Don't Back Down

Over the last few weeks, I've had the distinct (dis)pleasure of working on not one, not two, but three NAS (networked attached storage) devices. One of these is my own Infrant ReadyNAS NV+, one is a similar device from a client and the third is a smaller device, a ReadyNAS Duo, for another client.

While there were certainly a variety of issues to be had, in the end the problems all arose from one factor: The firmware hadn't been updated since installation of the devices. And when I say issues, I really just mean that what we were trying to do was made much easier once the firmware was installed. It's not like the devices stopped working or anything.

While there are some instances that I wouldn't update firmware under any circumstances, the ReadyNAS line is an area that I would not hesitate to do so again.

For starters, they have an active forum, and by active I mean not only with users but employees. The firmware appears to undergo a solid amount of testing before being released - but I could certainly be snowed here. Where some firmware is simply a bump from a prior version due to some obscure bug fix, the ReadyNAS firmware actually introduces new features with some regularity, which is nice (I'd imagine there are obscure bug fixes as well). A part of that could be that the device itself is a bit more robust than most other devices that you might update (say, a router).

Finally, the interface itself makes it dead easy to update. Just go to the update tab and check to see if there is an update. If there is, it will download the new image and apply it, right there in the browser. It doesn't get much simpler. No downloading and uploading and applying of ROMs or anything of the sort.

You can even be notified by email when important updates are available. Of course, this assumes you don't ignore the email and just let it sit in your inbox, as I did. But that's scarcely the fault of the company.