Updated NETGEAR today unveiled a revamp of its ReadyNAS line with new home and business NASes and services. Additions to its "Plus" switch line and a new on-site support program for European customers were also announced.
The centerpieces of today’s announcements are new two, four and six bay ReadyNAS Ultra Plus "home media servers" and new two, four and six bay ReadyNAS Pro "business storage products". Added to the Ultra series introduced in July, NETGEAR now has NASes focused on home, "prosumer" and business buyers.
The Ultra Plus is basically a performance bump of the Ultra line (30% according to NETGEAR), with the same feature set that includes Orb and Skifta media serving apps bundled in. The new "Unified Storage System" Pros come in two, four and six-bay versions, with processors summarized in the table below.
| Ultra | Ultra Plus | USS Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two bay | 1.8 GHz D410 Atom | 1.8 GHz D425 Atom | 1.8 GHz D525 Atom |
| Four bay | 1.6 GHz D410 Atom | 1.6 GHz D510 Atom | 1.66 GHz D510 Atom |
| Six bay | 1.6 GHz D410 Atom | 1.8 GHz Intel E2160 Pentium Dual Core | 2.8 GHz Intel E5300 Pentium Dual Core |
All new Ultra Pluses and "USS" Pros come with 1 GB of RAM and USB 2.0 ports, but no eSATA or USB 3.0 ports. The two-bay Ultra Plus and "USS" Pros come with one front USB 3.0 port and two rear USB 2.0 ports.
These systems will have a slightly different software configuration than the Ultra and Ultra Pluses, more focused on business applications. NETGEAR is aggressively promoting cloud-connectivity for the new Pros, with the bundle of 12 months of free ReadyNAS Vault (100 GB) cloud backup / archive, ReadyNAS Remote secure remote access and a new ReadyNAS Replicate multi-site backup service.
ReadyNAS Replicate is built on the ReadyNAS Remote service and provides a single interface for performing secure, scheduled multi-site backup and file restoration either locally or over the Internet. Licensing is per NAS and is $199 for Pro and Ultra / Ultra Plus NASes and $399 for rack-mount ReadyNAS 2100, 3100, 3200 and 4200 systems.
The 2, 4 and 6 bay Ultra Pluses will ship in BYOD form only by the end of this month at MSRPs of $449.99, $699.99 and $999.99. The previously-announced two-bay Ultra will also be shipping this month in BYOD, 2 TB and 4 TB versions for MSRPs of $399.99, $549.99 and $699.99.
The new Pros are sold in diskful configurations only, starting at $699 for a two-bay, 2 TB Pro 2, up through a six-bay, 12 TB Pro 6 for $3,999.
NETGEAR also announced announced it will provide next business day on-site service on all business products, free of charge to European customers. This service will be launched in key markets (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, UK and The Netherlands) in Europe and is intended to roll out across other markets "over time".
Also in NETGEAR’s slew of announcements today were four additions to is ProSafe Plus switch line. The eight-port desktop GS108E, the 16-port desktop GS116E and the rack-mounted 24-port JGS524E all support Gigabit Ethernet, as does the eight-port GS108PE, which also supports 802.3af PoE on four of its eight ports. Plus Series switches are managed via a Windows application and support QoS, traffic monitoring and control and VLAN functions.
The GS108E and GS108PE are available now at street pricing around $85 and $175, respectively. The GS116E and JGS524E will follow later this month, priced around $196 and $289.
And finally, NETGEAR said all its business-class ReadyNASes have received the Certified for Windows Server 2008 R2 Logo. This means they are fully compliant with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 requirements, including interoperability between ReadyNAS and Microsoft Hyper-V.