Quick update on the custom OS hardware warranty issue; We got word from UGREEN that they seem to be shifting their stance to continuing hardware warranty support after installing a custom OS, but they still don't want to promote it, and of course they won't be providing support services for a custom OS. Here's the exact statement we got from them; "We can offer the normal hardware warranty, but given that there may be unknown compatibility issues with third-party systems, we need to remind [customers] that flashing the machine is risky. So we prefer consumers to use our UGOS system directly. For the long-term development of the brand, we have invested a lot of R&D costs in the hope that we can run our own operating system. At the same time, as a new NAS manufacturer, our current software experience may not be able to compare to those [other] brands that have been in the industry for more than a decade. We will also continue to optimize and upgrade our system based on consumer feedback and suggestions. We understand that customers want to use a third party system, but we can't officially state that our customers should abandon our system." We see this as a huge win for the community, and it resolves one of the biggest potential problems we saw with the NAS. Let us know what you think!
I have heard that others now had problems with Unraid, which simply switches off after more than 60 minutes. Have you also experienced such problems? But all in all it certainly sounds a bit better from Ugreen now 😅 The cleanest way would of course still be to replace the built-in OS SSD, but then unfortunately you have to remove the warranty sticker. But that would make it go out again, wouldn't it?
@@thefoxhouse Under the newest Video he answered me: "I disabled the watchdog, used a completely new drive for the OS (and in the case of UnRAID, ran off the USB on one occasion with no disks, and on another with 3 disks). And on both occasions, the system rebooted after a few minutes. Still investigating the causes, as I need to eliminate some potential causes my side [...] but haven't had the time yet between other projects to explore yet." ... It doesn't seem so
I keep seeing ads for UGREEN, so I’m glad someone I trust was able to get a copy and review it! Thanks for the information, hopefully they can get their software figured out in future.
The disclaimer from the Uk rep. sounded more like:"We don't wanna fix problems you have due to flashing an different OS". Feels like it should be fine if UGREEN provides an image that you can install once something goes wrong.
There is conflicting information floating around (including from official Ugreen sources). Also, that's not enforceable in countries with strong consumer protection laws.
I would love to see a more in-depth video regarding the installation and use of another OS. Im debating getting one of these with the intention of installing Proxmox on it.
Huge thanks for making clear the boot and efi situation! After i finally clicked on their ad and was impressed by the hardware specs for this price, i reached out to both the community and ugreen themself to ask if i coould install another operating system. Ugreen only aswered, that this is not supported and i will loose warranty, while the folks in the community only said, that all could be done with tinkering and fiddling since we have root access..
They shouldnt even bother creating their own OS. They should highly promote the compatibility and choice of TrueNAS and unRAID into these machines. The hardware looks amazing and the whole idea if it would support the mentioned OS is amazing, but they missed not supporting ECC RAM which would have been the cherry on the top.
It's a double edged sword. When good solutions are already available, it's hard to justify reinventing the wheel unless you can bring something new to the table. I am optimistic though, seeing as they have a good base, hopefully UGREEN can bring those essential features to the platform because it would make the NAS extremely convenient. Ultimately consumers want choice to use the hardware in a way that they see most fit. Thanks for watching!
None of the CPUs they are using support ECC, as per Intel documentation. I'd have to checked, but I'm pretty sure all the modern choices for ECC either a) are AMD, and thus incompatible with several media services' hardware transcoding processes, or b) are expensive small scale Xeons. As for trying to sell these as boxes for enthusiast grade operating systems... most people who buy these small boxes are looking for things that "just works." Its why Synology is still king in the space even though they make such awful hardware choices - The software is fantastic for novices or people who just don't care. Most people I know who get into TrueNAS and unRAID would build their own boxes no matter what.
I can understand them creating their own os to market to people who just want a plug and play NAS and don't want to fiddle around with TrueNAS or something else. And the similar look to Synology is probably with the intention to get people to switch. What bothers me is their adamant standing about voiding your warranty should you install another OS. In my opinion they should lean more into the enthusiast market and make it even easier for users to switch the OS. If they would have gone that route, it would have been an immediate buy from me, followed by immediately installing TrueNAS on it 😉
For another way to access the BIOS without having to deliberately break the EFI partition could you attempt running "sudo systemctl reboot --firmware-setup" This should work as a way to reboot the system straight to BIOS.
@@TwoGuyzTechI don't know if that will work on these systems, but it should do. That said with the higher end ones i'd just open it and replace the SSD anyway. Look like brilliant hardware, just rough software wise for now.
@@__Ben I think that only works on systems that use systemd-boot as the bootloader, no? Don't think it would work on a system that boots from grub or does it?
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 Still works on some systems I have that use grub, so it should be fine. Could possibly add a grub entry to fwsetup too somehow
Hardware looks nice , but I pay hardware + software (even I don’t need the software part) and still no go for 3rdparty OS which broke whole warranty (they even void hardware warranty) . Their software/features is mostly not sure / in develop , if you trying sell a turkey solution with strict UgreenOS policy , at least make something work out of the box ,right ? No go until they have clean statement about 3rd party OS /hardware warranty and timetable of supported feature list
In the higher end models, the OS is installed on a built-in NVME. Replace it and install the OS on a new one. If you need warranty, put the original NVME back.
@@msaraiva I remember see that part that you need to broke their "warranty sticker" to access that system drive Not sure if the sticker is legal in the EU but I am sure the company will try everything to decline your support Like how they describe the 3rd party OS policy in a another video -is because they don't want to get into a rabbit hole where people raise support tickets for something on the 3rd software part Yep you reading right , one of the reasons for it is : we don't want to do the support job or try to reject support ticket not related to us. Mate you are the first line of contact for user support ,if the issue is something from 3rd party then gently told user what happened and suggest them contact the correct party When your company is selling a turkey solution to the end user, don't expect the end user know everything ,and expected will get odd support ticket from end user if they know everything they don't need to buy your turkey product . Funny thing is the turkey nas solution they try to sell got lots of thing can't promise ,no time table, not that "work out of the box" LMAO
@@frankwong9486 EU warranty is provided by the EU seller and the stickers are irrelevant. If you buy from overseas there is no EU warranty besides what the manufacturer decides to provide
One possible explanation for the custom kernel is for btrfs support and especially btrfs raid5 support. Yes Debian has btrfs support too, but they might have backported more features/fixes on their own kernel since btrfs raid5 is a moving target and not officially "stable"
I would love to see a review if this guy's big brother, the 6bay unit, maxed on ram, additional optional SSDs, and TruNAS Scale taking advantage of all of it.
