User Experience: QNAP TS-639 Pro vs. Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer

[GeekMan]

Hey all,
After careful consideration and lots (and LOTS) of research, I've narrowed my choices of a NAS product to replace my aging ReadyNAS NV+'s to the two mentioned above. While I'm pretty sure I'd be happy with either, I'm looking for actual user experiences with either (or better yet, both) of these units. At the moment, both diskless products are selling at roughly the same price of ~$1,050, so price isn't really an issue here.
What I really want to know is;

• What's the front-end software experience for the QNap? I've only used the Raidar software that comes with the ReadyNAS product line.
• The ReadyNAS product line has XRaid and XRaid2, which has worked wonderfully for me when a single drive failed and I needed to hot-swap. How does the QNap Raid interface work in comparison?
• The QNap has a much longer list of "approved" hard drives, especially in the 1.5TB and 2TB range, has anyone used non-approved drives with the ReadyNAS? What happened?

A little history;
I own two Infrant ReadyNAS NV+'s (purchased before Netgear bought Infrant) and they both have been working flawlessly for the last 2+ years. Lately however, one of them started to lockup for no reason so I figured it might be prudent to buy a newer, larger NAS and copy all my files from both NV+'s to the new NAS and use the old NV+'s as backups. I keep all my files on the NAS's, from business files to movies, so having a rock solid, easy to use and well supported product trumps any savings I might receive by building my own.

 

[thiggins]

What's the front-end software experience for the QNap? I've only used the Raidar software that comes with the ReadyNAS product line.

Check the online demo

The ReadyNAS product line has XRaid and XRaid2, which has worked wonderfully for me when a single drive failed and I needed to hot-swap. How does the QNap Raid interface work in comparison?

It's a standard RAID interface. When I drive fails, you replace it and start a rebuild. You can also switch in a hot spare if you like.
RAID expansion and migration are also supported.

The QNap has a much longer list of "approved" hard drives, especially in the 1.5TB and 2TB range, has anyone used non-approved drives with the ReadyNAS? What happened?

You might want to read
Is That an Approved Drive In Your NAS? Or Are You Happy To Risk Your Data?

 

[GeekMan]

Thanks Thiggins, your response was great and very helpful, especially the link to the online demo! After playing around with it I've found that I like the ReadyNAS interface better... although the QNap interface is far more polished and "flashy".
Of course, since writing my original post I've discovered that the hard drives I wanted to use (Samsung HD154UI) are out of stock... EVERYWHERE so I can't even use whichever unit I decide on for a few months. Kind of defeats the purpose of buying it, doesn't it? So now I'm trying to figure out my best options for a new NAS that's under $2K and with at least 6TBs of HDD space.
Ugh, some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed...