Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, good value storage for music and video

Netgear acquired Infrant's range of NAS devices back in early 2007, but it hasn't thrown the baby out with the bathwater, retaining a similar look and feel for its newer devices. The twin-bay Duo is one of these and boasts a host of attractive features.

While the diskless ReadyNAS Duo may cost significantly more than the Buffalo or LaCie drives, it isn't without good reason. The Duo's metal frame helps it to feel incredibly sturdy and well built. It isn't just for show, either.

Installation requires the user to secure each hard disk in a removable caddy with four screws, but once done the drives slide in and lock into place. Removing drives is a simple matter of depressing a button and sliding them out. This means hot-swapping of drives is on the agenda. There's no RAID0 or other RAID options as Netgear's own X-RAID technology mirrors the drives in a two-disk array, so it isn't a problem.

Performance isn't up with the Synology, but considering the price differential it isn't far behind. The chassis was fitted with two Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives giving speeds of 19MB/sec and 11MB/sec for large and small files. Read speeds soared to 28MB/sec for large files and 17MB/sec for small files.

The web interface is simple, with clear information about relevant sections. There are iTunes, UPnP media and print servers, and you get the facility for user accounts, user quotas and the capability to dabble with web hosting.

At this price, the ReadyNAS Duo is a bargain. It isn't quite the fastest, or the most fully featured, but for all-round performance at a mid-range price it's very hard to beat.