Good review; glad you pointed out the deficiencies regarding the software. As you noted, these pieces make it tough to go to it now, but hopefully they update and get it right software wise
Nice review, thanks. Could you do a part 2, going more in-depth running third party OS? Both Truenas and Unraid. Specifically, stability and performance (transfers speeds) running it. Thanks.
Thanks for touching on the UEFI boot portion of your video. Did you test unraid on it after you did that? Will it stay online and reboot right back into Unraid with no problems? Unraid boots off a USB stick, not a nvme drive.
Thanks for watching! We did not buy it but UGREEN sent it to us for review as it is a prerelease unit. As mentioned in the video, this is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and I left a link to their campaign in the description.
@TwoGuyzTech Can you show us all the BIOS menus? I"m wondering if this board supports or has a BIOS option to bifurcate that 1st M.2 slot used for the boot SSD, you could adapter it out to dual M.2 SSDs in a mirror.
Thanks for watching! The BIOS setup is really basic, unfortunately no options to bifurcate any of the M.2 slots. You don't really get anything past fan curve adjustment and enabling/disabling Turbo Boost. You could mirror the boot SSD to another one of the M.2 slots that would otherwise be used for a cache drive but if you want more cache or more NVMe storage then it's definitely not ideal. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the review! I'm looking to get this exact model. OS is my main concern and you confirmed it. I heard that UGREEN will push a major update before the official release, hopefully it will bring more features. Did you break the NDA by releaing an early review? I can't find any other reviews but yours.
Thanks for watching! We also hope that UGREEN will be able to deliver on their promises. It sounds like a lot of new features will be coming soon that would improve the software experience a lot. Although UGREEN did send us this NAS for review, they never asked us to sign an NDA nor subjected us to any other editorial oversight. We only became aware that some folks were held to an NDA after the release of our review. Hopefully this helps to put some of this into perspective.
Can you do one nvme cache one storage? I plan to get a NAS and cobble together with what drives I have now and upgrade as I need/can. My extra 2tb nvme is a little excessive for cache lol.
Yep, that's my plan. A Jonsbo N1 case = $150, decent PSU = $80 and Topton N6005 ITX mobo $180, total = $430, so one can consider the RAM, SSD, 10GbE card and CPU upgrade as essentially having been thrown in for free here.
What's the best safe & easy to use long term data storage solution? For if you have money to invest & want an easy to use setup for accessing your data.
Thanks for watching! You can copy files to the NAS by creating a Shared Folder (SMB) and then mounting it from a Windows PC in File Explorer. For backing up the movies, we have a full guide on that process here: ruclips.net/video/S2yze4DUCT0/видео.html hope this helps!
Since it's running Debian it should be able to run Open Media Vault, which brings along with it Docker support and a bunch of other things. But since it has DLNA out of the box there's no need to add anything if you're just using it to store media and your Smart TV and other devices have DLNA support. They just need to have native support for the codecs the files are encoded with.
Could you maybe install a few different operating systems and test if everything works fine? Like Windows and TrueNas. Since they use a custom kernel, it could be that they did some odd stuff, like it's often the case with embedded hardware.. Theoretically even Windows should run. Would be nice if we could also use the internal 128GB SSD for 3th party operating systems.
Thanks for watching! I have tested other Linux distros and they work perfectly on the hardware, so I don't have any reason to believe that Windows and TrueNAS wouldn't work great either. I may visit this topic in a future video. You can use the internal 128GB SSD for other operating systems, but I'm not sure if there's any way to source the original OS again if you want to restore the unit to its original condition, so keep this in mind as well.
I'm a beta tester, I've ran my own tests and plex works well in terms of performance, Had to jump through hoops to get hardware transcoding working though as many of the drivers needed for that were not installed. That was a native install via SSH. They did mention that they are looking into making some kind of official package. I don't know for sure if that will happen though or will they just tell users to use docker if they want plex. Gotta wait and see on that front.
@@fixitfixitfixit I would really like a native package that doesn't require a bunch of hoops to make work. I understand that there are technical people who can install Linux on anything and make things work, but I'm here to use it as a "non technical" user. Another person said it best, this is advertised as a "Turnkey solution", but you still have to manually do things to make things like Plex work.
Great review. Thanks for the deeper dive on the Linux kernel (I don't understand why they're using a custom kernel at all) and the third party OS/UEFI stuff (not bizarre if you assume it's primarily to lock users into their OS, but aggravating). It's disappointing to see such great hardware paired with the software you've experienced. It's actually a bit concerning that they sent it out to you in this state. NASCompares has Q and A with one of the Ugreen product leads, and ... he was a lot vaguer on the hardware specs than you were. He didn't give details on some things that you were able to look at just by using lspci. One thing he did say that really turned me off was that installing a third party OS apparently *voids the hardware warranty*. I'd understand it being completely unsupported, but voiding the entire warranty seems extreme, especially as the software is still so ... young. If you're able to talk to Ugreen's product rep(s), could you ask them to clarify whether installing a third party OS is just unsupported, or whether it actually voids the hardware warranty?
Thanks for watching & we're glad the video was helpful! Unfortunately, as we've come to understand from the digging we've done, the operating system warranty issue seems to be something that UGREEN is pretty stiff about. The German website also verbosely states that (translated) "We do not recommend this type of intervention. If you still insist on it, you will permanently lose your warranty". We haven't had contact with the gentleman from UGREEN that was in the Q and A session - the individual we've been working with is part of UGREEN's team in China - so we may contact them for further clarification. Will keep you posted.
