The Infrant ReadyNAS NV Network Attached Storage Device

!!Side Note
The Geeks use [GRISOFT AVG|http://free.grisoft.com/] for virus protection.

! Article about the ReadyNAS NV from [InFrant Technologies|http://www.infrant.com/]
We’ve had many discussions on GeekSpeak regarding the volatility of hard drives and the importance of data backup. These discussions begin, invariably, with a listener calling into the show. They inquire about data recovery software for their failing hard drive, mimic the grinding noise their drive is making (at judicious prompting from Lyle), or simply lament the passing of their drive completely. We’ve said many times on the air; it’s not a matter of whether your hard drive will fail, it’s when. If you’ve never lost data to hard drive failure, count yourself lucky, because those of us who have truly understand just how quickly it can be lost. Once you’ve actually lost data, you understand just how precious it was. But of course, by then, it’s too late.

In this article, we’ll be discussing [NAS|Network Attached Storage] devices. Specifically, we will be discussing the ReadyNAS NV NAS from [InFrant Technologies|http://www.infrant.com/]. NAS devices use multiple hard drives to store data. If a drive were to fail, the data would be safe and a simple replacement of the drive would restore data protection. If you’re not quite sure what a hard drive is, how a hard drive works, or what types of hard drive connections technologies exist (like Serial ATA), please refer to our [article on hard drive technologies |http://geekspeak.org/articles/12/].

! What is a NAS?
[NAS|Network Attached Storage] is an abbreviation for Network Attached Storage. A NAS is typically a box that contains multiple drives that appear as one large volume of space. If a NAS supports four drives, like the ReadyNAS NV, and you place four 500[GB|A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes] drives in it, you effectively see one very large 2000GB drive, or 2[TB|a terabytes is 1000 gigabytes] of data. TWO TERABYTES!

NAS devices use a technology called [RAID|Redundant Array of Independent Drives] that allows the hard drives used by the NAS to be configured in such a way that if one drive fails, the data on the volume is not lost. There are different flavors of RAID that offer different features. These are explained in a bit more detail in the RAID section.

Why is a NAS device important? Because it protects data that is most important to you, such as archived tax returns, financial statements, your music collection, digital pictures, contacts, old emails, and anything else important to you—as long as you keep that data on your NAS device. Keeping your data on the hard drive in your computer or on external hard drives that attach with [USB|Universal Serial Bus] and [Firewire|Also known as 1394] connectors is a form of digital Russian Roulette with odds that get progressively worse over time.

! The Infrant ReadyNAS NV
We had the opportunity to test Infrant’s ReadyNAS 600 unit, the predecessor of the NV, and found it to be small, durable and very well made. However, the ReadyNAS 600 pales in comparison to the ReadyNAS NV’s sturdy, double-steel construction. The NV is beefy, sturdy and very well made. If you like Macs, you’ll love the ReadyNAS NV.
[readynas_front.jpg|The ReadyNAS NV is 7.9 inches (200 mm) tall, 5.2 inches (132 mm) wide, and 8.7 inches (222 mm) deep.]

The NV’s mirrored front panel is simple and somewhat elegant. The blue power button reminds us of the [Prius|The Toyota Prius is one of the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid automobiles.] start button and the grill is heavy-gauge metal that not only provides a nice, industrial feel, but allows airflow to flow from the fan in the back to the front and across the four hard drives. The NV is also completely lead (Pb) free and compliant with the European [RoHS | Restriction of Hazardous Substance] environmental standard.
[readynas_back.jpg|Infrant says the handle is strong enough to be grabbed and carried quickly should the need arise. If this is where your precious data resides, keeping it close on hand is not a bad idea.]

