Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ storage device

Cool Yule rating: 4 stars
Price: $1,099 (for 1TB capacity, 4 x 250GB drives)
Product Web site
Buy this at Amazon.com

Description: Most of the technology for the ReadyNAS NV+ comes from Infrant Technologies, which Netgear acquired earlier this year. While this is designed mainly for home offices, small businesses or workgroups, home consumers will find this device valuable, especially if you have multiple computers in the house and also want a central location for the storage of digital media files, such as photos, music and videos.

Setting up the device is as easy as plugging in an Ethernet cable to the back of the device, plugging in power and then installing software on each PC you'd like to have access the ReadyNAS box. The software supports Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers, so homes with multiple operating systems will benefit. After running the software, users can access shares on the volume. The system supports iTunes and Slim Devices music streaming, so you can store all of your music on the NAS box and stream it across your network.

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Cool Yule rating: 4 stars
Price: $1,099 (for 1TB capacity, 4 x 250GB drives)
Product Web site
Buy this at Amazon.com

Description: Most of the technology for the ReadyNAS NV+ comes from Infrant Technologies, which Netgear acquired earlier this year. While this is designed mainly for home offices, small businesses or workgroups, home consumers will find this device valuable, especially if you have multiple computers in the house and also want a central location for the storage of digital media files, such as photos, music and videos.

Setting up the device is as easy as plugging in an Ethernet cable to the back of the device, plugging in power and then installing software on each PC you'd like to have access the ReadyNAS box. The software supports Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers, so homes with multiple operating systems will benefit. After running the software, users can access shares on the volume. The system supports iTunes and Slim Devices music streaming, so you can store all of your music on the NAS box and stream it across your network.

Configuration and management is done through a browser interface, if you know how to configure a router and have some basic knowledge of storage technologies, you should be able to set up the settings without any problems. The software does a pretty good job of explaining concepts as well.

For more advanced users, the system supports RAID levels 0, 1 and 5, as well as the company's own X-RAID technology, which ensures full data redundancy in the case of hardware failure (SATA hard drives are located inside the device).

Capacities are available from 1TB up to 2TB (depending on the drive size inside), and you can also buy an empty one and put your own hard drives in. This makes the device future-proof, you can add drives as capacities go up and the system will still work.

When accessing the device over a regular Ethernet connection it did OK, but it was much slower accessing or moving files from a PC to the box via a wireless (802.11g) connection. If you're going to use this as your major central storage system, I'd recommend upgrading to a Gigabit Ethernet switch and ports, or at least upgrading your wireless to an 802.11n connection.

Also, the price may be high for a holiday gift, but if you have been doing a lot of digital multimedia (converting CDs to digital music, creating digital video and taking digital photos), this can be a valuable device for storing and backing up those files.

<Return to Keith's holiday gift list >

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.