Netgear ReadyNAS RN214

A SOLID MID-RANGE PERFORMER. SIMPLE TO USE AND SET UP, BUT NOT AS VERSATILE AS SOME OF THE COMPETITION

WITH ITS HARD black-box and front LED information display, the Netgear RN214 is one of the more impressive looking NASs in our line-up, and it’s also one of the easiest to set up. It has a simple installation process for both drives and software, handy mobile apps for syncing and one of the easier interfaces to grasp and manage.

When it comes to the firmware, Netgear’s offering is much more in line with that of WD and Seagate than it is with QNAP or Synology. It is, for the most part, a simple tabbed affair, with settings that are understandable to less-technical users and a focus on core features: namely file and media sharing and backup. There are additional apps that can be installed onto the NAS, but the library of such apps is quite modest with the highlights being a live anti-virus scanner and Plex, which can be used for streaming or transcoding.

Although the other vendors have moved onto generally more powerful x86 processors, Netgear is still using an ARM processor in its consumer NAS line. It advertises the ability to live transcode 1080p video live in Plex, but when we tried it, we had frequent buffering issues, testifying to the limits of the processor. It did produce solid performance results in the disk tests, however, nearly matching the more powerful Celeron and Pentium-based NASs.

All-in-all, it’s a capable mid-range NAS, with nice apps to get it up and running and a simple interface that won’t challenge non-technical users. It’s not nearly as versatile as some of its competitors, but if you don’t care about third-party apps, surveillance or exotic virtualisation services, it’s a fair purchase.