Late last year Netgear announced their new ReadyNAS Duo v2 and NV+ v2 devices, which are aimed at value-conscious business users and home media enthusiasts. Netgear claimed that their new models were twice as fast as previous generations, while costing up to 30% less. Meanwhile the same 24/7 support and a 3 year warranty existed.

The 4-bay ReadyNAS NV+ v2 costs around $580, while the two-bay ReadyNAS Duo v2 costs less than half that at just $200. Despite the massive difference in price both devices include hot-swap disk drive bays and automatic capacity expansion, as well as USB 3.0 ports for up to 20% speedier backups.

At just $200 the ReadyNAS Duo v2 is amongst the cheapest 2-bay NAS devices money can buy, rubbing shoulders with the Synology DS212j and QNAP TS-212-US. While we are yet to test the QNAP TS-212-US, we have benchmarked the Synology DS212j so that will make for an interesting comparison with the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2.

The ReadyNAS Duo v2 measures 221mm long, 142 tall and 101mm wide and empty tips the scales at just 2.0kgs. The bulk of the unit has been constructed from steel with only the front panel being made of plastic. The device has been given a gun metal grey paint job, though the underside and rear have not been painted.

At the front of the device is a door which when opened exposes the removable drive bays. The door features a perforated steel cover with the Netgear name embedded in the middle. The door locks shut using a pair of magnets and we found that the design worked very well, holding the door securely in place while still making it easy to open.

Also included at the front is a small circular power button which lights up blue when active, followed by a blue activity light, and two more blue lights for each hard drive. Next we have a backup button which is linked to the front mounted USB 2.0 for quick copies.

Around the back of the unit is a single Gigabit Ethernet port and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Additionally there is also a power connector and a factory reset button. The power supply is external as the ReadyNAS Duo v2 utilizes a power brick made by PI Electronics. Netgear have labeled the power support with the model number AD8180LF and as far as we can tell this is a 12v/5A 60 watt power supply.

Underneath the ReadyNAS Duo v2 are four circular feet which feature rubber pads. They lift the unit 10mm off the ground, though this clearance is not that important as air is not required to flow underneath. Overall the ReadyNAS Duo v2 is a smart looking and very compact NAS device.

Netgear has gone with the Marvell Kirkwood 88F6282 which can be clocked between 1.6 – 2.0GHz, they have clocked it at 1.6GHz. In the past we have seen the Synology DS112 (1.6GHz), DS212 (1.6GHz), DS212+ (2.0GHz), DS111 (1.6GHz), DS211 (1.6GHz), DS211+ (1.6GHz), DS411 (1.6GHz) and DS411slim (1.6GHz) all use this very processor. The 88F6282 has also been used extensively by QNAP, so we are interested to see how this Netgear implementation performs.

The key difference between the various Synology models mentioned above has been the amount of RAM that has been included. The vast majority of the lower-end models all received a 256MB capacity, while the more expensive and much faster models were armed with a larger 512MB buffer.

The ReadyNAS Duo v2 is fitted with just 256MB of RAM so we are not expecting it to be able to take on the likes of the DS211+ for example. The 256MB memory comes from a pair of Hynix H5TQ1G83DFR-H9C chips which are rated for DDR3-1333 using CL9-9-9 timings.

Also included on the main PCB is a single Hynix H27U1G8F2BTR chip which provides 128MB of flash NAND memory for installing firmware. Network support is provided by the Marvell Alaska 88E1318 physical layer device, which provides a single Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) connection.

Finally we also found the NEC µPD720200A controller which provides the pair of USB 3.0 ports located at the rear of the ReadyNAS Duo v2. Overall we found a fairly basic hardware configuration inside the ReadyNAS Duo v2, though given the price tag we were impressed to find features such as USB 3.0.

With your storage in place, you'll want to install the RAIDar software, which detects any Netgear NAS devices and allows the user to install firmware (supplied on a CD or downloaded from Netgear’s website).

The latest firmware available as I write this is RAIDiator 5.3.5 which brings about a number of fixes, though there are also still a few known limitations.

The RAIDar software will detect the ReadyNAS Duo v2 once you have installed it on the network and give you information such as MAC Address, Model, Host Name and IP Address. The ReadyNAS Duo v2 first installs firmware and then tests the hard drives. Once that is done the user can hit the setup button and begin configuration of the device.

