I bit the bullet last week and ordered an Infrant ReadyNAS 600 1TB RAID NAS box from AJump. Longtime readers will note that I’m currently using two [periodically] mirrored 250GB hard drives. I filled up the hard drive in February and have been using an 80GB “scratch” disk to store my recent photos. This was not a good solution because (1) the data wasn’t being backed up and (2) I didn’t like the idea of my photos residing on multiple hard drives, and (3) I’ve already had one hard drive crash in the last year. Since my data is priceless, I was eager to find a better solution.
My options included:
- Buying and mirror two 400GB hard drives
- Building my own RAID 5 system
- Buying a third-party RAID 5 system
I didn’t want to buy two 400GB hard drives because I knew I would quickly outgrow that system. Plus, I didn’t want to have to backup the devices periodically; FireWire on my desktop is acting funny, so I didn’t trust a periodic rsync backup between the two drives. As much as I like control, I didn’t want to go the route of building a RAID 5 system out of off-the-shelf components. I’m managing enough as it is, and I wanted something that I could plug in and [basically] forget.
Enter the ReadyNAS 600. I read a glowing review of the product on Luminous Landscape. Andy Biggs is using a similar device from Buffalo Tech, the Terastation NAS box, but I wasn’t able to find that in stock anywhere. Prices for the ReadyNAS vary. On most web sites, it’s listed at $1595, but I found a re-badged version of the ReadyNAS on one of Infrant’s partner web sites. Ajump sells a version that you can configure yourself. Prices start at $855 for a barebones model with just one 80GB hard drive. I configured mine with 4x250GB Hitachi Deskstar hard drives, and the price came out to be $1360 (before tax and shipping). Definitely save some money and buy from Ajump! A RAID 5 configuration gives me 650GB of storage space, which is a bit less than the 750GB that I thought would be available. I figure when prices get low on 400GB drives, I can upgrade the machine to 1.6TB.
I’m currently transferring the contents from my 250GB photo hard drive to the very Borg-cube looking ReadyNAS. It’s taking a long time over 100Mbps, however. I guess I should have plugged the box directly into my PowerMac, which supports Gigabit Ethernet. Too bad the system has to be initially set up using a Windows-only application and too bad my PowerMac is located so far away from the rest of the network. Eventually, I’ll get a gigabit switch and set up a high-speed network in the house.
Question for readers. Is it possible to use both the Airport wireless connection and the Ethernet port at the same time? If my PowerMac is hooked up to the Internet via Airport, can I also plug it into a gigabit switch (with the ReadyNAS) and still access both networks?
I’ll be writing more about the ReadyNAS in the coming weeks. I am going to be discussing it at the next COBA meeting, to be held on April 13th.
One more thing, since the device is on the network, I gave it the name of the monster from the Pit of Carkoon. Everything that falls into the Sarlacc is digested over a period of a thousand years. More from the Star Wars Databank:
Because of its isolation, the Sarlacc rarely feeds, as it must rely on animals that stumble into the pit. As such, it has evolved an extremely efficient digestive process. According to lore, the stomach pit of the Sarlacc keeps its prey alive for a thousand years, slowly dissolving its meal into needed nutrients, while the hapless victim is kept alive in searing, endless agony.
Yes, that’s an appropriate name for the ReadyNAS!
tow.com 
I often connect my windows PC to both wired and wireless networks at the same time, it works fine. You may need to make sure you are running on two separate subnets for it to work the way you want.
That seems needlessly complicated for what you want to do, Adam. Just hook up your wireless router as… a router, and plug the thing into your current broadband router…? (Don’t have it do DHCP, too).
I bought a gigabit switch from Fry’s yesterday. The switch is connected to the Ethernet network and connects to the ReadyNAS and the PowerMac. Things seem to be working smoothly now.
