I need a new NAS!!!

So my Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ failed fabulously last month...


The ReadyNAS had served me well since it was acquired in early 2007.  In fact, I bought it before Infrant was acquired by Netgear.  I knew something was wrong when I walked into our server / fitness / music room and smelled something burning.  I called my wife downstairs and she almost called the fire department -- until we noticed the lights out on the ReadyNAS.


So my new project is what to do to replace it.


The Good News...  I lost no data.  I have a fairly rigorous backup methodology that includes synchronizing data (via the ReadyNAS) between my laptop and my wife's laptop.  Additionally, the ReadyNAS itself backed up all volumes once a week to an attached USB drive.  And if that wasn't enough, each laptop backs up to Amazon S3 nightly utilizing JungleDisk.  


So I typically have the data in 5 places:
1. ReadyNAS
2. My laptop
3. My wife's laptop
4. Attached USB drive
5. Amazon S3


So scratch the NAS, I'm still looking pretty good.

So I solicited my techie friends who came up with three ideas for a replacement:

1. Drobo
2. Microsoft Windows Home Server
3. Another Netgear ReadyNAS

In my next post, I'll walk through the criteria I used to evaluate each of these solutions for my unique situation.