Maybe you can help @TwoGuyzTech So one of the things I've been toying with is to either use NAS storage or get PCIE-Sata expansion to have the drives in my case. I am planning on building a full gaming/media PC and have been undecided on the best way to do it. All my old games, current games (almost 3000 on steam) and all my DVD's, Anime which I have ripped to keep the discs safe are all stored on multiple 12tb hard drives. Right now I'm using external cases for temporary but don't like them because they tend to go to sleep after a while and them initializing every time I want to access something is annoying and slows down Launchbox. What would you recommend me doing? Having all the drives in my case (Cosmos II case that can fit 13 hard drives) using a PCIE-Sata Expansion or should I use a NAS and would playing games be ok on a NAS? I've been leaning more towards the PCIE-Sata Expansion route but for some reason my mind is having second thoughts. I think I just need another intelligent head to provide me with their thoughts. Hope you'll see this and reply.
I think competition is good , just hope truenas keeps on getting more and more stable and capable with time since i plug more than 16 “old” repurposed drives and a 16 bay nas is prohibitory expensive… the hardware seems amazing though except the ram limitations which i hope can be overcomed with some kind of swap memory partition on those nvmes… wonder if they support ECC RAM… wish to see ecc ram becoming a standard for nas systems
After watching this I’m considering 4800 Plus, but now that I’m on the website the DXP480T Plus is catching my eye. Any opinions on the all-flash for primarily movie streaming?
@4:27 -- Having to go to the company's web site, in order to activate or configure or enable your purchase to function properly, is a red flag. If some remote web site can run admin processes on the hardware in your home (or your office), then you are granting access to complete strangers. And what if UGREEN goes belly-up? Well, where does that leave you with your hardware? What's next? Buy a new refrigerator, and to to the company's web site to set the temperature? It sounds like that UGREEN NAS is a mini or small form factor PC, housed in a case that has four bays for drives. You can probably install Windows on it, and use it like any other PC (albeit with Pentium CPU performance).
While I do agree with this 100% I think I should have made it clearer in the video that the "find UGNas" site only searches for the NAS on your local network. The actual web interface that it directs you to is hosted on the NAS itself and doesn't have any reliance on the Internet (unless you link a UGREEN account which is optional for now) but it still can absolutely receive commands from the internet and we don't know how well UGOS is written as far as security goes. You can absolutely install another OS as well and we think it's an optimal use case. I showed a little trick to get access to the UEFI BIOS towards the end of the video. Hope this clarifies things just a bit, thanks for watching!
Thank you for the informative video. I just wonder, if you replace the built-in SSD with a different one, I doubt that anyone can tell that you used a different OS.
Thanks for watching! Yes, in theory you could do this, but the disassembly of the NAS is rather difficult and we had to break a "warranty void if removed" sticker to gain access to the internal SSD. The best approach might be to image the SSD to another external drive and then install your operating system, so you could re-image the original data back on if needed.
Oh, I see, you are absolutely right then. With the sticker in mind, then imaging the drive is probably the best solution (especially since it is just a 128 GB SSD). Thank you for the extra info. Originally, I was looking at the TerraMaster F4-424 Pro (after what happened to Storaxa...), but it looks like I'm going to be a Ugreen NAS owner "soon". The hardware is just too good to skip. Especially considering the PCI layout is also decent (thx for showing the lspci output), it will make a hella good Proxmox/TrueNAS box.
I like the hardware and that you can replace the OS - I have my own self built server that's a bit long in the tooth that I would like to replace with something like this.
this is super cool my first thought of this was for the price i could 3d print an extension to the bottom of the case and add some more 3.5in drive bays or even some 2.5in bays and throw truenas or proxmox on this thing. Atlest the software is not completely locked down like some other brands
8 месяцев назад
So to use plex server you need to install another OS, right? Also using plex for playback via the HDMI requires another OS, right?
Does it supports a direct link via the second LAN? 2.5G to network is enough for me, but the 10G to 10G on my computer would be great for direct access when i.e. editing directly off from it. The missing TB4 on this specific model would be the make or break if it comes to this use case, if a direct LAN connection doesn't work.
Nearly perfect, just needs a few changes: Some sort of iKVM/IPMI remote control, a way to mirror the boot drive (maybe the SSD boot drive can bifurcate?), and change that SATA backplane to a tri-support of SATA/SAS/NVMe.
I wish I had known how deep into homelab I was going to go just from the time I ordered my nasync. I haven't even opened it yet because I realized I wanted more. Having a higher level ugreen nas would've been perfect but I didn't know I wanted it at the time. I went from just wanting a nas to host jellyfin. to building a full xeon pc with tons of HDD space to run proxmox.
Hmm, I was able to stop it from booting into the built-in EFI and will boot from a USB for Unraid, but I am still unable to actually get into the BIOS settings. I've tried every key I can think of that would normally pop the BIOS menu. Any ideas?
Just saw this, and will watch other reviews. Just a question in case you may know.. I live in the US, so I know this NAS IS available to m )others have said only US / DE). I have a QANP Nas I LOVE and use it for work. I am looking for a surveillance system for my home. Many standalone camera systems are great, but, interfaces can be wonky, and they don't NEARLY have the processing / memory of something like an actual NAS. I just don't want to burden my QNAP with wired camera streams, and so I was looking for a 2-Bay NAS to basically use as a Surveillance system. Do you know if this NAS handles ONVIF cameras I can use, or how the Surveillance app is? Have you looked at that aspect of the software? Seems like it has great processing power to be a dedicated surveillance system ONLY (which is what I am looking for) - many standalone systems have bragged they can handle multiple (like 6) 4k streams, and yet, actual reviews are mixed when tried. That's why I thought about just buying and dedicating a NAS ONLY for that purpose, and this sounds like it COULD be the one. What would you say?
What I think is strange is the popup box that says the hard drives are not on the compatibility list and that you could lose data. Strange because UGREEN supplied those drives, and that WD Red drives are not on their compatibility list.
Thanks for watching! To be truthful, we're not sure, since we don't have an eMMC unit to test, but we would imagine the process would be almost identical, save for the name of the device being different. I'm covering this topic in more detail in a video releasing on our channel this morning. Hope it helps.
