Unfortunately very little exists to stream via Linux to iOS, so instead I thought I would try Air Playit for Windows and Mac OS X. Developed by Digiarty Software, Air Playit is both a server (to be installed on your PC) and a mobile application (to be used on your iPhone or similar). The set-up process is a breeze, and the software supports both local and remote sharing to boot.

Download & Configure Your Server

Without further ado, download the server for your operating system from the appropriate link below:

• Air Playit Server: Windows (32 & 64bit) / Mac OS X

Once your download has completed, run the file, complete the installer and launch the server. Windows users may be prompted to create an exception for Windows Firewall, so make sure you grant access should you use it.

The first screen you will see is a registration form, which you can fill in or opt to ignore by clicking Do not show again. Once you have dismissed the dialogue, take a good look at the server which should already be running under the name of your computer.

There are 6 different tabs in total, and these are:

• Information – This screen provides server information, including IP address and server name.
• Permission – Here is where you can grant access to different user groups, including admin, kids and public. By default, public users are allowed on your server without entering a PIN.
• Shared Folders – This is where your media is located.
• Conversion – An offline video converter for converting to mobile-friendly formats for downloading videos in your collection.
• Web – A fully-fledged web UI for your server (requires activation).
• Setting – A few options to tweak and change should you wish.

The next step is configuring your server. Add shares on the Shares tab by clicking Add Folder, locating and naming your share. Supported audio formats are MP3, AAC, AIFF and WAV and video support is extensive, check out supported codecs here.

On the Permission tab leaving everything as it is will grant you read-access to your shares without the need to input a PIN. If you would like to change this, configure your PINs accordingly and dish them out. For this guide, I’ve left public user access as open – as all I want to do is watch and listen, locally.

Connect Your Device

Now that your server is installed and running, grab your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and download the client from the link below:

• Air Playit Client @ AppStore (all iOS devices)

Once downloaded, launch the client and take a look at your options. If you want to stream music locally from a PC on your current network, in your current vicinity then tap Local Server. If all went well the server you configured a few minutes ago will show up, and tapping it should reveal your shares (or prompt you for a PIN first).

If this does not happen, choose Specify Address Manualy (sic) and input the information found on your server’s Information tab (server name, IP address, port and PIN). Adding a remote server is an identical task, if the server is on the network you are currently using then it too will be automatically detected (which is handy for future, remote use).

A word of warning – if you are going to be streaming via 3G/4G, don’t forget about data costs on both ends; after all your PC has to upload before your mobile can download. You will need a static IP or service like DynDNS in order to be reachable, and if you are having issues then there’s a few potential solutions on the Air Playit forum.

With your server connected, tap it and peruse the shares you have available. I tested out a few high-quality MP3 files, a music video and a 480p (standard definition) episode of South Park via my home wireless network without any hiccups whatsoever. Unfortunately it is not possible to play music in the background whilst doing other things with your iPhone.

Finally if you are interested in downloading files to your device over the air, then the video converter is exactly what you are looking for. On the Conversion tab click Add Video Conversion Task, select your source file and a profile and begin converting. Then you can download the video from a share location by selecting it on your device and hitting Download to iPhone. Nifty.

Conclusion

The Air Playit server and client combination provide an easy way to stream and download your media either locally or remotely. The fact that both ends of the deal are free, easy to use and reliable gives me little reason to find fault with the Air Playit package. This might be the streaming service you’ve been looking for, and it’s free!

Android and Windows Phone 7 users don’t despair, the developers claim there’s a version of Air Playit coming for your device, sometime in the future.

Have you use Air Playit? Have you used it remotely? Any alternative free streamers that do a better job? Let us know in the comments.

Main Computer

My main work machine is a 27” iMac. Bored of sitting all the time and for health reasons, I switched the desk legs for some extendable ones at IKEA and I now have a fantastic simple standing desk that’s actually really solid. If you already have a suitable desktop, you can pick up just the legs for about $100. I do need to do something about the cables though.

I have a second monitor beside it which runs Windows 7 inside a virtual Parallels machine, mostly used for testing purposes and because it’s much easier to take screenshots with a virtual machine.

Network

With a total of about 10 clients, everything in my house is networked together – including the TV. Where possible, I run a wired ethernet connection. No matter how good your wireless router is, a wired connection is always going to be faster, especially important when shuffling around large files and streaming HD movies. The main router is a stock firmware device given to me by my cable company – it’s good enough, and acts as both a 4 port switch and a wireless router. To extend the network upstairs, I then have a separate network switch connected via a simple crossover ethernet cable.

