Netgear Ready NAS backup storage

I'm currently backing up my Netgear Stora data to an external hard drive at the moment. I've been using the Stora for over a year now, maybe two. I've always been one to practice backing up my hard drive and other data files since losing a hard drive some two decades ago. The thing is, today there is a product for everyone, for pc or mac too. Once you get in the habit of dragging and dropping your files, photos or whole directories, you begin to have this feel of confidence. Confidence in knowing that if you ever have a problem with a hard drive you have nothing to fear. Data backup is a whole different study I would say. There is a learning curve involved in knowing what does what and why. I first started out using a backup software to make complete images of the desktop hard drive. There were several to chose from so I picked one that seemed like it was user friendly. It was and it works great. Acronis 10 was the software of choice. But, this post it not about Acronis. Back to the Netgear Ready NAS device. I have done my research on Netgear's website this morning and I now have my eyes set on a new box. It is the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Ultra 4 (4-bay, diskless) Network Attached Storage, latest genereation. Model RNDU4000. Amazon shows it at $512.74 at the moment. This does not include hard drives. Those will be around $125 each. I've got two new Western Digital 2tb drives sitting next to me in unsealed packages at the moment. But, my near term goal is to use them in my Stora box where I curently have 2 1tb drives. What's so special about all this you ask? The number one reason I can tell you is the drives are set up in a RAID configuration. You can Google it and read all about RAID in wikepedia but foremost is it is REDUNDANT. Meaning, if one drive would fail, you have the second that still has your data safe and sound. You replace the failed drive and the good running drive will copy over everything to the new drive and you will once again have a duplex or redundant data backup box. The reason I am upgrading the storage or doubling to 2tb is I am now needing some place to hold video files. I've been shooting quite a bit of video lately and the desktop will not hold everything with it's 1tb drive. So, the idea now is to store the video there and clear off the desktop drive of all video. I'll only drag over a video file as I am about to edit one. Businesses need to contemplate a backup device in their plans. There is nothing more frustrating than losing all your customer data you've typed into the system for years and then one day you open the business and the hard drive won't boot. Think about that for a minute. I wanted to update this post to include an idea I thought about they may interest you. If you have Verizon FIOS at home and want to expand your video storage you can add an external hard drive. I have added a 1tb drive about six months ago and it's been working great with a lot of capacity left on it. What came to my mind after writing this original post was, what if you put one of these RAID storage boxes on the dvr? That way you would never lose your video. Unless of course the box electronics would fail but you'd still have the hard drives that you could put into another box or a repaired one. I haven't heard of anyone having a failed box yet though. I guess you can never be sure of not losing anything, ever. All you can do is try to make the odds more in your favor. I am sure I will be writing about trying this one day in the near future and then I will let you know how it goes.