I recently purchased a 3TB ReadyNAS NV+ and have been VERY HAPPY! After receiving the base and the 4 hard drives, I just screwed in the drives to the removable case and turned it on. Setup was pretty quick, but the more advance things, you need to reference either a manual, google, or try something and see what happens. I also suggest the Infrant forum. During my time of buying this NAS and posting this review, Netgear bought Infrant the company who makes the ReadyNAS. It’s interesting because Infrant is a semicondutor company who makes great NAS systems, Netgear is a great company that makes amazing networking devices, now if they get an in with seagate, this hopefully will create a nice ihome server that I would want to buy!
On to the review, I have been very please with getting the server up and running with RAID as well as setting up a quick FTP. I have found that there are a lot of “things” that I want to do, but doing them would require installing separate plugins for the ReadyNAS. The problem is I want a dumb out of the box NAS, but that cant server up a personal Wiki, Blog, RSS Reader, FTP Server (specific folders for specific users, not 1 to rule them all), and similar stuff a Geek Guru could ask for. The ReadyNAS NV+ comes with the iTunes Stream built in, you just have to copy all your music to a folder and setting up the stream is as easy as clicking stream! I found the stream useful, but not a MUST HAVE. Setting up shares is pretty simple, but after a week of using it, I found myself wanting to setup more, but missing a key part. Since I am a MacFanboy now, It only makes sense to store my iTunes, iPhoto,iLife, iETC on the ReadyNAS NV+.
Since I am a Nomadic person, I tend to only want 1 copy of things and be able to access anywhere, anytime, using anyones computer. So I picked up a mac mini (also because I needed a dedicated ruby on rails developer computer) to help organized my content as well as take all my freelance work and have a backup. So the solution I have found myself with this ReadyNAS NV+ is buying a mac mini (or a hacked iTV running OS X) and plan to use just the mac min as your “hub” of content. Once you setup a share on your ReadyNAS, boot up your new mac mini, map your ReadyNAS via Finder (GO -> Connect to Server) Type smb://ipaddyofReadyNas Then you can open iTunes and select to store your iTunes folder on your ReadyNAS NV+. I also stored iPhoto on my ReadyNAS NV+ because I have so many pictures. The quick hack I found with that if you already have iPhoto running, is to hold option key and click on iPhoto, this will launch a menu to allow you to store iPhoto on your ReadyNAS NV+.
Looking back on this I can be happier with my mac mini and ReadyNAS NV+. I was planning to pickup a mac mini for all my freelance coding and this just happen to work out great. I know you could replace the mac mini and ReadyNAS NV+ with a separate linux computer running all the stuff a Geek Guru wants, but for me, it also comes down to time and simplicity. I just want something that works out of the box and I do not have to think about. There are too many projects that I have which are 80% done and I just wanted to get this up and rolling. Please let me know how you setup your ReadyNAS NV+ and what you are using it for. I know so of you my reject my idea of using a mac mini with my ReadyNAS NV+ , but I think its a great addition to organizing your content and having the freedom and flexibility without all the overhead and headache of a separate DIY NAS.
Popularity: 7% [?]
2 Comments Already
Pingback & Trackback
Related Post
Please Leave Your Comments Below