In some systems, there may be hidden partitions used for system recovery that reduce the capacity available to the end user.

This would be huge for my small little business! The review is excellent and I am ready to buy (or win!) Having all my photos on a backup system like this would be incredible!

This would save me huge headaches now! I don't currently have a good redundant storage system. I'm using a patchwork of external usb drives and internal hard drives. At one time I used online backup, but with the amount of data I'm dealing with the cost became prohibitive. I have always wanted to use a NAS to simplify moving photos, and all my other media between computers. The ability to connect on the road would be huge. I wouldn't be so crazy making sure I take the right files with me.

I could have used it a year ago when the network card in my one month old Drobo died and the only way to get it replaced quickly was to sign up for their support program for a year.

I work with more then one computer and it is always a chalenge keeping everything in sync. What is even more difficult is while traveling making sure you have a backup of your images that is not with you. Having an easy way to send them to your home while you are on the road would be great for those times equipment is lost or stolen. The remote replication is a great feature in case something happens to your primary location. I have thought of putting a server together to do some of this but ReadyNas has everything I could ever want without all the work. Thanks for the Great Review

Excellent! The comment section is working! Sometimes, you just never know what will happen when it comes to technology. Most of the time it works as advertised, but sometimes it falters. Seems that it happens at the most inopportune times, Murphy's Law, as it were. I understand the importance of backing up information, yet budget constraints can be an issue at times. Thus my own situation. Just so happens that I have been looking for a backup solution like this. Perfect timing for the giveaway, before I actually lose my photo collection. Ironically, just as I was ready to fill out the comment section... WHAMO! Murphy joins me! Thinking my chances were dwindling, I used the contact link and was able to email Colby. This is what I sent: Message: Like so many other things in life that could go wrong, as I read through the ReadyNAS giveaway, the comment section was "down for maintenance". As such, I was not able to leave feedback for a chance to win. If this kind of thing happened to my photo stock without a backup, I would be up the creek without a paddle. So, please consider this my entry and my +1 as that too was missing. Here's to hoping I win... Cheers! My response was quick, but the story continues. I work odd shifts at times, thus was unable to repost, as was suggested in the response. Still wanting to be a part of the giveaway, I emailed again as my phone can email, but not internet. Explaining my dilemma, I was informed I still had a little time left. I rushed home and... here I am! So once again, here's to hoping I win, but having fun with the journey... Cheers!

I spent 6 years on the road for work. I was all over the US and overseas. Having a ReadyNAS to connect to and store all of my images would be have been awesome! Instead I burnt and mailed to my house countless DVD+R's over the years.

I have the unit and havent been able to get it configured Support is only good for 90 days then they want to charge

My laptop died, taking all the family photos with it. Nothing on the HD was recoverable. :(

I am always confronted with the dilemma of accessing my photo library when away from home.

First, great review. I don't know that I have read such a comprehensive review for a NAS RAID before. Thanks. I am a self-employed graphic designer and illustrator. I currently have the original Drobo and while it works, it is not networkable, I do not have access to it remotely and I often struggle with the same issue you have with the proprietary issues that come with a closed system. I have been looking for a replacement for a couple of years now. I have a small home office and multiple computers that would benefit from the backup and especially the networking capabilities. There have also been a number of times while I am at a client's office, and I needed to access files or archived files on my Drobo from my home office. Remote access would ease these types of situations, help smooth out my work flow at times and something that I would use frequently. I would also feel much more comfortable knowing that I could leave my home office and access client files at anytime and anywhere.

My experience isn't as much traumatic as it is frustrating! I recently signed up for a Cloud Solution (not Dropbox) that was VERY reasonably priced for "unlimited" storage capacity. I should have remembered the old adage, "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is". This system is constantly crashing, the site continuously goes on and offline. I've set it up as a "networked" drive, but when it disconnects it stops all transfers from taking place. I've had the service for over two months and have only been able to transfer about a TB of data. I currently have two physical backups of my data and thought an online solution would be a much safer bet for me. This is not turning out so well. :( Pretty sure THIS product will be my answer. Thanks for posting this review.

From the purchase of my first digital camera I started looking for a way to back up and keep track of everything. After backing up every picture I had ever taken to the computer and then to CD's, I purchased an HP MediaVault and my solution had been met. It was network-able which was great for my growing family and the numerous computers in our household. My mother-in-law lives next door and I have her wired in as well to our network. Tragedy struck when my HP MediaVault died. As much as I hate to say it, it was probably my fault. I had been doing some electrical work on my house and I had shut the power off by the main breaker. I can't be for sure but it is possible because I did not do a proper shut down on my server that everything became corrupted. I had a local computer place work on repairing the data and retrieved allot of my pictures back but not in the same order or date they originated. I was now on the search for a new home server and I stuck with HP. HP had just released their new media server and after reading and comparing between the HP MediaServer and other hard drives on the market my choice was made. It is still in use but I have been looking into the future and your article was so enriched with the "proper" information that anyone would be able to make a sound decision concerning their back up needs. I just watched some Drobo promos with Cali Lewis and I think the Netgear sounds more promising in the long run. Again, thanks for your awesome article!

