Netgear ReadyNAS Pro targets SMEs
Networking and storage vendors have been vying for the dwindling IT budgets of SMEs for some time, and Netgear is no exception. The company has just announced some additions to its rapidly-diversifying range of ReadyNAS storage devices, most important of which is the new ReadyNAS Pro range of NAS boxes.
The new ReadyNAS Pro range (not to be confused with the existing Pro Business 6-bay models) consists of three pedestal form-factor models with 2, 4 and 6 drive bays. With impeccable logic, these are named the Pro 2, Pro 4 and Pro 6. They all support enterprise-class SATA drives, and are available in pre-populated capacities from 2TB (Pro 2) up to 12TB (Pro 6).
All use Netgear's FlexRAID 2 automatic single volume management system, which allows users to add new drives of any size on the fly. New to the range is certification for VMWare's vSphere and Windows Server 2008 R2's Hyper-V, making them an attractive storage option for smaller virtualisation projects. Pricing starts at $699 (£435) for a 2TB Pro 2 model, while a fully-populated 12TB Pro 6 box costs $3,999 (£2,492).
All of the new products ship with a free one-year 100GB subscription to Netgear's ReadyVAULT cloud-based online backup service. A new multi-site backup and disaster recovery service, ReadyNAS Replicate, has also been launched. Costing $199 (£124) per desktop NAS ($399 [£248] for rack-mount units), this enables smaller businesses to replicate one ReadyNAS to another offsite unit, with minimal setup or technical expertise. Using the integrated ReadyNAS Remote service, VPN connections are used to link to any location with internet access. Tasks are centrally managed via a single console application, and there's support for one-to-many and many-to-one replication.
Consumers haven't been forgotten either, with the addition of ReadyNAS Ultra Plus models to the recently-launched Ultra range. These incorporate new dual-core Atom CPUs (1.8GHz in the Ultra 2 Plus, 1.6GHz in the Ultra 4 Plus and Ultra 6 Plus) rather than the single-core versions in the Ultra 2 and Ultra 4 models (the Ultra 6 already features a dual-core Atom processor), but are otherwise identical. They all feature dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, built-in support to act as external storage for Tivo video recorders and full DLNA media streaming certification. The Ultra Plus range starts at $449.99 (£280 for the diskless Ultra 2 Plus model.
The new products will be available in the US during November 2010, but UK pricing and availability has not yet been announced.
Kelvyn Taylor