14 DAY TRIAL // NETEGEAR has completed new ReadyNAS series of home servers, dubbed ReadyNAS Ultra Plus, which promise to perform better than the ReadyNAS Ultra and consume significantly less power.
What these product do is act like hubs for networks, whether home or small office, and can perform a variety of tasks.
This includes not just centralizing the data so that multiple PCs may access it, but also stream movies to those PCs, or even to handhelds in any connected location.
The Ultra Plus line will have, at least at first, three members, all of them requiring their purchasers to buy the hard disk drives separately and slated to debut this month.
The Ultra 2 Plus 2-bay model, dubbed RNDP200U will sell for $449.99, while the Ultra 4 Plus (RNDP400U 4-bay) and Ultra 6-Plus (RNDP600U 6-bay) will be priced at $699.99 and $999.99.
"The explosion of digital content has resulted in large personal media collections that are often unmanaged and scattered. As media collections grow, so has the demand for home media servers. Consumers want simplicity and flexibility," said Norm Bogen, industry analyst at In-Stat.
"And the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Ultra family delivers. With a ReadyNAS Ultra or Ultra Plus at the center of the home network, consumers can consolidate and organize their content in a secure, expandable place that's accessible anywhere," he added.
"The ReadyNAS Ultra family brings cutting-edge partnerships and applications to the home media server market. The new Ultra Plus series is now the most powerful home storage available," stated Tiffany Pham, Product Line Manager for Prosumer Storage at NETGEAR.
"Now users can do more with their digital media collections than ever before," he concluded.
Set to ship around the same time, NETGEAR will also offer the ReadyNas Ultra 2, which will sell in three versions.
One, diskless (RNDU2000), will be priced at $399.99, while the 2 TB (RNDU2120, one disk) and 4 TB (RNDU2220, 2 disks) will sell for $549.99 and $699.99, respectively.