Can the USB type C port on the front plug into a Mac or PC and make the drives be seen as a removable drive? If so then I can use BackBlaze to do a cloud backup of this NAS.
How’s the Mac compatibility? I currently have a pi running OpenMediaVault attached to a sabrent enclosure and I’m getting a ton of issues with copying files to the drives. From what I can see it’s a macOS and SMB compatibility issue.
Thanks for watching! We don't have a modern Mac to test with right now but it behaved perfectly fine being read and written to both from Windows and Linux. I suspect it's running Debian's standard Samba package for hosting SMB.
Can you please let me know the dimensions. Depth and height are important to me. I only have 16.5 cm of height space left in my small rack. Thank you :)
Do you have any information on the eMMC of the DXP2800/4800? I was wondering if it was soldered on or if it was replacable and if one could also put a different OS on there
I watched another video on these, from 'aChair leg', who did a full teardown and installed a different OS. It isn't easy, but is possible and seemed to work well.
I’m looking to get a NAS but want to find a NAS that is somewhat affordable but can run multiple 4K videos. I would also like to find what NAS would work best with transcoding videos even if they’re elsewhere than the main network. I heard really good things about the new terramaster f4 424 pro that it’s good all the way around, just when I had looked, it was not available yet (US). Any other suggestions or cheaper suggestions? Mainly would want jellyfin server with a spot for storing files.
Ugreen, sell the box with no operating system, reduce the price and the majority of people looking for a suitable nas would likely buy one of these over a QNAP and Synology.
The section where I mentioned modifications you could make to disable booting from the internal SSD would make it very easy to install TrueNAS. Hope this helps!
Just a small detail in the Kickstarter: "Please note that The UGREEN NASync Series Kickstarter campaign currently only supports shipping to addresses in the United States and Germany."
I think they _might_ support ZFS based on their documentation and the dropdown menu where you can select btrfs - shame the reviewer didn't click the dropdown in the video...
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 not that familiar with running Linux. I could figure it out though. I want to get a jellyfin server going. I know there’s cheaper ways to do it, but I’m more confident on windows
@@michaeloleary6012 Understood. It would probably be easier doing it with a custom tailored Linux-like OS made to run on a NAS such as TrueNAS, UnRAID or even OpenMediaVault than Windows, though. I mean, Docker does run on Windows but not nearly as well as on UNIX-like OSes and it requires jumping through some hoops. Plus you would need to know how to setup RAID on Windows to make it useful on a NAS which does require some know-how. Windows really is a poor fit for this use case and one that I strongly advise against if you don't understand the basics here. If you know how to write an image to a flash drive and then use it to boot a machine to install an OS, then you're already half way there. Everything else can be done with easy to use web UIs and there are thousands of tutorials out there that explain how to do anything with your NAS.
Quick update on the custom OS hardware warranty issue;
We got word from UGREEN that they seem to be shifting their stance to continuing hardware warranty support after installing a custom OS, but they still don't want to promote it, and of course they won't be providing support services for a custom OS. Here's the exact statement we got from them;
"We can offer the normal hardware warranty, but given that there may be unknown compatibility issues with third-party systems, we need to remind [customers] that flashing the machine is risky.
So we prefer consumers to use our UGOS system directly. For the long-term development of the brand, we have invested a lot of R&D costs in the hope that we can run our own operating system.
At the same time, as a new NAS manufacturer, our current software experience may not be able to compare to those [other] brands that have been in the industry for more than a decade.
We will also continue to optimize and upgrade our system based on consumer feedback and suggestions.
We understand that customers want to use a third party system, but we can't officially state that our customers should abandon our system."
We see this as a huge win for the community, and it resolves one of the biggest potential problems we saw with the NAS. Let us know what you think!
I have heard that others now had problems with Unraid, which simply switches off after more than 60 minutes. Have you also experienced such problems?
But all in all it certainly sounds a bit better from Ugreen now 😅
The cleanest way would of course still be to replace the built-in OS SSD, but then unfortunately you have to remove the warranty sticker. But that would make it go out again, wouldn't it?
@@xenonlp9189I’m pretty sure he addressed that in the video. He said the watchdog timer in the bios needs to be disabled
@@thefoxhouse Under the newest Video he answered me: "I disabled the watchdog, used a completely new drive for the OS (and in the case of UnRAID, ran off the USB on one occasion with no disks, and on another with 3 disks). And on both occasions, the system rebooted after a few minutes. Still investigating the causes, as I need to eliminate some potential causes my side [...] but haven't had the time yet between other projects to explore yet." ... It doesn't seem so
I keep seeing ads for UGREEN, so I’m glad someone I trust was able to get a copy and review it! Thanks for the information, hopefully they can get their software figured out in future.
Thank you so much! Glad it was helpful! We hope so too. It's not far from being a really capable unit right out of the box.
I was supposed to get one to test then they backed out last minute
why don't you just put unraid or truenas on it?
JFYI, if you install a different OS you'll loose UGREEN warranty (source: a recent interview with UGREEN UK rep. on another YT NAS channel).
Not sure how valuable that warranty actually is
@@utooboobnoobAgree, but as a user, I prefer to make an informed decision.
The disclaimer from the Uk rep. sounded more like:"We don't wanna fix problems you have due to flashing an different OS". Feels like it should be fine if UGREEN provides an image that you can install once something goes wrong.
There is conflicting information floating around (including from official Ugreen sources). Also, that's not enforceable in countries with strong consumer protection laws.
They don’t want the CCP mandated back door removed from the kernel? Gasp!
Thanks for showing the kernel and BIOS. Rare to see in a video like this, but super useful.
Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching!
Thunderbolt 4 is available at 6 Bay Models and above.
ABOUT TIME … thank goodness 😅
SLAPS TRUENAS on it Let’s Go
I really like the design of the unit. Easy access for RAM and M.2. Being able to install TrueNAS or such is also a great benfit.
I would love to see a more in-depth video regarding the installation and use of another OS. Im debating getting one of these with the intention of installing Proxmox on it.
Finally a real video about NASync. Their own official videos are completely useless. Thanks
If I could install TrueNas Scale on that…I’d be 100% in.