First of all, thank you Colby Brown (or should it be +Colby Brown, lol) for posting this informative review. Thank you also for visiting my Google+ page and advising me to wait for your review. If you don't remember, I made a post about finally biting the bullet and would possibly be ordering a Drobo. You said this review would be coming shortly and I decided to wait to see what you had to say. I ann glad that I waited. Anyway, the Drobo idea first came up because of problems. Isn't that usually the way. I made the original post when I had a near-catastropic mishap. I did not lose my photos (thank God) but temporarily lost my connection to them and was pretty much dead in the water as far as working with them. You see, my computer itself went down. I took it to Apple for repair if possible (which they were able to do, by the way). In the mean time I needed to get back to work on my photos and went to my wife's computer for relief. I had to install Lightroom on my wife's machine and then find a way to access my photos from an external drive. It was not as easy as I thought, as it turns out. All my original photos were there, as expected, but none of the working copies or data was available. All my edits were gone as were all my presets and customizations. Don't get me wrong, having your 'originals' is the ultimate goal after a catastrophe and I understand that. However, although not quite as important, all of your edits being missing and have to start back at square one with your originals is not fun, either. This event was good in that it got me thinking of my backup strategy, yet again. Like many commenters on here, I had several external hard drives scattered about my working area. I've had hard drives fail in the past and I DID LOSE irreplaceable photographs. So, some time ago I learned the hard way the meaning of backups. I have my originals on no less than three drives. I still always fear losing my data on these drives but this new incident with my computer simply brought the whole backup thing to the forefront for me once again. I feel people should review and renew their backup strategies every once in a while. We should always be on guard for holes in our plans and be prepared to plug them holes, perhaps with newer technology. Although I am not yet sure, but based on you review, I feel the ReadyNas Pro System may be just what I need. The fact that the ReadyNas can be accessed from any computer anywhere would sure help if ones computer went down and it's obvious to be helpful when a hard drive fails. It seems to have all the backup bases covered except for off site storage and yet this seems to also be doable with their Replicate option. And I truly love that the ReadyNas does not have a proprietary system, as I can easily see the advantage.

This is a great review and it was done is such a way that I totally understood everything. Well everything enough to know that this is a system I would love to have. When I think of all the photos I have lost over the years due to changing technology (mostly disk burning) Wow... Thanks for reviewing and giving us a chance of winning one of these awesome ReadyNAS Pro systems.

Great review. I currently have a 1st generation Drobo that is slow and loud, and probably not long for this world. It'd be nice to win it's replacement before I lose everything.

I used NAS systems for many years at a previous job and let me tell you, swapping out RAID drives saved our butts on many a day. It was before netgear made them, but a very similar system. Easy to use, to remote into, and it was a great streamer and a great straight-up storage space. We used it as our intranet server, among other things, and it was great. I love that there's now an option that photographers can use to do their work safely and efficiently -- from anywhere! Thanks for the review!

Very nice review. This seems to be a worthy competitor to the Drobo, especially for photographers. This seems like a perfect solution for the "media addicted" photographer. One of the ways I'm hoping to build my skills as a photographer is to shoot as much as possible, in as many different locations as possible, and all those RAW files start to add up! The ability to stream media pretty much anywhere is a huge benefit when traveling. I plan on taking more and more photography related trips and having the ability to easily access images from the road is a huge benefit. On top of the streaming and access abilities, the redundant backup is very appealing to me. I recently had a "hiccup" with my desktop and luckily I had a (one) backup but it sure would be nice to have an easy way to generate multiple backups at once.

This would have been great for all the family pics i have scan to my computer but keep on my external hard drive that then when i am 600 miles away from home and my mom want me to show the whole family and i dont have any with me!

I backup all my photos to an external drive after every shoot to free up space on my laptop. Recently I got a sick feeling when the external hard drive I had been using for a few months wouldn't turn on. Not to worry, I replicate that hard drive to another every time, so I was sure I had a backup. I go to the backup drive and in horror it tells me 100% is available. Luckily I was able to get the first drive working and make a new backup of it immediately. But ever since I have been on the search for a more reliable RAID solution.

Thanks for the article, ReadyNAS would definitely make my life easier. I've been backing up my data on 3 external drives and one other computer, since the HD's are not that big my back-up are scattered across all that. I've beer considering readynas for a while but the price tag is a little high, and the HD's are overpriced after those flood problems in Asia. It looks to be a really good product and I would love to win it.