The first menu allows the user to setup the storage volume using either the X-RAID2 expandable volume or what Netgear calls Flex-RAID, which is just standard RAID0, 1 or JDOB. For testing we tried both the standard RAID0 and X-RAID2 options.

Upon selecting a volume type a message appears notifying the user that it may take around an hour for the volume to be created and then several hours to perform a RAID sync in the background. Unfortunately there is no quick format option for those with new drives, which is really annoying. Back in the early days Synology did this as well, but eventually they added a quick setup option and it was much welcomed.

The annoying thing about this Netgear implementation is that there is no obvious indication of where the volume creating process is at. Once the user agrees on a volume that they would like to create, such as RAID0 for example, the software closes to the main windows and just says “Creating Volume”, with no indication of how long this will take or that percentage the process is up to.

However it is possible to access the RAIDiator 5 software using your default web browser and check the volume progress, it just took a little time for us to work this out. Once in the overview menu, which is a sub-menu of the system menu, the user will see a drop down titled volume.

By holding the mouse over the information icon a message box appears showing the RAID type, progress, speed and time left, which is very helpful. In the end our X-RAID2 setup took a little over 2 hours to configure, which is painfully slow for a 500GB capacity.

Overall the setup process was relatively straight forward, just be prepared to wait a few hours before getting started.

Once logged into the RAIDiator 5 Dashboard software the main menu offers quite a lot of information, from system health to shared folders. Users can also view installed add-ons as well as photos loaded into the ReadyNAS Photos II software.

Although Netgear has an excellent developer community there doesn’t appear to be many add-ons available for the ReadyNAS Duo v2 just yet, as the only other add-on to popup was ReadyNAS Replicate. The vast majority of the add-ons are for x86 and Sparc platforms, with almost no ARM add-ons available yet. The original ReadyNAS Duo is a Sparc product so those add-ons will not work with the new ReadyNAS Duo v2.

Still, the revamped photo sharing add-on allows users to easily share their photos online with complete control over their shared photos and the best part is there are zero subscription fees. The software was easy to use and we found it to be quite powerful. That said, we do not feel it is quite as good as Synology’s Photo Station software just yet.

The Replicate add-on has a 45 day trial and has a separate one-time license that costs $45. This software allows users to manage replication for ReadyNAS series and rackmount products. The software allows users to easily backup their data to another device on the same network and will even work from a remote location providing internet access is available.

This software also allows users to backup using their own private cloud. The Private Cloud ReadyNAS Remote add-on with iOS and Android App allows users to create their own “private cloud” and access their files from anywhere - on a majority of the most popular platforms. ReadyNAS Remote has clients for Windows, OSX, iOS, and Android.

Using the RAIDiator 5 management software to create folders on the ReadyNAS Duo v2 is very easy and a great deal of customizations can be made. The user can set sharing protocols, share properties, access and protocols-specific settings such as read/write access.

Finally there is also a feature which Netgear calls ReadyDLNA Service, which as the name suggests is DLNA streaming support. This means the ReadyNAS Duo v2 can be used as a central media hub for Xbox 360, PS3, TVs, iTunes or other devices such as Logitech’s Squeezbox for example. Overall the software is powerful enough to give the user quite a lot of control over the ReadyNAS Duo v2, but it is still very lacking when compared to alternatives by Synology and QNAP.

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 consumed roughly the same amount of power as the Synology DS212+, DS211 and DS212j with a load consumption of 19 watts with a pair of Western Digital 500GB hard drives installed.

When downloading our 6GB ISO file from the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 using the RAID0 configuration we saw a throughput of 94.2MB/s, which was surprisingly fast as this was a 15% performance improvement on the Synology DS212j. The X-RAID2 configuration provided similar performance with an average transfer rate of 92MB/s.

Again we find that the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 is surprisingly fast, with a download speed of over 60MB/s in our game test. The RAID0 setup hit 67.1MB/s, while the X-RAID2 configuration was slightly slower averaging 66.2MB/s. This made the ReadyNAS Duo v2 24% faster than the Synology DS212j.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 finished up strong in our last download test, providing a throughput of 29.1MB/s when using RAID0. The X-RAID2 configuration was slightly slower with 24.6MB/s, yet this was still 35% faster than the Synology DS212j.