You can
You can install any os, there is even videos with Windows installed.
It was interesting when i saw it being advertised, but they're kickstarter is only selling to USA and Germany.
Can u add power consumption numbers? For like idle avg min max. With or without hdds. Thanks.
other reviews are showing 60W idle
@garyhobson8583 with the 4 hdd ?
Huge thanks for making clear the boot and efi situation! After i finally clicked on their ad and was impressed by the hardware specs for this price, i reached out to both the community and ugreen themself to ask if i coould install another operating system. Ugreen only aswered, that this is not supported and i will loose warranty, while the folks in the community only said, that all could be done with tinkering and fiddling since we have root access..
Yes you can install another OS. I've seen a youtuber do it with a test unit. You just loose your warranty
And you also loose their phone app access.
@@xellaz Well that part makes sense since you are removing the software that makes it work.
@@xellaz Of course! Would be horrible otherwise!
They shouldnt even bother creating their own OS. They should highly promote the compatibility and choice of TrueNAS and unRAID into these machines. The hardware looks amazing and the whole idea if it would support the mentioned OS is amazing, but they missed not supporting ECC RAM which would have been the cherry on the top.
It's a double edged sword. When good solutions are already available, it's hard to justify reinventing the wheel unless you can bring something new to the table. I am optimistic though, seeing as they have a good base, hopefully UGREEN can bring those essential features to the platform because it would make the NAS extremely convenient. Ultimately consumers want choice to use the hardware in a way that they see most fit. Thanks for watching!
None of the CPUs they are using support ECC, as per Intel documentation. I'd have to checked, but I'm pretty sure all the modern choices for ECC either a) are AMD, and thus incompatible with several media services' hardware transcoding processes, or b) are expensive small scale Xeons.
As for trying to sell these as boxes for enthusiast grade operating systems... most people who buy these small boxes are looking for things that "just works." Its why Synology is still king in the space even though they make such awful hardware choices - The software is fantastic for novices or people who just don't care. Most people I know who get into TrueNAS and unRAID would build their own boxes no matter what.
I can understand them creating their own os to market to people who just want a plug and play NAS and don't want to fiddle around with TrueNAS or something else. And the similar look to Synology is probably with the intention to get people to switch.
What bothers me is their adamant standing about voiding your warranty should you install another OS. In my opinion they should lean more into the enthusiast market and make it even easier for users to switch the OS. If they would have gone that route, it would have been an immediate buy from me, followed by immediately installing TrueNAS on it 😉
Sucks the KS is only shipping to US and Germany, us UK lot can't get the 40% discount
For another way to access the BIOS without having to deliberately break the EFI partition could you attempt running "sudo systemctl reboot --firmware-setup" This should work as a way to reboot the system straight to BIOS.
Thanks for watching! Didn't know about that!
@@TwoGuyzTechI don't know if that will work on these systems, but it should do. That said with the higher end ones i'd just open it and replace the SSD anyway. Look like brilliant hardware, just rough software wise for now.
@@__Ben I think that only works on systems that use systemd-boot as the bootloader, no? Don't think it would work on a system that boots from grub or does it?
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 Still works on some systems I have that use grub, so it should be fine.
Could possibly add a grub entry to fwsetup too somehow
Hardware looks nice , but I pay hardware + software (even I don’t need the software part) and still no go for 3rdparty OS which broke whole warranty (they even void hardware warranty) .
Their software/features is mostly not sure / in develop , if you trying sell a turkey solution with strict UgreenOS policy , at least make something work out of the box ,right ?
No go until they have clean statement about 3rd party OS /hardware warranty and timetable of supported feature list
In the higher end models, the OS is installed on a built-in NVME. Replace it and install the OS on a new one. If you need warranty, put the original NVME back.
@@msaraiva I remember see that part that you need to broke their "warranty sticker" to access that system drive
Not sure if the sticker is legal in the EU but I am sure the company will try everything to decline your support
Like how they describe the 3rd party OS policy in a another video -is because they don't want to get into a rabbit hole where people raise support tickets for something on the 3rd software part
Yep you reading right , one of the reasons for it is : we don't want to do the support job or try to reject support ticket not related to us. Mate you are the first line of contact for user support ,if the issue is something from 3rd party then gently told user what happened and suggest them contact the correct party
When your company is selling a turkey solution to the end user, don't expect the end user know everything ,and expected will get odd support ticket from end user
if they know everything they don't need to buy your turkey product .
Funny thing is the turkey nas solution they try to sell got lots of thing can't promise ,no time table, not that "work out of the box" LMAO
@@frankwong9486 EU warranty is provided by the EU seller and the stickers are irrelevant. If you buy from overseas there is no EU warranty besides what the manufacturer decides to provide
the stagnation is why I decided last year to ditch "nas boxes" and build my own nas with truenas scale on it
That looks like the PERFECT hardware for a tiny nas. I'm drooling and want to add unraid to that so bad
One possible explanation for the custom kernel is for btrfs support and especially btrfs raid5 support. Yes Debian has btrfs support too, but they might have backported more features/fixes on their own kernel since btrfs raid5 is a moving target and not officially "stable"
I would love to see a review if this guy's big brother, the 6bay unit, maxed on ram, additional optional SSDs, and TruNAS Scale taking advantage of all of it.
Ugreen makes a lot of stuff like laptop holders, and lots of small electronics, and all of that stuff is really high quality.
Good review; glad you pointed out the deficiencies regarding the software. As you noted, these pieces make it tough to go to it now, but hopefully they update and get it right software wise
do you think this can be a line of defense, in the case of a ransomware attack in an office LAN ?
Nice review, thanks. Could you do a part 2, going more in-depth running third party OS? Both Truenas and Unraid. Specifically, stability and performance (transfers speeds) running it. Thanks.
Thanks for touching on the UEFI boot portion of your video. Did you test unraid on it after you did that? Will it stay online and reboot right back into Unraid with no problems? Unraid boots off a USB stick, not a nvme drive.
I really want one but it is a no-buy without Plex support or word on whether or not it will happen.
