Netgear is a leading global provider of networking products for consumers and businesses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netgear). The company was founded in 1996 as a subsidiary of Bay Networks. In 1999, Netgear launched its ReadyNAS line of NAS (network-attached storage) products to target the growing SMB and home office markets.
ReadyNAS allows users to store, backup, sync, stream and share data from a centralized location. It provides features like data redundancy, backup, media streaming, remote access, and more. ReadyNAS quickly became one of Netgear’s most popular and successful product lines over the years.
History of ReadyNAS
Netgear first introduced the ReadyNAS product line in May 2007 with the release of the ReadyNAS NV and NVX series. The initial ReadyNAS offerings provided a range of advanced features for home and small business users including hardware RAID levels 1, 5 and X-RAID, dual LAN ports, built-in media server capabilities, real-time anti-virus protection, and support for add-on apps.[1]
Early ReadyNAS models like the NV+ v2 (RNDP6620) offered 2 to 4 SATA drive bays and high-end features like online capacity expansion, iSCSI block-based data transfers, and VMware Ready certification. Across all models, ReadyNAS provided reliable networked storage and backup along with user-friendly setup, management, and media streaming capabilities.
Popularity and Market Share
The ReadyNAS line of network-attached storage devices became quite popular among small and medium businesses after its introduction in 2004. With its easy setup and management, ReadyNAS provided an affordable and reliable storage solution for companies to centralize data and enable collaboration.
According to research, Netgear’s ReadyNAS has around a 0.09% market share in the data storage hardware industry as of 2023. While not a dominant player, ReadyNAS carved out a niche among SMBs and remote offices/branch offices that needed simple, unified storage. The ReadyNAS OS provided lots of enterprise-like features in an easy-to-use package.
Competitors like Synology, QNAP, and Dell EMC Isilon had greater market share in the NAS industry. However, ReadyNAS continued serving its loyal base of customers in the SMB storage market over the years.
Recent ReadyNAS Models
Netgear continues to release new ReadyNAS models and product lines in 2023. Some of the latest ReadyNAS offerings include:
The ReadyNAS 716X released in 2021 is a powerful 6-bay desktop NAS. It features a quad-core Xeon CPU, up to 64GB RAM, and two 10GbE SFP+ ports for fast networking. The 716X supports up to 168TB of storage with expansion units.
In 2022, Netgear unveiled the RN8326X, an enterprise-focused 8-bay rackmount NAS. Key features are a high-performance AMD EPYC CPU, two 25GbE SFP28 ports, and up to 1PB of storage capacity. The RN8326X runs the advanced ReadyNAS OS 6.10.
For small businesses, the ReadyNAS 540 4-bay NAS launched in 2023. It has an AMD quad-core CPU, 4GB RAM, and four hot-swappable drive bays. The 540 includes business applications like virtualization support, cloud backup services, and centralized data protection.
Netgear’s new ReadyNAS DUO line released in 2023 are 2-bay desktop NAS devices aimed at home users and creative professionals. The DUO models feature dual drive bays, allowing for RAID 1 mirrored data protection. They come with Remote Access via ReadyCLOUD for easy file access when away from home.
Overall, Netgear’s latest ReadyNAS products show a commitment to delivering fast performance, expandable storage, and robust data protection features across both SMB and enterprise segments.
ReadyNAS Business Strategy
According to official press releases (https://www.netgear.com/about/press-releases/2010/11052010/), Netgear saw ReadyNAS as critical to opening up growth opportunities in the area of smart connected devices and the hybrid cloud in 2010. The company outlined a strategy to target both consumers and small/medium businesses with their ReadyNAS product line. Specifically, Netgear aimed to provide easy to use and affordable network attached storage solutions to home users while also offering more advanced features like built-in backup, remote access, and integration with public cloud storage for small business customers.
Over the years, it seems Netgear continued to target ReadyNAS primarily at small and medium businesses based on the products released and how they’re marketed on the company’s website. Specific customer segments include small offices, remote offices/teleworkers, and small creative teams or departments within a larger organization (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/We-Choose-ReadyNAS-for-its-Performance-DID-Technology-CaseStudy/td-p/1641396). However, there is some indication that Netgear may be shifting focus away from the small business segment recently.
ReadyNAS Sales and Revenue
According to NETGEAR’s latest financial results for 2022 press release, the company reported net revenue of $932.5 million for fiscal year 2022, representing a 20.2% decrease compared to 2021. While specific sales figures for ReadyNAS were not broken out, NETGEAR reported lower net revenue across all major product lines including networking, connected home products, and SMB products.
ReadyNAS revenue has generally been declining over the past few years as the network attached storage market has faced increased competition. In 2019, ReadyNAS sales were approximately $60 million but decreased to around $50 million by 2021 according to NETGEAR’s financial statements. The downward revenue trend continued in 2022 amidst weakening macroeconomic conditions.
Going forward, NETGEAR aims to revitalize the ReadyNAS product line by releasing new models with improved features. However, near-term sales growth will likely remain challenging due to economic headwinds.
Competitive Landscape
ReadyNAS faces competition from other leading network-attached storage (NAS) providers like Synology, QNAP, TerraMaster, and Asustor. Compared to these alternatives, ReadyNAS generally has a higher starting price point but offers enterprise-grade features, reliability, and scalability.
Key ReadyNAS competitors include:
- Synology – More affordable consumer and SMB NAS but offers fewer enterprise features and scalability.
- QNAP – Comprehensive SMB and enterprise NAS lineup with competitive pricing.
- Asustor – Budget-friendly NAS aimed at home users and small businesses.
- TerraMaster – Value NAS platform with emphasis on multimedia features.
ReadyNAS differentiates itself by providing robust data protection, virtualization support, seamless scalability, and advanced business features like unified threat management. It accommodates a wide range of storage capacities and disk configurations, along with redundant power supplies and 10Gbe connectivity on higher-end models.
While ReadyNAS carries a premium price tag, it offers enterprise-caliber performance, flexibility, and reliability ideal for mission-critical business use cases.
Future ReadyNAS Roadmap
While Netgear has not laid out their exact roadmap for future ReadyNAS products, they have hinted at some planned improvements and potential new models.
In response to community questions about the future of ReadyNAS, Netgear indicated they are working on new models with “more capable CPUs/chipsets, increased memory limits, 2.5GbE/10GbE, ZFS, tiered storage, etc.” [1]
Netgear’s vision seems to be to continue incrementally improving the ReadyNAS line of network-attached storage devices. They aim to keep pace with customer demands for faster network speeds, increased storage capacity, more powerful processors, and advanced file systems.
While exact details remain unclear, Netgear’s comments point towards new ReadyNAS models in 2022 and beyond that will target prosumers and small/medium businesses with advanced features previously only found on enterprise-grade NAS devices.
Conclusion
In summary, Netgear pioneered the network attached storage market with the launch of its ReadyNAS product line in 2004. Over the past two decades, ReadyNAS has been one of the most popular and best-selling NAS systems for home and small business users. While the competitive landscape has gotten more crowded over the years, Netgear continues to release new ReadyNAS models on a regular basis. The latest additions to the portfolio include the 6 and 12 bay ReadyNAS 716 and 732X models launched in 2021.
So in conclusion, yes Netgear absolutely still makes and sells ReadyNAS storage systems today. ReadyNAS remains a core part of Netgear’s product portfolio. While Netgear has diversified into wireless routers, switches, security cameras and other product lines, ReadyNAS NAS devices are still designed, manufactured and sold by Netgear. The company remains fully committed to the ReadyNAS product line, as evidenced by its continued innovation and new model introductions year after year.
References
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