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
In addition to the raw performance numbers, there are a number of other features which prospective customers might care about. These include the one-touch backup features, extensibility with the help of add-ons and mobile apps availability. Power consumption and noise are important factors too.
One Touch Backup
Backup jobs can be created in the web interface. Source and destination options include folders in the internal volume as well as the various USB ports in the system. These backup jobs can be scheduled at pre-determined intervals or even just disabled.
The one-touch backup button can be configured to execute one or more of the configured backup jobs. We set up a backup job to copy over the contents of the drive connected to the rear top USB 3.0 port to a backup folder in the internal volume. One touch backup was performed for 100 GB of data (with multiple small files and folders) on a OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 SSD. As can be seen in the gallery above, the backup jobs use 'cp' internally. The WD MyBook Live uses the rsync command which gives more flexibility in the backup process. This is something Netgear should probably look at in future firmware upgrades. The transfer rates for the NV+ v2 (with various volume configurations) are recorded below.
| ReadyNAS NV+ v2 One-Touch Backup Transfer Rates over USB 3.0 | |
| 2 x 1TB RAID-1 Volume | 26.53 MiB/s |
| 3 x 1TB RAID-5 Volume | 16.15 MiB/s |
| 4 x 1TB RAID-5 Volume | 23.79 MiB/s |
The backup transfer rate seems to be fundamentally limited by the RAID array itself, as evident from the NASPT / robocopy benchmarks and the results above.
Add-Ons
One of the big plus points of the ReadyNAS lineup is the wealth of community developed add-ons available. A visit to the ReadyNAS website reveals that almost every add-on has two versions available, one for x86 and the other for SPARC. With today's introductions, ARM versions need to be added too. As of now, the number of add-ons available for the new platform is quite limited.
Netgear assured us that the porting process for the add-ons would be simple and available to end users / developers with access to the SDK. For the purpose of this review, we used the EnableRootSSH, ReadyNAS Photos II and ReadyNAS Remote add-ons. Except for the EnableRootSSH add-on, the others needed quite a bit of poking around to get them up and running. I am quite sure that things will improve as the ARM based platforms go out to more developers / end-users.
The ReadyNAS Photos II add-on helps users manage photographs on the NAS and access to it over the Internet. With uPnP forwarding set up, each photographer account on the NAS can be accessed through photos.readynas.com. The add-on also provides very fine grained access control for the photographs. Other NAS vendors also provide similar add-ons (like Synology with their Photo Station app). Due to the large number of options available, the usage of the add-on is not as straightforward as I would have liked. That said, it does manage to get the job done.
Mobile Apps / Remote Access Add-On
The ReadyNAS Remote solution allows access to the NAS volumes from a PC / Mac / mobile device in an external network. This needs the FTP service to be enabled on the unit (Netgear indicated that a non-FTP based version is currently being developed for mobile devices). The PC client installs its own network adapter on the system. I was unable to get the client to install on my Windows 7 Ultimate x86 based laptop, but it installed fine on another PC running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (albeit, with an unsigned driver warning). Once logged in, the client mapped the NAS volume onto a network location. This way, the NAS volume is integrated quite nicely with Windows Explorer. All said, this setup is much more complicated compared to the PC WD2go solution provided by Western Digital in their MyBook Live lineup.
Mobile apps to replicate the remote access functionality are available for both Android and iOS. One of the quirks I observed during the testing was the fact that the PC client would log out whenever I logged into the Android client. In most situations, this is not desirable, but it is not a showstopper. Users can always create separate accounts for access via mobile devices. All in all, the mobile apps / remote access add-on seem to be unnecessarily complicated. Hopefully, things get better in the future.
DLNA
The web interface allows the various folders to be configured with the ReadyDLNA service. The unit is still pending certification, though. I am not a big fan of DLNA and its certification program. So, I will leave this sub-section with just the fact that DLNA services can be configured on a per-folder basis in the ReadyNAS NV+ v2.