Well, it seems to have some crude support for Docker so one can still install the Plex docker manually and go from there, I think.
im new to NAS. I cant find a tutorial on how to get jellyfin on the UGREEN. i want to buy one but want to make sure i can get jellyfin on it first
anyone know if ugreen has since added the flexible raid ability to their software?
Can you test the power draw with TrueNAS or any other OS?
Hi, I have a question. Does this product even exist? This Ugreen Nasync DXp4800 Plus. It's not available on their website. Where did you buy it?
Thanks for watching! We did not buy it but UGREEN sent it to us for review as it is a prerelease unit. As mentioned in the video, this is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and I left a link to their campaign in the description.
@TwoGuyzTech Can you show us all the BIOS menus? I"m wondering if this board supports or has a BIOS option to bifurcate that 1st M.2 slot used for the boot SSD, you could adapter it out to dual M.2 SSDs in a mirror.
Thanks for watching! The BIOS setup is really basic, unfortunately no options to bifurcate any of the M.2 slots. You don't really get anything past fan curve adjustment and enabling/disabling Turbo Boost. You could mirror the boot SSD to another one of the M.2 slots that would otherwise be used for a cache drive but if you want more cache or more NVMe storage then it's definitely not ideal. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the review! I'm looking to get this exact model. OS is my main concern and you confirmed it. I heard that UGREEN will push a major update before the official release, hopefully it will bring more features.
Did you break the NDA by releaing an early review? I can't find any other reviews but yours.
Thanks for watching! We also hope that UGREEN will be able to deliver on their promises. It sounds like a lot of new features will be coming soon that would improve the software experience a lot. Although UGREEN did send us this NAS for review, they never asked us to sign an NDA nor subjected us to any other editorial oversight. We only became aware that some folks were held to an NDA after the release of our review. Hopefully this helps to put some of this into perspective.
@@TwoGuyzTech Thanks for clarifying
Can you do one nvme cache one storage? I plan to get a NAS and cobble together with what drives I have now and upgrade as I need/can. My extra 2tb nvme is a little excessive for cache lol.
Seems worth it to get it for the hardware and run truenas.
Yep, that's my plan. A Jonsbo N1 case = $150, decent PSU = $80 and Topton N6005 ITX mobo $180, total = $430, so one can consider the RAM, SSD, 10GbE card and CPU upgrade as essentially having been thrown in for free here.
What's the best safe & easy to use long term data storage solution? For if you have money to invest & want an easy to use setup for accessing your data.
How did u copy files? What did you use to backup files?
Thanks for watching! You can copy files to the NAS by creating a Shared Folder (SMB) and then mounting it from a Windows PC in File Explorer. For backing up the movies, we have a full guide on that process here: ruclips.net/video/S2yze4DUCT0/видео.html hope this helps!
Does the HDMI Port work with a custom OS installed? Or do you perhaps require the custom kernel code for it?
Since it's running Debian it should be able to run Open Media Vault, which brings along with it Docker support and a bunch of other things. But since it has DLNA out of the box there's no need to add anything if you're just using it to store media and your Smart TV and other devices have DLNA support. They just need to have native support for the codecs the files are encoded with.
The hardware specs looks great.
I wouldn't trust a custom kernel from a Chinese mainland company. Which is a shame as the the hardware looks great.
Also note that they state on their website that all arbitration is to be done in Hong Kong courts.
Unlock bootloader... install whatever you want.
You can install another NAS on in it
Could you maybe install a few different operating systems and test if everything works fine? Like Windows and TrueNas.
Since they use a custom kernel, it could be that they did some odd stuff, like it's often the case with embedded hardware.. Theoretically even Windows should run. Would be nice if we could also use the internal 128GB SSD for 3th party operating systems.
Thanks for watching! I have tested other Linux distros and they work perfectly on the hardware, so I don't have any reason to believe that Windows and TrueNAS wouldn't work great either. I may visit this topic in a future video. You can use the internal 128GB SSD for other operating systems, but I'm not sure if there's any way to source the original OS again if you want to restore the unit to its original condition, so keep this in mind as well.
Really good looking unit.
Great review! I'm also planning to buy one of these NAS systems. Do you have any information on compatibility with MacOS Time Machine Backups?
I'd be curious for a performance test of Plex on this
No native Plex support according to Ugreen.
Have to use Docker, which I don't want to do.
I expected easy installation like Synology
I'm a beta tester, I've ran my own tests and plex works well in terms of performance, Had to jump through hoops to get hardware transcoding working though as many of the drivers needed for that were not installed. That was a native install via SSH. They did mention that they are looking into making some kind of official package. I don't know for sure if that will happen though or will they just tell users to use docker if they want plex. Gotta wait and see on that front.
I can't say much more than that due to us beta testers being under an NDA. I will 100% agree with TwoGuys though the hardware is really solid.
@@fixitfixitfixit I would really like a native package that doesn't require a bunch of hoops to make work.
I understand that there are technical people who can install Linux on anything and make things work, but I'm here to use it as a "non technical" user.
Another person said it best, this is advertised as a "Turnkey solution", but you still have to manually do things to make things like Plex work.
@@fixitfixitfixit Did the Plex developers say if they were making an official package or did this come from UGreen? Thank you in advance!
Great review. Thanks for the deeper dive on the Linux kernel (I don't understand why they're using a custom kernel at all) and the third party OS/UEFI stuff (not bizarre if you assume it's primarily to lock users into their OS, but aggravating). It's disappointing to see such great hardware paired with the software you've experienced. It's actually a bit concerning that they sent it out to you in this state.
NASCompares has Q and A with one of the Ugreen product leads, and ... he was a lot vaguer on the hardware specs than you were. He didn't give details on some things that you were able to look at just by using lspci.
One thing he did say that really turned me off was that installing a third party OS apparently *voids the hardware warranty*. I'd understand it being completely unsupported, but voiding the entire warranty seems extreme, especially as the software is still so ... young.
If you're able to talk to Ugreen's product rep(s), could you ask them to clarify whether installing a third party OS is just unsupported, or whether it actually voids the hardware warranty?