The back of the unit has two USB ports for connecting portable hard drives or USB printers, a gigabit Ethernet port, and a large 120mm fan that blows into the unit and out through the front grill. It even has a handle in the back that’s sturdy enough to support the weight of the 15 pound chassis (with hard drives)!
[readynas_drive_tray.jpg|The front door is sturdy and closes with a magnetic snap. You’ll find yourself opening and closing it over and over…]

The NV holds up to four hard drives that are housed in special drive trays that slide directly into the unit and connect with a snap. Once in place, the drives are safe and secure. The ReadyNAS NV can be configured with only a single drive and more can be added later to increase the size of the volume and to add data protection. This is good for those on a budget; you can buy an empty unit and buy drives at your convenience. Also, the fact that the ReadyNAS NV has hot-swappable drive trays means replacing drives is easy. When the unit is off, you can pull a drive to quickly get the make and model number and insert it back into the NV without affecting your data.
[readynas_uses.jpg|The ReadyNAS NV has many uses.]

The ReadyNAS NV can be used with a Windows Media Center PC to stream digital videos, music, and pictures. We were not able to fully test this function and will provide more information in this area when we revisit this article with benchmark data.

Since a NAS can pretty much reside anywhere where a network cable can be strung, they can be easily tucked away out of sight as long as it has proper airflow. Hiding it in a closed closet may not be a good idea.

! Gigabit Ethernet
In the past, a NAS with typical 10/100 [Ethernet|Ethernet is a frame-based computer networking technology for local area networks (LANs)] connectivity was more than sufficient for any network. 10/100 refers to the speed of the network connection, so 10/100 supports both 10[Mb|A megabit is 1,000 bits] and 100[Mb|A megabit is 1,000 bits] connections. Megabits are different than megabytes. A byte is made up of 8 bits, so a megabyte is 8,000 bits. To get the megabyte equivalent for 10/100, which is 10,000,000 bits and 100,000,000 bits, divide the numbers by 8 and you get 1.25 megabytes of bandwidth for a 10 megabit Ethernet connection and 12.5 megabytes of bandwidth for a 100 megabit connection. Those sizes refer to the amount of data that can be sent across the line of an Ethernet network connection per second.

Gigabit Ethernet is much faster. A gigabit Ethernet connection is 1000 megabits, so it has a data rate of 125 megabytes per second.

Let’s put this in perspective. What if you want your cutting-edge media server or NAS device to stream HD content to your TV and various computers. What type of network would you need? Most video is compressed, which reduces the amount of bandwidth needed to stream the video over a Network without dropping frames, so a 10/100 Ethernet connection may cut it, but it’s doubtful. To stream uncompressed [HD|High Definition] content, your network would need to support data rates of 82 to 124 megabytes per second. If your video has a lot of scene changes and movement, such as ocean shots of water, it cannot be compressed very much, so a 10/100 Ethernet connection won’t cut it.

The ReadyNAS NV not only supports gigabit Ethernet connections, it also has support for jumbo frames, as long as your gigabit switch supports jumbo frames. This is how it works: on the receiving end (write performance), the frame size is auto detected (up to 8K) and adjusted accordingly. The Network card or [NIC|Network Interface Card] also needs to be set to use 8K packets (or something larger—during the negotiation process, the client/NAS will communicate at the lowest common denominator) in order to realize the best performance. On the send side (Read Performance), Infrant does not use jumbo frames yet in order to minimize compatibility issues. Infrant claims that things can get tricky if multiple clients are communicating on a network and only some support jumbo frames. This may be changed later.

! RAID
[RAID|Redundant Array of Independent Drives] is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Drives. It is sometimes referred to as Inexpensive drives, but we prefer Independent because larger Serial ATA drives are not inexpensive.

[readynas_raid_config.jpg|This RAID chart provides an idea of the amount of space that is available using the various RAID configurations. The green is the total amount of volume available to you while the blue slices denote how much space is dedicated to protection (also called redundancy)]

In a RAID 0 array, the ReadyNAS “stripes” data across the drives, breaking up large files into smaller blocks and then performing disk reads and writes across the drives in parallel. RAID 0 is ideal for applications that require high bandwidth but do not require fault tolerance, or protection. It provides the best performance and capacity of any RAID level, but the lowest availability (no fault tolerance). In a RAID 0 array, if one drive fails, the entire array fails because part of the data is missing with no way to recover it other than restoring from a backup, and since a NAS device is your backup, you could be in big trouble. RAID 0 is a great as a separate RAID array dedicated to work-in-progress applications like compressing very large videos.

