ReadyNAS Ultra 6
Since so many ask what is the difference between the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 and ReadyNAS Pro 6 we thought we better address that issue before more people bought the wrong one.
And just to make things interesting we will throw in the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus!
They look pretty much identical, all hold up to 6 hard drives and have very similar features, yet the price difference is fairly significant.
In short, the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 is a premier home network attached storage device well suited to large amounts of data, multimedia storage, streaming and remote access. With 6 drive bays, you can start with RAID5 or RAID6 (X-RAID2 enhanced) and still have room for expansion.
Next comes the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus. The ONLY difference between the Ultra 6 and the Ultra 6 Plus is that the “Plus” is powered by a dual core CPU whereas the straight Ultra is a single core CPU.
That’s it. So why would you want to pay extra for the dual core CPU? Probably if you intend on having several users accessing the NAS device simultaneously ESPECIALLY if that includes any video streaming.
Video requires encoding in addition to processing lots of bytes of data from the hard drive array to the network interface so the extra CPU core is noticeable.
ReadyNAS Pro 6
Now let’s discuss the Netgear ReadyNAS Pro 6 and what distinguishes it from the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 and Ultra 6 Plus.
The ReadyNAS Pro 6 is targeted to Small Business NAS customers, where the Ultra 6 (and Plus) are considered “Prosumer”. With Ultra’s emphasis on multimedia, this is appropriate.
While the Pro 6 is capable of everything the Ultra 6 is, some of the multimedia features may not be enabled out of the box. Enabling is not difficult.
Horsepower-wise, the ReadyNAS Pro 6 is powered with a dual core CPU like the Ultra 6 Plus is. This makes sense since business NAS applications are more likely to have multiple users accessing data at the same time.
Additional features that just are not needed in home environments that the Pro 6 supports are:
- Security – Selectable Security Modes
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- User Security Mode
- ADS/Domain Security Mode
- Networking
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- VLAN Support
- NIC Teaming/Failover
- SNMP
- Hard Drives
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- Pre-populated NAS devices incorporate Enterprise Class hard drives
- Volumes
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- Snapshot with Scheduling
- Backup from Snapshot
- Share-level Quotas
- Warranty
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- 5 year warranty in Pro 6 vs. 3 year in Ultra 6 and Ultra 6 Plus
- Other
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- ReadyNAS Replicate Support
Looking at the above list of additional features included with the Business oriented Netgear ReadyNAS Pro 6 over the Prosumer ReadyNAS Ultra 6 and Ultra 6 Plus should make it fairly easy for you to determine if you need to choose an Ultra 6 Plus over an Ultra 6 or a Pro 6 over an Ultra 6 Plus.
All three are high quality units that can give you years of satisfied service and all come with the excellent support of both Netgear and the ReadyNAS user community.
| Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 | |
| Diskless | |
| 6TB (3 x 2TB) | |
| Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus | |
| Diskless | |
| Netgear ReadyNAS Pro 6 | |
| Diskless | |
| 3TB (3 x 1TB) | |
| 6TB (6 x 1TB) | |
| 12TB (6 x 2TB) | |
| 18TB (6 x 3TB) |
