NAS (Network Attached Storage) became very popular among the users within a very short span of time. No matter whether you need a storage device for your personal use or for business, NAS is one of the best solutions you can get these days. Netgear ReadyNAS 202 is such a nice product from Netgear that built targeting the home users. It helps to setup a personal cloud on your own network which could be accessed from any of your devices including computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. It also provides an option to access it from your browser without installing any programs.
Design and Features
At the first look at the device, the design is pretty good with a nice setup of the ports and buttons. The body measures 5.6 / 4 / 8.7 inches (HWD) and weighs around 4.5 pounds. The air holes are there on both sides that allows easier air flow throughout the product. No overheating issue found from our testing procedure where these holes has a great role. The front doors are openable in order to mount or dismount hard drives into the rack inside. The LED indicators lets users have a better idea about the operations.
There is a USB 3.0 port on the front while two on the backside. In addition, the ports such as eSATA port, Kensington lock port, and the AC adapter port enhances the usability of the Netgear ReadyNAS 202. But unfortunately, there are no HDMI ports of this Netgear NAS, which might not be favorable for those who wanted to connect it to modern HDTVs or something. Overall, the design and features are pretty decent for the price.
Performance
Looking inside, the device is having an ARM Cortex A15 dual-core processor coupled with 2GB of onboard memory. It is enough to run the NAS smoothly over your network. We tested it on our LAN, and we got pretty impressive results. To be exact, 66.9MBps write and 97.1MBps read speeds. But over the wireless connection, the speed is too much slower. We got 15.4MBps write and 14.8MBps read speeds from the product. The performance wasn’t that satisfying like many other competitors of the same price range. But, Yes, for streaming HD videos and having a personal cloud backup, it is pretty enough.
Pros
- Supports upto 12TB of storage
- Good performance
- Numerous personal cloud features
Cons
- No HDMI port
Verdict
The Netgear ReadyNAS 202 is a pretty good device. The setup process is itself very simple. We just had to connect it to the router and follow the instructions provided on the Netgear website. We successfully got our own personal cloud. We used our own HDDs as the device is not coming with a built-in hard drive. It also let’s turn on DLNA– and iTunes-equipped media servers. A couple more features like direct camera transfer also attracted us to the NAS. So, as a verdict what we have to say is. You could opt this if you need an average NAS which can fulfill your home network needs. If you are looking for a high performance, large storage product, this might not be your option.