The number of devices is perhaps a bit excessive, but most are old laptops that wouldn’t sell anyway, and like most geeks I can’t bear to throw hardware away.

If you’d like to learn more about setting up a home network of your own, be sure to read our Easy Guide to Computer Networks for a great primer on the topic.

Home Server

Sitting in the cupboard is my home media, backup, and file server. Right now it’s running Windows Home Server 2011 – I know we’ve covered a lot of free alternatives before (such as Amahi and all these), but ultimately I prefer the stability of a Windows server and the fact that apart from being a rock solid server, it can also run Windows apps at the same time. With 2 x 1TB drives, it’s able to backup all the Windows machines on the network automatically, as well provides a remote time machine based backup for any Macs (though I don’t use that). Apart from the usual Windows file-sharing, I also run Plex Media Server which I showed you a few weeks ago. That’s then able to serve movies and TV shows around the house with full metadata information and covers automatically downloaded.

Of course, with all that space it also runs uTorrent. Rather than use the built-in uTorrent remote access, I prefer to have Windows Remote Desktop activated so I can use the entire desktop remotely. You can set this up on any Windows 7 machine easily using new features introduced in the Windows Live Mesh app. For security, any traffic to the outside world is secured across an anonymous VPN – I use VPN Tunnel (a paid, unlimited access service perfect for torrents).

Situated in a small room with a window upstairs, it’s also ideal as a motion-sensing security system using a webcam and a suite of tools I showed you before. When activated, the system can send Growl alerts to my mobile and around the network. Learn how to set up your own free home security system here.

Media Center

Though the TV is able to read some files straight off the network, I prefer to use my media centre PC and just output to the TV. This avoids any format issues, and allows me to have wonderful metadata and covers from Plex as I said, streaming from the server – this is done through XBMC and the PleXBMC plugin. Last week, I hacked the Xbox360 Kinect camera into this Windows PC to let me control XBMC by frantically waving my arms around, but plugging the camera back into the Xbox got tiring quickly so I’m making do with a long-corded USB mouse until I get a chance to test out some remote control apps. Android owners have a free official app from XBMC, and here’s a free app for iOS that handles Plex, XBMC and Boxee – I just haven’t got around to trying them yet!

To be honest, there’s quite a few Media Center apps you could use, and it’s really down to personal preference which you choose in the long run. Some of the writers here prefer Boxee, which I’ve yet to try myself but apparently has great social features, while others go for a straight up XBMC install, with all the hacks and tweaks that involves.

Web Services

I must admit I’m quite minimalist when it comes to web services. GMail and Reader have permanent tabs in my Chrome browser, and I have the obligatory Facebook account. Other than that, I don’t tweet, and virtually all my web browsing originates through various feeds in Google Reader. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m much more of a hardware and networking kind of guy.

That’s it from me, but I hope you’ll get to see what works for other writers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and we can both look forward to reading those. As ever, feel free to comment or ask questions and I’ll do my best to reply. For general questions, you might want to ask in the Q&A part of the site, where our regular contributors and eagle-eyed editors jump at the chance to share their computing knowledge.

Image credit: ShutterStock

If you read through and decide you’d rather check out some of the alternatives, have a look at Bakari’s round of streaming and converter apps for OsX, Tim’s collection of linux-based media center distros, or Justin’s list of TV-ready media centre apps last month.

Is it a player? Is it server?

Plex produces a media server and client app for Mac OsX, however there is only a server app for Windows currently available. To view your media on the Windows side of things, you can use a Plex plugin. Since Plex is essentially a fork of the XBMC app, there is very little difference in the client/player side of things.

Both Mac and Windows Plex Media Servers can send data to the mobile clients (obviously, there is no media server for mobile devices).

I’ve made a little diagram to help explain this:

Installation

Download and install the appropriate version from PlexApp.com . During the install, point the app at your directories for movies and TV.

Naming Conventions and Fixing MetaData

One thing that always annoyed me about media center systems in the past has been how utterly incapable they seem to be of identifying my eclectic collection and gathering the appropriate covers / metadata. The secret is to name the files correctly – this helpful page details the process, and though it may be tiresome, it does result in a beautifully unified media collection rather than a mess of folders. For those of you who can’t be bothered to read, name your movies “name of movie (date of release)” like “Steal This Movie (2010)”. I suggest you go through your collection and do a little renaming before you install Plex to give it the best chance of correct identification. If you have odd formats such as .img or .iso, then no worries – just name them and Plex will handle it all!

