Do you ever stop and wonder, “Who owns the Internet?” Like, really. Someone pays a hosting company, who must pay someone else for access to the Web, and so on. But who’s at the very top?
And for that matter, what exactly is “The Cloud”? It’s a virtual warehouse for storage really. But again, where is it? And don’t clouds eventually dissipate and go away for good?
I honestly don’t know the answer to any of that, but they’re questions Allie and I always bring up. Regardless, I’m just happy that we do have an Internet and that storage and sharing information thanks to the Cloud has gotten a zillion times easier than when I was a kid.
Recently, my friends over at Netgear sent me a ReadyNAS 202 Desktop Storage System to take for a test drive. I’m a sucker for gadgets (and really, who couldn’t use more storage space for their data, right?), so of course I was pumped and dove right in.
As you can see, it’s a pretty big box. And if you’re wondering what the heck a ReadyNAS is, it’s a real powerful 2-Bay portable network for your computer. NAS stands for Network Attached Storage, and the ReadyNAS 202 features a 1.4 GHz Dual Core Processor for fast data transfer and streaming.
What I really love is that it’s basically a 4TB portable hard drive. But that’s not all, it’s a 4TB portable hard drive that I can access anywhere by creating my own personal cloud with ReadyCLOUD.
There’s not much to it right out of the box. And that’s how it should be! There’s the basic NAS system, an ethernet cable and a power adapter with power cord. There are 3 different power cords included actually, just based upon your model.
You can quickly hook the ReadyNAS 202 right into your router and then you’re ready to go. The simple software walks you through the process and before you know it, any computer in your house can access it.
Considering I have a zillion photos and videos on my computer, while Allie has a zillion and one on hers, and then the boys’ computers, and our phones, and the iPad… yeah, you can see how crazy it can be coordinating it all.
With the ReadyNAS, though, we can all connect and manually (or automatically!) sync our devices up to push all of that data to one central location.
Set up as many different folders as you like. The first thing I did was create a separate folder for each of us, and then backed up my entire computer to the Documents folder. It’s actually quite fast too, though still could take a good 20 minutes or so depending upon how much data you’re moving.
From my computer, I can now easily access any of those folders, like all these pics from my trip to England! Now I don’t need to eat up space on my computer, but instead can just access them anytime I need. I can even do it from Allie’s computer!
Or better yet… after downloading the ReadyNAS app on my iPhone, I can access everything right from my phone!
Super simple to navigate, from my phone I can jump into any of these files. That’s HUGE! Now when I’m talking to my friends and mention my trip to Harry Potter World in England, I don’t have to say, “I’ll email you photos when I get home.”
Instead, I can just click through my iPhone, find the pics and show them right there!
There are also settings on the app so you can turn on Media Backup and automatically send any photos or videos directly to a pre-determined backup folder on the ReadyNAS. How cool is that?
As long as I’m near a wifi connection (unless you choose to send via cellular data), I no longer have to worry about transferring photos from my phone to back them up. Pretty darn sweet!
Overall I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the ReadyNAS. Networks are usually a pain to setup and never work properly. But the ReadyNAS 202 was a snap to put together and I’ve been real impressed so far with the speed and ease of use.
There aren’t a ton of bells and whistles with it (unless you delve into the Advanced Features), which I really like. It should be simple to access a cloud and share photos, videos and other important documents. And that’s exactly what the Netgear ReadyNAS 202 does.
Plus, well, it just looks really darn cool. Like I said, I’m a sucker for geeky gadgets!
To answer your question… yes, I have wondered who “owns” the internet. Too confusing for me to try to figure out. LOL!
I have an external hard drive but I don’t have cloud capability. I like that option!
This sounds really great! I still haven’t got the slightest idea what the “cloud”, is though. I have to face it , Andrew…….after “Welcome! You’ve Got Mail!””……I am lost.