URGENT help please - will a Netgear ReadyNAS do what I need for backups and sharing?

[dancingmatt]

Hi all

I'd be really grateful for some URGENT help because I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy a ReadyNAS Duo and if so it has to be today whilst they're still doing their free drive offer! If you have a ReadyNAS or any other NAS, please read on and chime in...

It seems lots of people use their NAS as just storage and not part of their backup plan. I have a 1TB USB external disk that I backup to occasionally and keep outside of my flat, but regular automated backups of what I'm working on (I'm a graphic designer) would be very useful.

I currently use Genie Backup Manager to make multiple incremental backups on other hard drives within my main PC, and my thoughts have grown: 1) get a NAS for RAID which I can backup to rather than use drives in same PC - 2) learnt they can also be used to share media with other devices, great as we have 2 laptops and a PS3 - 3) learnt some can share remotely, so I can give files to families and friends, and get to all my files remotely? Brilliant.

So, from reading these very useful forums I naturally have got more questions than I came here with! In relation to my buying a ReadyNAS Duo I'd be very grateful for quick help/confirmation on any of these...

1) The whole pre-defined shares of backup, media etc. confuse me, are these basically folders on the ReadyNAS that can be as big as you like up to the drive's capacity?

2) If I set a backup job to backup a folder (say M:\My Pictures), does it intelligently automatically include new subfolders I might later create within My Pictures?

3) Does the NAS monitor the folders or does the PC push files to it through Shadow, and if the latter does Shadow take up many resources running in the background? I hate sofware running in the background and slowing everything else down.

4) My iTunes library is in a My Music folder and all the music I haven't yet tagged is in another folder. Ditto all the photos I have tagged are separate to the ones I haven't processed yet etc. My idea is to backup everything to the ReadyNAS, and share the folders of tagged music and photos to our laptops, PS3 and (for photos) anyone else I choose externally over the net. So none of the other devices or people will modify anything, just play music or view pics. As I add music to iTunes (when it gets copied to the My Music folder) and tag it, other devices must be able to see and play it. But I'm basically sharing my backup (albeit read only) - is that a good idea?

5) Won't the automatic (Shadow or otherwise) backups go to a different share than the one the PS3 will access - isn't that the media one?

6) Why does the ReadyNAS need to be scanned to pick up changes? Is this true for all client devices or just the PS3, and/or every file change or just some, e.g. deletions/modifications/adding new ones?

Sharing Photos:

1) So I can set our distant relatives up with read access to see and download photos (or other files), without giving them access to all our other photos and files? I read that there is a way which does this without duplicating the photos that have already been backedup to the ReadyNAS?

2) I gather I can host a website on it so maybe I could use Adobe Lightroom to make a different photo gallery and host that? Extending this idea, I'd like to put a different site on there and host it so I don't need to pay for hosting space. It wouldn't be big and would get very little traffic. Won't need SQL databasing or shopping facilities, Can it host more than one site (i.e. a photo gallery and something else)? I have no server experience so would like this to be simple to work out of the box (something the Synology DS209j does). Could I use the ReadyNAS to give clients FTP access to download files I've made for them?

Hardware:

1) Apparently the ReadyNAS Duo can take SATAII drives but runs them at SATA-1 speed?

2) Apparently the USB print functionality isn't "full" and is different to connecting a printer directly to a PC. I have a Canon iP4500, what might be affected? I do graphic design with a colour managed workflow so don't want anything affecting print settings.

I know it's a lot of asking, any answers to any of it would be more than appreciated!

Thanks everyone
DM

[kungpo]

Hmmm.....in my experience ReadyNAS devices are REALLY unreliable. We've have 4 out of 5 have problems with disk failures and chassis failures. Strangley, even though they are meant to have RAID we still couldn't access the data when one of the disks failed. So I can't recommend them.

We have two WD Nas's as well - they work well enough but are quite slow as far as I/O is concerned. Likewise the Buffalo Terastation's, reliable and works well, but quite slow I/O.