To launch the media manager and see what it’s found, click the taskbar icon (or right click in windows) and select Media Manager. You can then choose between TV and Movies, as well as Music if you chose to import that.

You may find a few odd matches – in that case you can easily right-click on the item in question, and select Fix Incorrect Match. this will bring up a list of possibilities. In general, I found that if the files were actually named correctly a match would generally be found – it was only when I had files that didn’t follow the guidelines that mismatches occured.

The only complaint I do have is that the poster picture can’t be changed by dragging and dropping – it takes a bit of effort to navigate through the options for that – but then again you shouldn’t need to most times if it’s been correctly identified.

The Plex Player App (Mac only)

When your data is sorted, go ahead and launch the main player app (from Applications or the Start menu, not the icon already running in your taskbar). Bear in mind that you can’t use the mouse, as it’s designed for full-screen – so stick to the keyboard or remote. Hit Apple-F to switch to fullscreen, and start browsing through the options.

The movies and TV menus options don’t need an awful lot of explaining really, except for that you can change the view style to cover flow or grid view (my personal favorite) by selecting “right” on your keyboard or remote to bring up the view options:

Plex Online is the place to find plugins – such as the BBC iPlayer (UK only) – that enable Plex to interface with hundreds more free online video sources.

To access the online media content channels that you install, choose Video Plugins from the main menu. I especially recommend TED for some fantastic inspirational talks:

The app also makes a really good interface to YouTube and other social video sites. Just hit Search and type in your query – local media will appear first, as well as tons of internet videos that you can start streaming instantly. I actually found it easier than browsing the real YouTube site, since’s there’s absolutely no clutter and zero commentary from 14 year old idiots. Bonus!

PleXBMC (Windows)

To view your movies on Windows, you will need to install XBMC, then the add-on for Plex. Tim has covered the ins and outs of XMBC before with a thorough review, so I’ll only be showing you the actual connector add-on. To install it, make sure you use the XBMC interface rather than downloading and installing the zip file manually. Head to the System -> Add-Ons -> Video Add-Ons -> PleXBMC -> Install. If you have the server software running on a remote machine, you’ll also need to configure the IP of the remote server in the Configure option for the add-on. You should then be able to browse your Plex media server using the Add-Ons folder from the main Video menu, complete with covers and meta-data.

Conclusion

I have to admit, having all my movies in one central place with all the metadata correct is incredibly satisfying. If you have a large collection you’d love to browse by DVD covers then I strongly suggest Plex. I’ve tried other solutions in the past, but none have handled my movies particular well, and I find the media manager of Plex to be the best overall. It’s a shame there isn’t a native client for Windows yet, but the add-on for XBMC means I can basically have the same fantastic player interface while we wait for the official client. Plex is going to form the center of my living room now, and I’ve even splashed out on the iPad app which let’s me stream any of my collection without format worries.

If you’re having any troubles setting it all up, then feel free to ask away in the comments or Q&A section, and we’ll see if we can help.

Oh and one last thing – Plex supports streaming over the internet too!

Disclaimer

Icecast is actually just the service that will stream the audio that is played by another music daemon. In this article we’ll be using mpd, which is an accepted combination by most people. The instructions will, for the most part, work in any Linux distribution, though I will be specifically covering Ubuntu and Fedora. Unless there are major differences in the commands, Ubuntu users will need to add “sudo” to the front of each command that I cover where root permissions are needed (which is a large portion). All commands will not include the quotation marks.

These instructions are for a simple setup, and is not the securest way to do things. If you wish to create your own music stream and share it publicly and not within your network, please make sure that you follow appropriate security measures.

Instructions

Installing & Configuring MPD

The first thing is to install mpd, so fire up your terminal. Fedora users need to switch to root by typing “su -” and entering their passwords. Then, in Fedora, issue the command “yum install mpd“, while Ubuntu users use “sudo apt-get install mpd“. Once that completes, use your favorite terminal editor (such as nano) to edit the file at /etc/mpd.conf.

