models include an eSATA expansion port for scaling capacity as the storage needs of a business grow (up to 84TB). The product line also features cloudlike file synchronization with ReadyDrop and Dropbox integration. In addition, ReadyNAS Remote from Netgear enables users to access files from anywhere on a Web-connected device.
The appliances feature technologies such as unlimited snapshots and cloud-managed replication, which reduce the possibility of data loss, as well as cloud-based discovery and file management through Netgear’s ReadyCloud platform, which simplifies the setup experience and enables full, ongoing management of data from any Web-connected device.
“We designed the new ReadyNAS OS from the ground up with ease of use in mind, so users can confidently centralize and back up all their data,” Matt Pahnke, senior product marketing manager for Netgear Storage, said in a statement. “Customers could not be more excited about our revolutionary ReadyCloud technology for cloud-based setup, provisioning and management. The cloud-based setup and comprehensive, but simple-to-use interface is unlike anything else in the NAS market.”
The company also unveiled a suite of new downloadable applications for these products on the genie+ marketplace, a platform for third-party developers to deliver applications that can be installed on ReadyNAS boxes. The suite of new applications includes productivity tools and media sharing applications.
“We want to give our customers productivity-enhancing, innovative and entertaining ways to do more with their NAS than they ever thought possible,” Pahnke said. With this in mind, ReadyNAS devices feature a rich set of embedded apps in addition to the growing library of add-ons found in the genie+ marketplace.”