Adam,
You may have already found them: But under the “Systems” link under Frontview, there is a “Performance” tab which allows you to tweak the write performance of the NAS. Enabling the “Write Cache” and disabling “Full Data Journaling” should result in a 80% improvement in write performance. Please consult your user’s manual to make sure that you understand the potential trade-offs or feel free to email me.
Thanks,
Sam Feng
Product Marketing
Infrant Technologies
[…] e issues and keep your data safe. More information can be found here: Infrant Website Initial Thoughts ReadyNas 600 at COBA Luminous Landscape Review Signing Up If you are intereste […]
I would avoid Western Digital drives at all cost. I’ve lost a few of these drives, and friends report high loss rate as well: http://echeng.com/journal/index.php?p=903
(I was referring to the configuration offered at COBA: http://coba.tow.com/?p=41 )
These are Western Digital RAID Edition Drives, which apparently are rated for longer life. When I bought my box, I had it configured with Hitachi drives. If you’re concerned about the drives, you might want to consider the $599 driveless configuration and supply your own.
[…] e issues and keep your data safe. More information can be found here: Infrant Website Initial Thoughts ReadyNas 600 at COBA Luminous Landscape Review Signing Up If you are intereste […]
You mentioned Ajump as a good place to buy the infrant readynas 600. I actually found that NewEgg.com has started to carry the ReadyNAS which is where I have picked up mine. Can’t beat the low price of $1189 for a fully configured 1T machine.
I was going to build my own with the base ReadyNAS and four Seagate drives, but I was only going to save perhaps $70 and would have needed to purchase from multiple sources (OEM drives from Newegg and diskless ReadyNAS from atacom.com.
Sunil
A company called eaegis are doing decent enough deals as well on ReadyNAS 600 and the new X6.
We picked up two of the ReadyNAS 600 and have ordered anothr two as well a few days ago.
X6- is $599.00 and the drives are cheap as well – espcially the 300GB Seagates.
Try them out – http://www.eaegis.com/
Also, have a site for Europe.
Good Hunting to all buyers
Pete
peter,
what is the site for europe plse ? i am based in the uk and NAS is still crazy money here !!
Infrant has on their website listed this site in the UK:
http://www.eaegis.net/
/Roy
I would definitely recommend to look at ReadyNAS X6 as it has on the fly RAID growth. 1hd ->2hd [mirror] ->3hd [double] -> 4hd [triple capacity]
Waittasecond… you got Hitachi “Deathstar” drives in there? WHY? Is any of them still alive? Seriously, google for IBM Deskstar (now Hitachi) and “click of death”. Good luck!
Prices in Europe are coming down, you can buy READYNAS with hotswap and Active Directory integration with 2tb for £1149, BUT if you buy the barebones for £419 http://tinyurl.com/nj9n7 and then add 4 x 750gb drives currently £238 each http://tinyurl.com/kw3js you get 3TB of NAS for £1371 so just £222 for the extra TB. You need every thing you can get with RAID5 taking it’s space.
Listen to DeathStar!
never use a Hitachi/IBM harddrive for serious data!
branded child
The “Deathstar” meme refers to the old 45/60 GB IBM drives- drives that are a half-decade old at this point.
It doesn’t just refer to 45/60 GB IBM drives. I had a Hitachi 120GB go the same way as 3 of my IBMs wentbefore I changed to Seagate. Google hitachi deathstar and look at the continuing problems
I know this is an old post, but I read it when I was researching the ReadyNAS, and others probably do too, so I wanted to post this quick update. After the Netgear acquisition, the diskless ReadyNAS is apparently no longer going to be available. I haven’t been able to find any in stock anywhere, it’s been removed from the Infrant website and people who’ve asked customer service about it have been told that it’s no longer available. This effectively makes the ReadyNAS much more expensive. It may well still be worth it, but it changes the equation substantially.
I stumbled upon your comments about the ReadyNAS. Have you run into any performance issues or what would you recommend as far as the performance options available in the control interface?