Netgear has announced a new range of NAS devices that supposedly mark the "beginning of the end of local storage" - a bold claim from the company's CEO, to be sure. Along with the features you might expect to find on networked storage, the ReadyNAS Ultra line can stream media to any TiVo device, DLNA-certified machine, and mobile devices including iPads, Blackberries, and Android devices via Orb technologies.


The series is comprised of two models, one with four bays and another with six. The Ultra 4 ships with dual 2TB hard drives and is priced at $899, while the Ultra 6 packs 6TB of storage for $1,349. Both carry a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 6. Preorders should be open relatively soon with units set to ship mid-July. A two-bay system, presumably the Ultra 2, is due in October.