In the first couple of lines, find the following and replace them with your regular username (or create a new user specifically for Icecast and use that instead):

music_directory                 "/home/USER/music"
playlist_directory              "/home/USER/music/playlists"
db_file                         "/home/USER/.mpd/mpd.db"
log_file                        "/home/USER/.mpd/mpd.log"
error_file                      "/home/USER/.mpd/mpd.error"

Soon after that chunk of text will be a small line, where you again need to replace the user with the one you wish to use:

user                            "USER"

Next, find the following text and make sure it matches:

bind_to_address       "127.0.0.1"
port                            "6600"

Finally, find a large chunk that looks similar to this (in Fedora, it is the third “audio_output” group in the default configuration file):

audio_output {
type                    "shout"
name                    "Stream short description"
host                    "localhost"
port                    "8000"
mount                   "/mpd.ogg"
password                "hackme"
quality                 "5.0"
#        bitrate                 "128"
format                  "44100:16:2"
#        user                    "source"                # optional
#        description             "My Stream Description" # optional
#        genre                   "jazz"                  # optional
#        public                  "no"                    # optional
}

Change the information in your own configuration file to match them with the code above. For simple use, you can keep the “hackme” password, but if you wish to share your stream with the Internet, I highly recommend you change it. Once you are done editing the file, save it and close out of your editor.

Next, leave your root permissions (or drop off the sudo if you use Ubuntu) and type the following:

cd $HOME
mkdir -p music/playlists
mkdir .mpd

This creates the necessary folders that the mpd daemon needs as described in the configuration file.

Installing Icecast

Next we will install Icecast, so Fedora and Ubuntu users need to type (as root) “yum install icecast” and “sudo apt-get install icecast“, respectively.

If you didn’t change the password in mpd, then there’s no configuration needed for Icecast! However, if you did use a different password or want to change port numbers, you can change all instances of those in the configuration file, which is located at /etc/icecast.xml.

Installing & Configuring Pitchfork

Congratulations! You already have all of the background services installed and configured! However you still need an interface to configure mpd, else it won’t know what to play. I recommend that you use a Web-based configuration tool called Pitchfork. In order to be able to run that, we need to install some more packages.

In Fedora, we’ll type “yum install httpd mysql-server php php-mysql php-gd php-pear“. In Ubuntu, it’ll be “sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server libapache2-mod-php5 php5 php5-mysql php5-gd php5-pear“.

Once that finishes installing, download Pitchfork from here and extract the files into Apache’s default folder, which is either /var/www or /var/www/html depending on the system. In order to keep things easy for us, type the following:

chown -R apache:apache /var/www OR chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html
chmod -R 777 /var/www/config OR chmod -R 777 /var/www/html/config

Before we get to the more fun parts, we still need to start our services. We have three services, httpd (or apache2 in Ubuntu), Icecast, and mpd. So in Fedora, we’ll type “service <NAME> start“, replacing <NAME> with the service’s name. In Ubuntu, do the same for the command “sudo /etc/init.d/<NAME> start“.

Now fire up your favorite browser and head to localhost (or if you’ve been doing all these steps on a separate server, head to that server’s address). You should now be greeted by Pitchfork, and we can go ahead and configure it.

Under the configuration page, there’s actually not much you need to do. Just make sure that the address and port are the same as in mpd’s configuration file, and leave the password field blank. In the middle you can enter a login password so that access to Pitchfork can be restricted. Save and you’ll be sent back to the main page. Now you can add songs and have them play over Icecast!

If you want to connect to your stream, there’s an easy way to do so. Provided that you open port 8000, you can go to a different computer, go to a browser and type <IP_ADDRESS>:8000, and click on the M3U link. You’re finally done!

Final Considerations

Please note that on Pitchfork the volume slider does not work. However, your media player should have one, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Also, when adding songs, they may not immediately appear. In this case you should simply refresh the page.

Considering the steps needed, I will provide some support in the comment section. If you have problems, ask for help there!

Conclusion

Icecast is a great way to get music on the go. Plus who doesn’t want their personal online radio station? Creating your own music stream can have its purposes and let you have some fun as well.

Do you think you’ll be creating a music stream? What do you like or not like about the idea? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Plus, we’ll be giving each and every review unit in this mega giveaway so you could walk away with a new, very expensive toy!

Data Robotics Drobo FS NAS Review and Giveaway

Synology DS411j NAS Review and Giveaway

Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 Review and Giveaway

QNAP TS-419P+ Turbo NAS Review and Giveaway

So there you go. Over thousands of dollars worth of network attached storage up for grabs. Spread the word to your friends about this awesome site. We give away cool gear.

The device that we’ll be looking at today is the QNAP TS-419P+ Turbo NAS. It’s only available as a diskless system and priced at $599, it isn’t exactly cheap. However, if you were thinking about getting a NAS, you really should read this article because this particular model could be just what you were looking for. Not to mention, we will be giving the review unit away.

So hop in.