During Hurricane Irene we had a surge and lost power for a week. My Old HP MediaVault single disk unit bit the dust. I did have things also backed up to the cloud. Now I only have a single drive and need some type of RAID device. It is not a matter of if but when my current drive will fail.

I currently have a Windows Home Server NAS that is dying. It is constantly losing it's connection to the network, and the only way to get it back is to reboot the machine. The machine is on it's last legs and needs to be replaced. I'm currently using it to back up my photos and music collection (with redundancy) and is desperately in need of replacing. It uses Microsoft's version of custom raid, called drive extender, so the amount of data that needs to be moved is larger than any of the computers in the house can hold.

I just longing for that day when I'll lay hands on this one. Its been such a relief to found a reliable storage device at last. This one will fit pretty in my operations room. I have gone through a lot of horrible times without a NAS raid system in place. So, I am beginning to dreaming that day.... Lets hope sooner than later.....:?

i am so ready for a NAS raid system..... as a photographer and a businessman i cannot stress the importance of making/having recent backups and preferably not in the same location as pointed out by colby brown. fact of the matter is ,it is only a matter of time before any hard drive fails,but that it will fail eventually is a certainty ! with this system to replace a failed drive without any loss of data whatsoever is so easy just slide out the old and slide in the new and that is done my friends without any downtime or loss of data ! its a dream come true. and just to finish off those of you not familiar with RAID it gives you an advantage of hugely increased speed executing instructions compared to none RAID systems .thankyou

This would serve as a backup solution to my HDD and PicasaWeb especially when it comes to storing RAW files.

I've been looking at Netgear's Ready NAS system for a couple of weeks now. I currently use LR, PS, and Aperture, depending on the project. I have two- WD 2 TB external HD's. Both have died and been replaced at least once. I have a third WD 1TB external HD that I used to back up customer files. A month ago, that died. I also have a 500GB back up for time machine, and 2 Seagate 500GB external drives I just picked up so that I can send large video files to my customers, as most of them don't have a Blu Ray reader. I really think I'm ready for some serious NAS! If I win the diskless system, I promise to fill it with 2TB drives as soon as I can!! Thanks!

I'd love to have the readyNAS system, because as a photographer and media enthusiast with almost 18 separate hard drives ranging from 60GB to 1TB in size, I desperately need to consolidate. However, the main reason I need the readyNAS system is because my late night/early morning "emergency" runs to my office to pick up forgotten drives/files are starting to become a hazard to my health. Recently, I was forced to make a 2AM run to the office and actually fell asleep at the wheel (the recent addition of a new baby to our family has made sleep deprivation a fact of life). Thankfully, I was stopped at a red light. This was the prvoverbial "straw" for me. Man, I hope I win this thing.

I have a very powerhungry NAS built from my previous computer... But it doenst use THAT much power that investing in a good NAS would pay back for the power used. So....

Nice review (: I have a dozen HDDs here and there, it's a total nightmare! The NAS would greatly improve my mental health!

My main laptop has fried 3 of my HDDs. Would love to go SSD but the prices are still a bit high. I do carry around a couple backup 2.5" HDDs in enclosures but I've had those fail on me too. I was going to purchase a simple NAS device on black friday but after reading reviews of the specific one on discount, I decided not to. Thanks for your in depth review because now I know this is exactly what I need!

Terrific. Perfect for a school where we need to manage large quantities of images for school yearbook projects. Tape backups no longer cut it when someone needs a quick file restoration.

One of these would be so cool. I am just trying to figure out a better backup system right now and this would fit in so well. Our last Raid array blew up taking one drive out of the 4 with it. Lost about 10 days of photos which included our daughters formal :-(

Thank you for the review! I would have loved to have had this in place when my hard drive crashed and took all my daughter's baby pictures with it to drive heaven. :'(

Thanks for the great review. On a flight a few years ago from Dulles to Denver, while I worked on my laptop in my business class seat the woman next to enjoyed the champagne like it was water. Probably not the smartest thing as she was drinking at altitude with the pressurization. Somewhere around the Mississippi out of the corner of my eye I see the latest glass of champagne go flying my way and before I can react it ended up landing on my laptop. That is when the fun started as flight attendants came running with towels but with the sticky solution leaking out of my keyboard it was already too late making the remaining two hours of the flight quite interesting. With a destroyed laptop and the unknown status of my data I learned at that time the importance of backing up and also welcome more solutions to the mix especially now as a photographer.

