Netgear ReadyNAS RN202 2-bay NAS Review

NAS units with four bays present the best balance between cost and expandability for home consumers. However, with increasing hard drive sizes, two bays make the cut for many usage scenarios. The demand for high-performance, but cost-effective NAS units has been picking up, and this is where the modern ARM-based platforms come into play. Netgear's ReadyNAS 200 series was launched at CES and sported a Cortex A15-based Annapurna Labs SoC. Negear's offerings differentiates itself from the competition due to use of btrfs as the file system for the data volume. We have already looked at the Intel Atom-based RN312. In this review, we will take a look at how the ARM-based RN202 performs with the ReadyNAS OS, and see how the unit stacks up against the competitors in this space.