Netgear ReadyNAS RN10200 review

The Netgear ReadyNAS RN10200 is a 2-bay NAS enclosure. The version we reviewed didn’t come with disks installed, but fitting your own disks is a painless process. You simply attach a plastic mounting bracket to each disk, insert each disk into plastic trays and then slide each tray into the disk bays.

Configuration is also trouble-free thanks to the cloud-based setup procedure. We plugged the RN10200 into our internet-connected router and used a PC on the same network to create an administrator account on Netgear’s website. The NAS was ready to accept files in seconds. Alternatively, you can use a more traditional set up program that you install on your computer. In either case, the settings for all of the RN10200’s features are accessed through a traditional web interface that doesn’t need an internet connection to work.

The RN10200’s two disks can be configured as either RAID 0 or RAID 1. We fitted a pair of 2TB WD Red disks. In RAID 0, large files were written at 47.6MB/s and read at a much faster 91.9MB/s. Small files were written at a very slow 2.9MB/s, and read at an unimpressive 12.8MB/s.

As expected, file transfer speeds were a little slower with the NAS configured as RAID 1. Large files were written at 45MB/s and read at 86.6MB/s. Small files were written at 2.3MB/s and read at 9.4MB/s.

You can access your files remotely from any internet-connected computer either through Netgear’s website, some mobile apps or FTP. The remote access website works well enough, although the interface is basic. Oddly, there are two separate apps available for Android and iOS devices: ReadyDLNA, which accesses your media files, and ReadyNAS Remote, which lets you access your documents remotely. We couldn’t get the latter app to work, but could access our media library with ReadyDLNA. We could view photos okay, but swiping between them was sluggish. Stream music and videos proved frustrating, with lots of buffering and dropped playback.

We had no trouble streaming files on our home network to a local network media player. Streaming video to iTunes 11 on another computer also worked well, but our music collection wouldn’t load. We also had trouble successfully sharing the contents of a USB hard disk, but not a flash drive. You can add even more features, such as Drupal and WordPress servers.

The Netgear ReadyNAS RN10200 isn’t perfect. Some of its extra features are rough around the edges and its small file performance is merely okay at best. Still, if you’re primarily interested in storing large files, such as movies, and want RAID capability with easily replaceable disks then the RN10200 is a good value choice.