Add to this the fact that the electrician on my house had to be one of the Marx Brothers and I knew I needed to find a power solution that could protect my network storage device.

I began researching battery back-up systems to find one that would provide enough time to allow the device to shut down gradually and gracefully. Looking over the documentation for the ReadyNAS Pro unit it did not appear as though it required anything proprietary.

A simple USB connection between the ReadyNAS Pro and the battery back-up unit should suffice. Since this device is in a home environment I was not interested in a battery back-up system that would keep my network running for hours during a power outage.

My theory was that if my house lost power that probably meant the network equipment in our neighborhood would most likely also lose power so even if I kept my entire network up I still would not have Internet services.

I began researching the various battery back-up systems trying to find a happy medium between stand-by power and aesthetics. After all, I was going to have to store this battery system somewhere and I was pretty sure my wife would object if I brought home a lead brick as large as an end-table.

After several online reviews and some quick Google searches I decided on the APC – 1300 VA Battery Back-up System. It is a tower model that can be hidden behind a desk or under the curtains with dimensions of 4.4 inches wide, 11.9 inches height, and 15 inches deep.

The battery back-up system weight a sturdy 22.8 pounds making it light enough to move around yet heavy enough that you want to think twice before dragging it across the floor.

The device has ten power outlets on the back. Five of these are battery back-up and the other five are pass-through outlets. The device is rated for up to 140 minutes of stand-by power.

After plugging in the NetGear ReadyNAS and my 24 inch Mac monitor the device said it had enough power for 19 minutes of reserve. I could probably have extended the time by not including the monitor but I decided I wanted it to remain active allowing me to shutdown properly.

The APC unit included a USB connector and cable that I connected to the back of the NetGear ReadyNAS. I was pleasantly surprised to find the ReadyNAS immediately recognized the APC unit and set itself up to monitor the power state.

There were not configuration screens that had to be filled out, no software to be installed; it was simply plug-and-play. Considering how complicated my life and my network is, it was refreshing to have something just work right out of the box.

After plugging in all of the devices I was feeling pretty good. I still didn’t know whether the device would actually work but I was hopeful. My answer would come quickly enough.

One of my kids was making toast in the kitchen when a piece of bread became jammed causing the GFI circuit in the kitchen to eliminate power to the plug. Interestingly enough, our electrician connected the GFI outlet with the toaster to an outlet in the living room that was twenty feet away. Like I said, he had to be one of the Marx Brothers.

When the GFI tripped the APC came to life alarming and notifying the user through the front display that the unit was now on battery power. The ReadyNAS was likewise notified and began shutting down.

This was just what I would have expected and it just worked. I cannot say enough about how simple this product was to install and implement. I can now rest a little easier knowing my ReadyNAS is protected from power spikes and outages.

If only everything in my life was this easy. I might actually get some sleep at night instead of laying awake worrying.

The hard reboot was bad enough but the subsequent media check meant the reboot time would stretch into hours before service was restored. Not exactly the kind of customer experience I was hoping for when I bought the device.

Things were getting so bad that I began researching a replacement device that I could purchase to replace the NetGear ReadyNAS. In the ReadyNAS Pro I have six 1.5 TB drives configured as a RAID 5 enclosure. That gives me 7.5TB of online storage.

I have been diligent in updating the firmware on the device and give it regular cleanings with compressed air so as far as I was concerned I was being diligent in managing the device. Despite my best efforts, the device continued to cause me problems.

After yet another hard re-boot my frustration level had reached new heights. I had about reached the end of my troubleshooting patience when for some reason I decided to change the configuration.

Up to this point I had configured the ReadyNAS Pro with two gigabit Ethernet connections directly to a Cisco switch. I seemed to remember that I added the second Ethernet connection just recently. I wondered if perhaps I had a bad cable.

I removed one gigabit connection and waited. After two weeks I did not have a single drop off by the device. I wondered if perhaps I had a bad cable. I swapped Ethernet cables and again left the device to run.

Another two weeks went by with no issues with the ReadyNAS device. It did not appear that the problem was cable since I had used two different cables. I decided to see if the problem was connecting both Ethernet ports. I plugged both cables into the device and restarted the ReadyNAS.

Within two hours the problem appeared and the device disconnected itself from the network requiring a hard boot. After several hours rebuilding and checking the drives the ReadyNAS was back on line.

This time I am using just a single Ethernet port on the ReadyNAS device. While I might theoretically only be getting half the throughput in this configuration it is a lot more stable and that is better than raw speed any day of the week.

I am able to access my files across my Ethernet network using a variety of clients including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Macintosh OS X, and Linux. It is hard to express how great this system has been.

Where I used to burn DVDs and shuttle USB drives from box to box in order to share data between computers now it is as simple as logging onto the ReadyNAS and accessing the information.

Not only is the information always available but it has given me the added benefit of being able to maintain one copy of the information instead of having multiple versions stored on various computers on the network.

The ReadyNAS has been so bulletproof that it has nearly become invisible. That is the greatest compliment a network device can receive. It works so well that people just forget it is even there. It is as reliable as turning on a light switch.

Of course making that statement I immediately jinxed myself to a life of dealing with problems that cannot be resolved. Such has become the case with the ReadyNAS Pro.

Recently the device downloaded a new version of the firmware and waited patiently for a reboot. The rain storm that blanketed Arizona last week offered the perfect opportunity to reboot. A power outage took down the entire network and I spent the better part of an evening recovering all the devices.

The ReadyNAS booted and went through a diagnostic check due to the power outage. On an array of six 1.5TB of data that can take a long time. When the system finally came up things seemed to be working.

The following day the ReadyNAS suddenly just stopped working. The blue power light on the front of the box was lit but the system was unresponsive. It required removing the power plug from the wall for a minute before the system would reset.

Upon restoring power it went through another system check taking over an hour to come up. Approximately two days later the same situation occurred with the ReadyNAS having to be powered off by removing the cord.

This has since happened six times in a week. My first inclination was the unsettled weather had caused some problems. In order to eliminate that, I bought an Uninterruptible Power System which I will review at a later date.

After installing the UPS the ReadyNAS seemed to be working and I thought the problem was resolved. Today the ReadyNAS again hung requiring yet another unplug and subsequent data check.

I began researching the problem and found I was not the only one having this problem. According to the support forums there are a number of Net Gear users having similar issues. So far the company has not found a solution.

Some are suggesting it is a configuration issue but that seems implausible given the number of people reporting the problem. Others are suggesting RAM but that too does not seem accurate since many of the people reporting this issue including myself have not upgraded or changed the factory memory.

For now I’ll continue to monitor the issue and in the mean time I will need to find a replacement NAS system that is more stable. I cannot afford to use this as a storage device if it continually fails. I’ll keep you posted as this progresses.