Interestingly when uploading the 6GB ISO file the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 was much slower than what we experienced when downloading. Here the bandwidth when using RAID0 was reduced to just 58.5MB/s, though this was still 30% faster than the Synology DS212j. The X-RAID2 configuration on the other hand was very slow, maxing out at just 29.6MB/s.

Again we see weaker upload performance from the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 when using our game test. Nevertheless the ReadyNAS Duo v2 was still 20% faster than the Synology DS212j when using RAID0. The X-RAID2 setup on the other hand was still very slow reaching just 27.7MB/s.

The program upload test saw the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 achieve a throughput of 25.6MB/s, which was 5% faster than the Synology DS212j. The RAID0 configuration was 27% faster than the X-RAID2 which was limited to just 20.2MB/s.

The copy performance of the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 is still much stronger than competing devices such as the DS212j, with a throughput of 35.8MB/s opposed to just 27.3MB/s, making the ReadyNAS Duo v2 31% faster.

The game copy test saw the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 sustain an average transfer rate of 27.2MB/s when using RAID0 and just 12.9MB/s when using X-RAID2. The RAID0 configuration was 28% faster than the Synology DS212j and 19% faster than the DS211.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 sustained a throughput of 12MB/s in our program copy test when using RAID0, making it 3% faster than the Synology DS212j.

The CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write performance of the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 was quite impressive, reaching 62.4 - 72.0MB/s respectively. This made it slightly slower than the Synology DS211 yet slightly faster than the QNAP TS-219P II, while it was 30% faster than the Synology DS212j which is what our real-world transfer tests revealed.

The random 512K test saw the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 dip below the Synology DS211 and QNAP TS-219P II in terms of performance. That said it was still over 20% faster than the Synology DS212j.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 provided strong write performance in the random 4K-QD32 test reaching 14.7MB/s, making it faster than most of the other NAS devices tested. In fact the ReadyNAS Duo v2 was only slower than the Thecus N3200XXX and Synology DS411+ in this test.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 maxed out at 91.2MB/s in the Atto Disk Benchmark read test when using RAID0, while it reached just 37.8MB/s with X-RAID2. Although the ReadyNAS Duo v2 was slightly slower than the Synology DS212+, it was 11% faster than the DS212j.

The write performance of the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 was again strong when using RAID0 reaching 74.8MB/s, making it 27% faster than the Synology DS212j. The X-RAID2 configuration did perform better with 50.2MB/s, making it 14% slower than the DS212j.

This is particularly surprising when you consider that both devices use the same single-core 1.6GHz Marvell processor. The only inconsistency in our test bed were the drives used, as the ReadyNAS Duo v2 was armed with slightly faster Western Digital Black drives opposed to the Blue drives used by the DS212j.

Still, based on our findings in the past both drives are more than capable of maxing out a Gigabit connection when configured using RAID0. Instead we believe the memory has more to do with the performance. Although both the ReadyNAS Duo v2 and DS212j are outfitted with 256MB of memory, the DS212j uses slower 800MHz DDR2 memory while the ReadyNAS Duo v2 adopts faster DDR3-1333 memory, and we believe this is why the Netgear NAS was found to be much faster.

In any case, when compared to other cost effective NAS devices such as the LG NAS N2A2, Thecus N3200XXX, Patriot Javelin S4, QNAP TS-412 and Synology DS212j, the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 was faster than them all the majority of the time.

The power consumption of the ReadyNAS Duo v2 was also excellent using roughly the same amount of power as the Synology DS212j, making it a more efficient product.

When compared to Synology products such as the DS212j, the ReadyNAS Duo v2 really only has one weakness and that is its firmware. We still consider Synology the premier brand when it comes to NAS firmware, while QNAP are not far behind. However the gap between these companies and their competition is quite a large one, and while the RAIDiator 5 Dashboard does work well it has a long way to go before it can compete with the likes of Synology’s Disk Station Manager 4.0 software.

-

-

The DSM 4.0 software does look and work a lot better than the RAIDiator 5 Dashboard, yet despite that Netgear’s software will be good enough for most home users. In fact many of the advanced features found in Synology’s software is wasted on home users, so for us it is more important that Netgear focus on refining the design of their firmware.

Finally, while the firmware supporting the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 might not come with all the bells and whistles that we have become accustomed to, it should serve home users well. Furthermore this does not change the fact that the ReadyNAS Duo v2 is without question one of the best value $200 dual bay NAS devices on the market right now.