Power Consumption
The table below presents the power consumed by the unit in various stages of operation. Note that these are typical numbers and can vary in the field depending on the type of hard disk being used in the system.
| ReadyNAS NV+ v2 Power Consumption | |
| Power Off | 0.9 W |
| 2 x 1TB RAID-1 Volume with High Network Load | 24 W |
| 3 x 1TB RAID-5 Volume with High Network Traffic | 28.3 W |
| 4 x 1TB RAID-5 Volume with High Network Traffic | 34 W |
| 4 x 1TB RAID-5 Volume Rebuild | 36.8 W |
| Idle (4 x 1TB RAID-5) | 12.3 W |
Since the unit happens to be based on a dedicated RISC based RAID / NAS controller, the power consumption is quite low. The hard disks contribute to the bulk of the power consumption. The temperatures never exceeded 40 C, and the fans rotated at less than 2000 rpm even during periods of heavy activity.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
39 Comments
View All Comments
JHBoricua - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
I'm pretty sure the difference in the power supply draw of the Ready NAS and the HP Microserver is not that much when fully loaded. And somehow, I doubt the support from Netgear is anything to talk about, having dealt with them before.LeftSide - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
My HP Proliant Microserver with a dual core 1.3Ghz with 8Gb ECC DDR3 ram running Solais 11 express idles at 15 watts. I've added 2 hitachi 3 tb drives, and have not measured power yet, but 15 watts is pretty good.nasuser - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
"but many SMBs / SOHOs don't have time to build or maintain a NAS themselves."And more to the point many don't WANT to or have the expertise.
Whatever the criticisms of various consumer NAS, unbox -> plug in -> turn on and you're ready to go in a few minutes.
No OS to install, or hooking up to a display etc. And if/when they fail - getting back to a factory default status is as easy as a reset button press.
If all you need is basic network storage, I think devices like these can save alot of time & effort and at a reasonable price point.
alanh - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
I have a mixed environment at home and am looking for something like this that I can use to do automated backups of Macs via Time Machine and PCs via [whatever other method]. Does this work for the former on Lion and does it include software for the latter?beginner99 - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
I've been considering such a device too lately but for now I just keep the stuff in my desktop. Those consumer NAS have the advantage, that they are very small. A DIY build will easily be double the size unless you go for an expensive special case (Chenboro...) and then it won't be any cheaper. You will also be very restricted with the motherboard (mini-itx with enough sata ports).dj christian - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
IDY?JHBoricua - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
" A DIY build will easily be double the size unless you go for an expensive special case"Not necessarily. As I pointed out earlier, for the same price of the diskless NV+, you can get a HP Proliant Microserver with 8 times more RAM than the default NV+ config, a better CPU and without hardly a difference in power draw. And you don't have to sacrifice on the size either.
Here's a size comparison.
ReadyNAS NV+ dimensions: 7.9 H x 5.2 W x 8.7 D in
HP Proliant Microserver dimensions: 10.5 H x 8.3 W x 10.2 D in
You get 6 SATA connections (5 internal, 1 eSATA), one internal USB port mounted on the motherboard (that could boot your Os), 1 half height PCIe x16 and 1 half height PCIe x1 open slots for future expansion and can be expanded with up to 8GB of RAM (8 times the NV+ maximum).
It's a much better deal for the DIY'er and offers better flexibility.
Evadman - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - link
An HP Microserver is 2.5 times bigger than an NV (you even posted the dimensions) 360 cubic inches vs 890 cubic inches. Comparision picture: http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1634...The ReadyNas is much more of a plug and play system than the HP is. Plug it in, throw drives in it, and it works. The HP is an actual server, so you need to do an order of magnitude more configuration and setup, not to mention continual maintenance. The ReadyNas handles all that in the software to a much higher degree than the HP. If you are looking for pure performance and configuration options, the HP may be a better solution. If you want easy, the Readynas may be a better solution. Both have their own niche, so it depends on the skills the user has and how much effort they want to expend.
Full disclosure/experience/whatever: I have three NV+'s along with a server with a 50TB RAID 60 array running Server 2008R2 on an Adaptec 52445 along with other NAS type devices from other companies.
jleach1 - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
Someone explain how a MSRP of $399 is cheaper than the current NV+?I see em going for between 250-350?