Thanks for watching & we're glad the video was helpful!
Unfortunately, as we've come to understand from the digging we've done, the operating system warranty issue seems to be something that UGREEN is pretty stiff about. The German website also verbosely states that (translated) "We do not recommend this type of intervention. If you still insist on it, you will permanently lose your warranty".
We haven't had contact with the gentleman from UGREEN that was in the Q and A session - the individual we've been working with is part of UGREEN's team in China - so we may contact them for further clarification. Will keep you posted.
Thanks for the demo and info, have a great day
Maybe you can help @TwoGuyzTech So one of the things I've been toying with is to either use NAS storage or get PCIE-Sata expansion to have the drives in my case. I am planning on building a full gaming/media PC and have been undecided on the best way to do it. All my old games, current games (almost 3000 on steam) and all my DVD's, Anime which I have ripped to keep the discs safe are all stored on multiple 12tb hard drives. Right now I'm using external cases for temporary but don't like them because they tend to go to sleep after a while and them initializing every time I want to access something is annoying and slows down Launchbox.
What would you recommend me doing? Having all the drives in my case (Cosmos II case that can fit 13 hard drives) using a PCIE-Sata Expansion or should I use a NAS and would playing games be ok on a NAS?
I've been leaning more towards the PCIE-Sata Expansion route but for some reason my mind is having second thoughts. I think I just need another intelligent head to provide me with their thoughts. Hope you'll see this and reply.
I think competition is good , just hope truenas keeps on getting more and more stable and capable with time since i plug more than 16 “old” repurposed drives and a 16 bay nas is prohibitory expensive… the hardware seems amazing though except the ram limitations which i hope can be overcomed with some kind of swap memory partition on those nvmes…
wonder if they support ECC RAM… wish to see ecc ram becoming a standard for nas systems
Maybe this question has been asked before, but is there a video/tutorial showing how to install a different OS on this hardware? Thanks!
After watching this I’m considering 4800 Plus, but now that I’m on the website the DXP480T Plus is catching my eye. Any opinions on the all-flash for primarily movie streaming?
Can you attach a eGPU... Just because i want to see what it will do if you make a VM with the attached eGPU.
I wonder if the RAID will be good on it (and actually work on a Mac).
@4:27 -- Having to go to the company's web site, in order to activate or configure or enable your purchase to function properly, is a red flag.
If some remote web site can run admin processes on the hardware in your home (or your office), then you are granting access to complete strangers.
And what if UGREEN goes belly-up? Well, where does that leave you with your hardware?
What's next?
Buy a new refrigerator, and to to the company's web site to set the temperature?
It sounds like that UGREEN NAS is a mini or small form factor PC, housed in a case that has four bays for drives.
You can probably install Windows on it, and use it like any other PC (albeit with Pentium CPU performance).
While I do agree with this 100% I think I should have made it clearer in the video that the "find UGNas" site only searches for the NAS on your local network. The actual web interface that it directs you to is hosted on the NAS itself and doesn't have any reliance on the Internet (unless you link a UGREEN account which is optional for now) but it still can absolutely receive commands from the internet and we don't know how well UGOS is written as far as security goes.
You can absolutely install another OS as well and we think it's an optimal use case. I showed a little trick to get access to the UEFI BIOS towards the end of the video. Hope this clarifies things just a bit, thanks for watching!
@@TwoGuyzTech Thank you.
Thank you for the informative video. I just wonder, if you replace the built-in SSD with a different one, I doubt that anyone can tell that you used a different OS.
Thanks for watching! Yes, in theory you could do this, but the disassembly of the NAS is rather difficult and we had to break a "warranty void if removed" sticker to gain access to the internal SSD. The best approach might be to image the SSD to another external drive and then install your operating system, so you could re-image the original data back on if needed.
Oh, I see, you are absolutely right then. With the sticker in mind, then imaging the drive is probably the best solution (especially since it is just a 128 GB SSD). Thank you for the extra info. Originally, I was looking at the TerraMaster F4-424 Pro (after what happened to Storaxa...), but it looks like I'm going to be a Ugreen NAS owner "soon". The hardware is just too good to skip. Especially considering the PCI layout is also decent (thx for showing the lspci output), it will make a hella good Proxmox/TrueNAS box.
@@TwoGuyzTech Can we just boot from USB Stick ? I Plan to use Unraid
Are they even selling this mains stream yet?
I like the hardware and that you can replace the OS - I have my own self built server that's a bit long in the tooth that I would like to replace with something like this.
this is super cool my first thought of this was for the price i could 3d print an extension to the bottom of the case and add some more 3.5in drive bays or even some 2.5in bays and throw truenas or proxmox on this thing. Atlest the software is not completely locked down like some other brands
So to use plex server you need to install another OS, right? Also using plex for playback via the HDMI requires another OS, right?
I am looking for a 6 bay NAS which will let me add an existing HDD with data without formatting and possibly run Windows 11.
I wouldn't mind the 8bay but im kinda broke after investing in an 85 inch tv.
Does it supports a direct link via the second LAN? 2.5G to network is enough for me, but the 10G to 10G on my computer would be great for direct access when i.e. editing directly off from it. The missing TB4 on this specific model would be the make or break if it comes to this use case, if a direct LAN connection doesn't work.
i cant seem to find where the hell the movies are stored on the nas in jellyfin. i cant find the correct path
Nearly perfect, just needs a few changes: Some sort of iKVM/IPMI remote control, a way to mirror the boot drive (maybe the SSD boot drive can bifurcate?), and change that SATA backplane to a tri-support of SATA/SAS/NVMe.
Sorry but having to go through a Chinese server to circle back to my network connected NAS is a big red flag for security.
It uses Amazon cloud … no one cares about u except the cia.
I wish I had known how deep into homelab I was going to go just from the time I ordered my nasync. I haven't even opened it yet because I realized I wanted more. Having a higher level ugreen nas would've been perfect but I didn't know I wanted it at the time.
I went from just wanting a nas to host jellyfin. to building a full xeon pc with tons of HDD space to run proxmox.