The QNAP TS-419P+ is targeted towards prosumers and features 4 hot-swappable drive bays, a Marvell 6282 1.6 GHZ processor, 512 MB DDR2 memory, dual gigabit ethernet ports, 4 USB ports, 2 eSATA ports and a whole lot of mojo. Did you notice the eSATA and dual ethernet ports? That’s what gives the TS-419P+ the advantage over the other NAS devices we’ve reviewed over the past 3 days.

At the front, it sports the 4 aforementioned drive bays, a USB port and a corresponding backup button for easy one-touch backup, a LCD panel and 2 control buttons. The LCD panel allows you to check its status, IP address, and administer the system — either power it down or perform a restart. It sports a brushed aluminium body, which is very classy indeed.

At the back, is where the magic happens. You’ll find 2 eSATA ports, which was not available on the other 3 NAS devices we reviewed. Plus, it’s got 1 more USB port than the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4. Along with that, and perhaps the most interesting part of the QNAP is the dual ethernet interface, which supports network teaming. We spoke about network teaming yesterday in the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 review (where sadly, it is not supported) but in case you missed it, here’s a quick recap. Teaming or trunking is the ability to combine 2 network interfaces together, resulting in a single, faster connection to the router. There are various modes of network teaming and here’s what the TS-419P+ supports:

• Balance-rr (Round-Robin)
• Active Backup
• Balance XOR
• Broadcast
• IEEE 802.3ad
• Balance-tlb (Adaptive Transmit Load Balancing)
• Balance-alb (Adaptive Load Balancing)

So far, things are looking good for the TS-419P+. Its hardware specs are enough to please any prosumer.

Installation/Detection

Since the TS-419P+ is a diskless system, you must first have your own hard drives. Currently, the largest capacity drive that the device is able to accommodate is 2 TB. View the complete compatibility list here.

To install the drives, simply remove the drive trays from the bays at the front and screw the drives onto the trays. Push them back into the device and power it on.

Like all NAS devices, the QNAP TS-419P+ comes with its own dashboard/detection application on a CD called QNAP Finder which is cross platform. You may also download it from their website. Once the application is installed, it will automatically detect any QNAP NAS devices on your network and assist you in logging into the web-based GUI.

Clicking on Configure will begin the initiation process.

Initialising the drives is a 6-step process where you will be asked to set a name for the device, an administrative password, the time zone, the services you require, and finally, the RAID array configuration. The TS-419P+ is capable of RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 5+ hot spare; and JBOD. It also supports the newer EXT4 file system. After customising the device to your preference, it takes roughly about 15 minutes for the entire system to be online and ready for use.

Logging into the administration web-based AJAX GUI is simple if you know the device’s IP address. Open a browser of your choice and type in its IP address. If not, use the QNAP Finder to locate your device, then click on Connect.

Like the Synology, QNAP’s web interface is pretty good although it doesn’t support multi-tasking. The GUI is easy to manoeuvre and quite responsive. It also provides an easy, one-touch solution to enable various functions like Apple Time Machine support, a file server, web server, backup server, iTunes server, print server, media centre, torrent download centre, webcam surveillance support, the list goes on.

The TS-419P+ also has several advanced options like UPS support and power management, among others. In addition to that, the system allows for even more features like a Twonkymedia server, Squeezebox server, PS3 media server, Joomla and WordPress installations via its QPKG system.

Expansion

With its hot-swappable front access drive bays, the TS-419P+ could not be easier to upgrade or expand. Plus, the system supports on-the-fly RAID level migration. This means that upgrading from a 2-disk to 4-disk system is a walk in the park.

Management

Every setting imaginable is easily accessible from the GUI; from the RAID array configuration, access management, disk quota distribution and file services to backup settings. There is also a built-in search function to allow you to easily find the setting that you’re looking for.

The GUI also provides a means to keep an eye on the system, displaying vital information like the system and hard disk temperatures, and their S.M.A.R.T. statuses.

Conclusion

The QNAP TS-419P+ is, in every aspect, quite capable. With features like network teaming and on-the-fly RAID migration, a geek couldn’t ask for more.

QNAP TS-419P+ Turbo NAS may be purchased from online retailers like Newegg at $569.99. But we’re giving this one away. If you’d like to get your hands on it, here’s what you need to do.

How do I become a winner?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, February 18th at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank QNAP for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

Netgear’s ReadyNAS Ultra 4 is available in both diskless ($699.99) and 2 x 2 TB ($999.99) configurations. We received a diskless unit from Netgear and will be taking a closer look at almost every aspect of the NAS shortly. We’ll also be giving away the review unit so stick around.

