Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus Network Storage Server Review

Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus Installing the drives

The next step is to install the drives. Each drive is held in a tray, supporting 3.5 inch drives, to which the drive is screwed into. To remove the drive tray, you simply lift the spring loaded latch up and the drive trays slide out easily.

Netgear was kind enough to prepopulate our NAS with two Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB Hard Drives. Before choosing a NAS device, prospective buyers should also go to the manufactures site and verify that the drives they wish to use are on the company’s supported drive list. To see the list of drives supported by Netgear go to their website. I asked Netgear as to their plans to support 3TB Hard Drives in their NAS Devices. They informed us that they are currently testing 3TB Hard Drives, and are working hard to certify those drives for use with their NAS Products.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus came preconfigured with the two hard drives in an X-Raid in a RAID 1, giving me about 1TB of usuable space for storage.

Netgearhas the ability to support RAID Expansions as well. If a user installs smaller hard drives, and wishes to upgrade the hard drives to a large size, the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus supports on the fly migration, meaning the user does not have to copy the data off the array before installing the new drives.

Lets move on to configuring the device!