I have a Maxtor shared storage NAS which does work well, but the one I have is a sigle disk version.

So...to answer your question, what OS are you running? Vista and Windows 7 backup is very good (although may only be present in Professional and above?), and can backup everything. If you are using XP, then the basic (NTBackup) works well too.

Depending on whether you need a backup history or not will determine what regime you should run - either a full nightly backup or differential/incremental.

[menthel]

If you are willing to spend a bit more you might like the flexibility of a windows home server. It could easily do all of the above and more and they are very easy to work with. Something like the ones tranquil pc build would be nice. I have the sqash and it really is good!

[jim]

Ditto

Although I just bought a ReadyNAS for work so I'll see what I think after it arrives today

[dancingmatt]

Hmmm.....in my experience ReadyNAS devices are REALLY unreliable. We've have 4 out of 5 have problems with disk failures and chassis failures. Strangley, even though they are meant to have RAID we still couldn't access the data when one of the disks failed. So I can't recommend them.

...

So...to answer your question, what OS are you running? Vista and Windows 7 backup is very good (although may only be present in Professional and above?), and can backup everything. If you are using XP, then the basic (NTBackup) works well too.

Depending on whether you need a backup history or not will determine what regime you should run - either a full nightly backup or differential/incremental.

I gather the ReadyNAS saves to a format (is it Ext3?) which isn't readable by Windows natively but you can get a free tool to access it. Were you using their recent devices like the Duo or older ones?

My OS is XP but when I get a new PC it will be Win7 I guess, I can't bear Vista. Currently my backup regime is using Genie Backup Manager to do incrementals and every x passes do another full one, keeping 2 sets of full+incrementals.

[dancingmatt]

If you are willing to spend a bit more you might like the flexibility of a windows home server. It could easily do all of the above and more and they are very easy to work with. Something like the ones tranquil pc build would be nice. I have the sqash and it really is good!

Ditto

Although I just bought a ReadyNAS for work so I'll see what I think after it arrives today

I gather Netgear have extended their free drive offer now so that takes the time pressure off. I haven't considered WHS because I thought it might be overkill in money and power usage. The techie in me would want to build one from scratch but I don't have the time with my new business so I'd have to buy it.

Had a quick look at Tranquil's website. Takes a lot of burrowing to get to details and prices for their similarly-named models! The SQA-5H (Squash) is a lot more expensive without buying the drives than a ReadyNAS with 2x 1.5TB drives, I can't see there's a big benefit for the money...?

Thanks for the help so far

DM

[menthel]

I gather Netgear have extended their free drive offer now so that takes the time pressure off. I haven't considered WHS because I thought it might be overkill in money and power usage. The techie in me would want to build one from scratch but I don't have the time with my new business so I'd have to buy it.

Had a quick look at Tranquil's website. Takes a lot of burrowing to get to details and prices for their similarly-named models! The SQA-5H (Squash) is a lot more expensive without buying the drives than a ReadyNAS with 2x 1.5TB drives, I can't see there's a big benefit for the money...?

Thanks for the help so far

DM

I think the benefit comes from its ease of use and the way it slots so perfectly into a windows network. The backup and restore is also childsplay and makes it simple to restore any computer backed up on it. It also has a level of tinkering to satisfy, such as websites etc. The electricity use is not bad really, they run atom after all. However, I do agree on the expense! The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to get the cheapest one on the website, pay for the 2gb upgrade and then buy your own hdd's. It works out much better!

[jim]

I think the benefit comes from its ease of use and the way it slots so perfectly into a windows network. The backup and restore is also childsplay and makes it simple to restore any computer backed up on it. It also has a level of tinkering to satisfy, such as websites etc. The electricity use is not bad really, they run atom after all. However, I do agree on the expense! The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to get the cheapest one on the website, pay for the 2gb upgrade and then buy your own hdd's. It works out much better!

Clearly great minds think alike