At $699.99 for the diskless unit, it’s exactly the same price as Data Robotic’s Drobo FS. And even though the Drobo FS can accommodate 5 disks as opposed to the ReadyNAS Ultra 4′s four disk array, the ReadyNAS has several features pulling it ahead.

Even though the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 is the slimmest of all the NAS devices featured in this mega giveaway, it is also the heaviest — weight at 10.35 lbs (almost 5 kg) without any disks installed. Its weight is mainly attributed to its solid metal construction.

At the front, you’ll find the usual suspects: a power button, and several activity indicator lights, a USB port and backup button, a backup status light, a metal grill and finally, a OLED panel display at the bottom.

The front metal grill swings open to reveal the 4 hot-swappable drive array (max 8 TB) and drive trays that lock into place via a latch. This allows for easy access to drives without any tools required other than a screwdriver to attach the drive onto the metal drive tray.

The very first thing you’ll notice at the back is a large metal handle. I assume they had to include it because the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 is just so darn heavy. There are 2 USB 2.0 ports which can be connected to UPS devices, printers, etc (no eSATA interfaces to be found), a system reset button, 2 gigabit ethernet ports, a fan grill, a power inlet and Kensington lock port.

If you’re wondering why it has 2 ethernet ports, I’ll try my best to explain without introducing too much jargon. In most NAS devices that feature 2 ethernet ports, they can be teamed together resulting in one connection to the router. This increases the link speed beyond the limits of a single, regular connection and also provides redundancy in case a connection fails. However, the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 does not have this feature. Instead, the 2 ethernet ports allow you to connect to 2 different subnet groups so that the NAS can be accessed from 2 different locations.

Utimately, if you’re a home user, you’ll most likely only be using one of the 2 network interfaces.

The ReadyNAS Ultra 4 features a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom single-core with 1 GB DDR SODIMM upgradeable memory.

Installation/Detection

Installation of the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 involves plugging the power and network cable into the device and powering it on. The NAS will automatically negotiate for an IP address. Before you can start using it though, you will have to configure the device like we did in the previous reviews.

Netgear provides a desktop utility cleverly named RAIDar. Once the NAS obtains an IP address, RAIDar will automatically detect it.

On initial setup, you’ll have the option to choose between Netgear’s X-RAID2 (comparable to Synology’s Hybrid RAID and Drobo’s BeyondRAID technology) which provides single disk redundancy and auto-expanding RAID capabilities; or you could manually configure it to RAID levels 0, 1, or 5. It does not support non-RAID configurations like JBOD.

Expansion

The ReadyNAS Ultra 4 accessible, hot-swappable front drive array coupled with X-RAID2 technology makes it pretty easy to upgrade. While the system is powered on, remove the lowest capacity drive for a larger one and wait for the data to redistribute. Depending on the amount of data stored, the redistribution process could take up to 10 hours and is indicated by the front OLED display. Allow that to complete before swapping another drive from the array because X-RAID2 only provides 1 disk redundancy. Luckily, the process transparent so you can go about using the NAS simultaneously.

Management

Like most Netgear products, the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 is managed via a web interface.

Unfortunately, it utilises an archaic frames interface as opposed to an AJAX GUI like the one used by Synology. As a result, jumping back and forth between settings isn’t easy. The lack of a GUI also means that it is quite unintuitive.

The ReadyNAS Ultra 4 doesn’t come installed with much. You’ll get a DLNA media streamer, TiVo support, power scheduler, support for external USB hard drives, printers and webcams, UPS support, among others. But where the ReadyNAS really shines is its backup functionality.

This device is able to backup to and from almost anywhere. You could backup any folder from a computer, enable Time Machine on Apple computers or using the Backup button on the ReadyNAS unit. It is also capable of backing up to attached USB drives, networked shares and other ReadyNAS devices on the network. Every ReadyNAS Ultra 4 also comes 2 GB of ReadyNAS Vault Online Backup, free for 2 years.

Conclusion

The ReadyNAS Ultra 4 may not be for everyone, especially considering the fact that it isn’t easy to manage. However, once you have the system up and running, it’s pretty rewarding. The ReadyNAS Ultra 4 beat most of the home/prosumer NAS devices on the market with its astounding throughput performance, as shown in a CNET review. Plus, it comes with a 3-year warranty.

We’re giving away this review unit without any drives. If you’re keen to get your hands on it, here’s how.

How do I become a winner?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, February 18th at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Netgear for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.