Hmm, I was able to stop it from booting into the built-in EFI and will boot from a USB for Unraid, but I am still unable to actually get into the BIOS settings. I've tried every key I can think of that would normally pop the BIOS menu. Any ideas?
THE LOGAN TRAIN NEVER STOPS
Just what are those leading zero on the bays for?
Just saw this, and will watch other reviews. Just a question in case you may know.. I live in the US, so I know this NAS IS available to m )others have said only US / DE). I have a QANP Nas I LOVE and use it for work. I am looking for a surveillance system for my home. Many standalone camera systems are great, but, interfaces can be wonky, and they don't NEARLY have the processing / memory of something like an actual NAS. I just don't want to burden my QNAP with wired camera streams, and so I was looking for a 2-Bay NAS to basically use as a Surveillance system. Do you know if this NAS handles ONVIF cameras I can use, or how the Surveillance app is? Have you looked at that aspect of the software? Seems like it has great processing power to be a dedicated surveillance system ONLY (which is what I am looking for) - many standalone systems have bragged they can handle multiple (like 6) 4k streams, and yet, actual reviews are mixed when tried. That's why I thought about just buying and dedicating a NAS ONLY for that purpose, and this sounds like it COULD be the one. What would you say?
What I think is strange is the popup box that says the hard drives are not on the compatibility list and that you could lose data.
Strange because UGREEN supplied those drives, and that WD Red drives are not on their compatibility list.
i'm looking for an easy to use backup solution for ios and android, and other digital media. what would you recommend? Truenas? Synology? Qnap?
will this trick with renaming the EFI folder work for the eMMC (soldered) N100 versions as well?
Thanks for watching! To be truthful, we're not sure, since we don't have an eMMC unit to test, but we would imagine the process would be almost identical, save for the name of the device being different. I'm covering this topic in more detail in a video releasing on our channel this morning. Hope it helps.
Can the USB type C port on the front plug into a Mac or PC and make the drives be seen as a removable drive? If so then I can use BackBlaze to do a cloud backup of this NAS.
How’s the Mac compatibility?
I currently have a pi running OpenMediaVault attached to a sabrent enclosure and I’m getting a ton of issues with copying files to the drives.
From what I can see it’s a macOS and SMB compatibility issue.
Thanks for watching! We don't have a modern Mac to test with right now but it behaved perfectly fine being read and written to both from Windows and Linux. I suspect it's running Debian's standard Samba package for hosting SMB.
Genuine question, can i use plex and stream 4k?
I guess they got the idea from Synology DSM.
If I get the same unit, I will install CasaOS, which is also based in Debian.
do you have steps on how to install a new os on it? good review btw
Do you feel that jellyfin/plex would be able to run on the none plus variant?
Personally I bought a Dell wyse 5070 to run proxmox and jellyfin on and use a nas just for storage, that way failure of one won't impact the other.
Can you please let me know the dimensions. Depth and height are important to me. I only have 16.5 cm of height space left in my small rack. Thank you :)
Thank you for your review. Is it possible to connect another computer directly to this nas via cable to open the disks?
wait can you use the 4k hdmi 2.1 port to stream games?
Vidéo surveillance app does this available
Do you have any information on the eMMC of the DXP2800/4800? I was wondering if it was soldered on or if it was replacable and if one could also put a different OS on there
I watched another video on these, from 'aChair leg', who did a full teardown and installed a different OS. It isn't easy, but is possible and seemed to work well.
I like the size of the cooling fan
I’m looking to get a NAS but want to find a NAS that is somewhat affordable but can run multiple 4K videos. I would also like to find what NAS would work best with transcoding videos even if they’re elsewhere than the main network. I heard really good things about the new terramaster f4 424 pro that it’s good all the way around, just when I had looked, it was not available yet (US). Any other suggestions or cheaper suggestions? Mainly would want jellyfin server with a spot for storing files.
Ugreen, sell the box with no operating system, reduce the price and the majority of people looking for a suitable nas would likely buy one of these over a QNAP and Synology.
Hey, anyone got any experience with the Simplecom SE482?
Hack for install truenas?
The section where I mentioned modifications you could make to disable booting from the internal SSD would make it very easy to install TrueNAS. Hope this helps!
Good job on the review. That Chinese kernel is a no go for me. I’ll wait for something else at this point.
Rip and replace.
Just a small detail in the Kickstarter: "Please note that The UGREEN NASync Series Kickstarter campaign currently only supports shipping to addresses in the United States and Germany."
Can you make a vpn using this?
How much is this ?
Ill hold off judgement until I see a video of TrueNAS Scale installation video with full hardware functionality.
Do they support ZFS? How hard is it to install other OS's?
I think they _might_ support ZFS based on their documentation and the dropdown menu where you can select btrfs - shame the reviewer didn't click the dropdown in the video...
Keep up the amazing work. This is my favorite tech channel 😌
Gonna be the TikTok of NAS.
How would you run JellyFin on one of these? Would you need to install a different os?
Well, it seems to have some crude support for Docker so one can still install the Jellyfin docker manually and go from there, I think.
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 do you think it would work to install windows on this?
@@michaeloleary6012 It probably would work since this seems to be a bog standard PC from the looks of it but then the real question would be: WHY?
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 not that familiar with running Linux. I could figure it out though. I want to get a jellyfin server going. I know there’s cheaper ways to do it, but I’m more confident on windows
@@michaeloleary6012 Understood. It would probably be easier doing it with a custom tailored Linux-like OS made to run on a NAS such as TrueNAS, UnRAID or even OpenMediaVault than Windows, though. I mean, Docker does run on Windows but not nearly as well as on UNIX-like OSes and it requires jumping through some hoops. Plus you would need to know how to setup RAID on Windows to make it useful on a NAS which does require some know-how. Windows really is a poor fit for this use case and one that I strongly advise against if you don't understand the basics here. If you know how to write an image to a flash drive and then use it to boot a machine to install an OS, then you're already half way there. Everything else can be done with easy to use web UIs and there are thousands of tutorials out there that explain how to do anything with your NAS.
Im gettin one. Thnx
Are you locked into their software or can you run truenas on it? That would be a huge plus for this!