This December when we went to do our Christmas cards, we discovered the Mac wasn't working properly. The problem? The kitten had chewed through one of the USB cables, and now the USB ports are fried! We could replace the mac, but we can't afford to replace all the software on it right now - and it's running an old OS X operating system that can't even boot off an external DVD. The solution will be to get another identical Mac, I fear, and spend a few days getting a hybrid system working. But right now I can't back it up either; a NAS would let me connect remotely and do that. It happens my own external USB drive for backup died at about the same time, and also my desktop computer started having problems (possibly because we had a massive power brownout, although the desktop is on a UPS power conditioner). I've been thinking about setting up a raid-based media storage centre for the house / home office for a while now, since I do photography and my partner is an artist, and I run a stock image web site (fromoldbooks.org) and accessing stuff from lots of different computers is a pain. The last NAS I got required custom Linux kernel modules that were out of date before the unit even arrived, and I only ever used it over USB fastened to a single computer. I nearly bought a new one this past month, but (1) it's an hour's drive to the store, over the bridge from the island, and that can actually be dangerous in winter, and (2) where is the money? :-) But still, those Boxing Day sales were awfully tempting! Now, where did I put those kitten photos?

More storage = More Photos. More Photos = More fun. More fun = Enlightenment. Thus from this giveaway we can conclude that Colby Brown has the ability to grant Enlightenment.

I am a living example of how a READYNAS can be helpful. I am so disorganized with multiple internal drives, external drives, offsite back up and I think I still have things archived on DVDs. This would keep my photos more organized, safe and easy to access!

Tell a story about when a Ready NAS Pro would have helped? Well, when I had two external hard drive backups both fail at the same time as was down to my third and final backup. You don't have to tell me the importance of these - I have been backing up my photos on a ReadyNAS Pro for a couple of years now - and on a ReadyNAS+ for a few years before that!

The one time i could have used this was when attending a family wedding in Thailand. Spent 4 days in Thailand prior to the wedding and took heaps of videos and photo's of all things. Including some of me diving! Got forward to the day before the wedding and guess who ahs no space on the video camera to take any more photos.... you guessed it; me :( If i had the ready NAS-remote. i could have saved my photo's instead of having to delete half of them

Well basically i currently use a series of HDD's to back up all my data and i'm starting to lose track of what is where and where is what. So if i had a readyNAS i would be able to have all my data securely in one place and would be able to setup an automated backup system meaning i don't lose track of my stuff again!

Love the idea. And need something bigger. I got numerous portable harddrives and usb sticks and stuff spread on multiple machines. If I lost everything on my laptop that got 2 external harddrives connected to it it would take a lot to collect everything so I have it in accessible manner again.. a NAS with raid like this would allow me to keep all my stuff in one place that is safe and no longer have to have the 2 external harddrives hooked to my laptop.

Oh man, if I had a ReadyNAS, I wouldn't have 60GB of music stuck in Google Music..Worst places it could be I suppose, but I would much rather have it in my grubby little hands. Thank's to the miracle of alcohol, I decided that I should migrate my file server to a new OS, case, and mobo at the same time...After several shots of Hendricks Gin, ahh the sweet cucumber princess...A feat like this would have been a no brainer for me on most nights, I had everything stored on a software raid10, and I have done much more complicated surgical procedures. But alas, it was not meant to be, 3 shots and one misplaced / later, I was staring at a blank folder. As the sweat started to build up on my brow, I thought, ok still one good drive, I can hard recover from the single drive, should have enough data to recover...tick tick tick, clank, tick tick tick, clank...Curse your SEAGATE!!! The dreaded tick of death, other drive must have already been dead, I just failed to notice....If only I had a ReadyNAS, I wouldn't have an entire music collection stuck on google servers, gone but not forgotten. Maybe one day they will allow syncing DOWN!!! until then, I can only hope for a ReadyNAS and more Hendricks Gin.

I have been backing up my images on separate external drives and have gotten to the point that I am feeling overwhelmed and not organized when trying to find files and am very nervous about the possibility of losing images, including the 14k images I recently shot in Africa. I need to find a good solution!

This would be usefull to save all my 3 kids digital photos and video as a backup unit, I would be ok for a couples of years with that NAS. The performance and features of that device looks great! Thanks for sharing the info! +Daniel Sirois

This device would've been great the last four times I've upgraded my PC. I build my own systems, and I always end up accumulating extra hard drives with data I want to keep. I now have over 6 hard drives of different sizes just sitting there waiting to be emptied into one big NAS box. I would need more than 6 terabytes to store all my media, which is not just photos and music, but also tons of footage which takes way too much space. I know, my story isn't a sad one, but perhaps this is a way of preventing one! I will now cross my fingers hoping I win :)

I would have liked having it after I converted all my CDs to .mp3 and got rid of them all. I kind wish I had thought about this more before my hard drive when up in smoke. :D

Is this still down?

This would be a great asset to our church office! With website and images growing exponentially, a lot of issues would be solved, and secure! Love the simplicty! A definite +!