In a RAID 1 array, every read and write is carried out in parallel across two disk drives.
The mirrored—or backup—copy of the data resides on the second redundant drive in the array. RAID 1 provides complete data redundancy, but at the cost of space. Since both drives essentially hold the same data, the overall space is halved. Performance is roughly the same as for a single drive, although in some instances the dual write may be somewhat slower.

RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more drives. RAID 5 writes data and parity blocks across all the drives in the array. Protection, or fault tolerance, is maintained by ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on a different drive from those used to store the data itself. RAID 5 provides an ideal combination of good performance, good fault tolerance, and high capacity and storage efficiency.

Infrant’s patented X-RAID technology allows easy expandability of a RAID volume by simply plugging in new hard drives. Infrant’s automatic volume expansion technology sets up drive security and expands the overall capacity without damaging your data. Infrant X-RAID technology offers scalable capacity and protection as drives are added:
*1 Drive = NAS
*2 Drives (RAID1) = NAS + Protection
*3 Drives (RAID5) = NAS + Protection + Double Capacity
*4 Drives (RAID5) = NAS + Protection + Triple Capacity

! RAIDar
RAIDar is a pun on radar without losing its root meaning—it looks for the NV’s RAID volume.
[readynas_raidar_launch.jpg]

Yes, that’s the RAIDar Radar.
[readynas_raidar_setup.jpg]

After RAIDar has located the NV unit, it can be used to access the configuration settings of the NV unit, to launch an Explorer window to the files (via the Browse button), or to locate a selected ReadyNAS unit should you have several. This is done using the Locate button that makes the buttons blink on the selected ReadyNAS unit.

[readynas_volume_setup.jpg]

The snapshot feature allows a certain amount of drive space to be set aside when the volume is created to be used for backing up volumes so they can be recovered should a virus crop up.

! FrontView
Infrant’s ReadyNAS NV is administered using a standard browser-based interface. The embedded RAIDiator OS provides a bunch of advanced features including automated backup capabilities, stream media using built-in media server capabilities, auto update utility and auto shut-down options.
[readynas_welcome.jpg]

Actually, all of the ReadyNAS NV screens are much wider than the screenshots we show here. Located in the bottom-right corner is a graphical representing the health of various aspects of the unit. The [LED|Light Emitting Diodes]s change depending on the health of the unit. This screenshot was taken when the NV unit was in the middle rebuilding the volume after the right drive was pulled. The health of the Fan in the back of the unit, the temperature of the unit, and status of the [UPS| Universal Power Supply] if the NV is connected to one.
[readynas_welcome_full.jpg]

The first time you enter FrontView, you must go through a Setup Wizard that walks you step-by-step through a numerous screens. Once done, your ReadyNAS NV is essentially ready to run. Of course, you may want to manually tweak settings.
[readynas_ethernet.jpg]

The ReadyNAS NV can automatically detect a network connection or it can be configured manually. In the best-case scenario, you have a [DHCP|Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol] server already, so you would have no need to enter a static IP, net mask, gateway, or DNS—it is all done automatically for you. In case you don’t have a DHCP server, the ReadyNAS NV can provide those services for you. This means that it will automatically dole out IP addresses to all of your computers, making it easy to add computers to your network.

! Security
The ReadyNAS NV supports three different security modes:
[readynas_security_mode.jpg]

The first mode is called “Home and small office”. In this mode, security is granted on a per-share basis. This means access to the NAS is limited based on who has the share password. If you want to prevent kids from accessing the NV, simply don