Netgear on Thursday expanded its ReadyNAS 200 Series of Network Attached Storage (NAS) products with the launch of two new units: the ReadyNAS 212 (RN212) and the ReadyNAS 214 (RN214). Both are ideal for the home and home office, packed with a quad-core ARM Cortex A15-based processor clocked at 1.4GHz and real-time 1080p high-definition video streaming and transcoding. Both are available to purchase now from online outlets such as Amazon, Fry’s and Newegg.
Sold with or without the hard drives installed, the 212 model provides two bays and supports up to 12TB of storage whereas the 214 model features four drive bays supporting up to 24TB of storage. Both units include 2GB of RAM, three USB 3.0 ports, one eSATA port, and built-in virus scanning. They also include two gigabit Ethernet ports that support Link Aggregation, meaning the two ports can work in parallel to offer more throughput.
According to the company, the two NAS units provide read speeds of up to 200MBps and write speeds of up to 160MBps when using a RAID mode. Additional features include a “professional-grade” BTRFS file system, media server capabilities with support for DLNA, iTunes and Plex, and “five levels of data protection” consisting of bit rot protection, snapshot technology, automatic backup, and more. There’s even Time Machine backup support for Mac customers and free mobile apps for accessing the NAS units from a smartphone or tablet.
One of the big selling points is the NAS units’ ReadyCLOUD service, which allows users to retrieve data from the storage unit no matter where they are and from nearly any device. “ReadyCLOUD for ReadyNAS 212 and 214 is the only personal cloud that embeds a VPN tunnel with zero-configuration setup while offering access, sharing and synchronization capabilities. You can easily sync folders between your ReadyNAS and PCs, and also benefit from Time Machine backup support for all the Macs in your home,” the company adds.
Is a NAS device right for your home or office? That’s a good question. Many consumers may be just fine using a single external drive to back up their data or share media with devices connected to the local network. However, NAS devices are ideal for those who wish to not only store large amounts of data (pictures, audio, video, etc), but to easily serve up this data in and out of the home or office.
Naturally, the larger the capacity the larger the hit will be to the wallet. NAS devices are great investments for long-time data storage, but they can get expensive. Netgear’s ReadyNAS 212 model without hard drives costs $330 whereas the ReadyNAS 214 model without drives costs $500. Apparently, the company will eventually sell these NAS units with hard drives installed, as the company lists configurations and “buy now” buttons that are currently grayed out.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1M6ZEwm
