Good overview Patrick. Noticed the sound dropped out between 4:01 and 4:11, even on replays. Not sure if it's me or the upload, but I thought I'd let you know just in case.
Just installed my DXP4800 Plus a couple of days ago. I went in this direction for the same ‘Apple Tax’ reason you and many others has outlined. it mates perfectly with my M4 Pro Mini with the 10GB option, both connected by a 10GB switch. Since everything in recent years has standardized on SSDs, I did have a concern about the slowness of a spinning NAS drive, even if they are Seagate Iron Wolf Pro drives. But when I installed two 1TB M.2 SSDs and configured on read/write cache, my concerns were put to rest. It’s only been a couple of days, but so far, loving it!!!
@ Which RAID have you found works best for you? I’m currently stupidly running four 4TB Iron Wolf Pro drives at RAID 0 which is synonymous ’Russian Roulette’…😳
I wanted a 'SSD First Hybrid NAS' i.e it would have at least four M.2 slots, accessible without tools, and one or at most two spinning disk caddies, plus of course one or two 10GB network ports so the SSD performance is not throttled (thunderbolt 5 would be a nice addition too!). The idea is the SSDs would form a RAID array and the spinning disk would be used as a simple disk for backup duties only and removed (and taken off site) when not in use. Sadly I am still waiting for this product to appear on the market!
Thanks for the followup Patrick. I opted for a 2TB external NVME drive, formatted exFAT so that I can share the storage across multiple drives and platforms. Not as elegant as your NAS setup, but it's doing the job.
It’s been about three years since I first considered getting one, but I still can’t decide. Synology, ugreen, unify.. meanwhile, the external drives piling up.
I have a Western Digital and have had a drive fail but have the NAS set up in RAID 5. It’s the best storage ever and always have a back up of your back up like Patrick said. Another great video, Patrick! Will you squeeze in another video before Christmas? Not rushing you of course…
what makes ugreen's nas lineup better than synology or any other manufacturer? I was thinking about just buying a mac mini and then buying 4 4tb SSD'ds. Expensive, but I get flexible storage that i could use portably in the future.
I have been watching other reviews, and the pros and cos are as follows: UGreen Nas: Pros - Better hardware options for the price. Attractive form factor. You can nuke all existing software and use the hardware with whatever software package you choose. Because of this flexibility and good hardware, you can use this for a more all-in-on server/NAS solution. Cons - Comparied to synology, the software is very weak from the NAS management standpoint. There is no 2-factor or dongle authentication supported making is susceptible to being compromised when using its remote features, for instance. In fact, most weakness will revolve around the weakness of the UGREEN software in general...all of which you can nuke and install your own if desired (which is kinda a pro, but having the software being not very powerful, thus needing a format is def a con). Overall, if you aren't a power user, aren't planning to use this as an enterprise backbone, and are ok with the potential security weaknesses of a remote attached-internet facing platform with no other auth methods then basic user/password, this it does seem like an attractive solution. Who this is for is really just a person that is mostly a casual-non-enterprise person that just wants a place to put a bunch of video and pictures. You could make your own NAS for cheaper, so you are paying for the nice, integrated package, with "servisable" level NAS software in an attractive package with relatively good hardware vs its competitors
if you back up to cloud any way, you defeat the purpose of the local NAS as a backup also. If your use-case is simply the faster transfer speeds you would get with a physical network, then sure, that could be a reason. But if you need to be mobile/wireless, you lose this advantage against a cloud - without a local home server exposing the proper endpoints for you when you aren't at home. I didn't see you go into your reasoning in this video for your choice, but you did allude to an earlier one, which you may have there.
My local NAS will be much faster, and I am not reliant on external servers for maintaining the data. If something happens to those servers and the cloud is all I use, I am cooked. I back it up to the cloud as an additional layer of security, because drives can always fail, I could get robbed, my office might burn down... It's all about spreading risk.
@@PatrickRambles I'm curious, since I'm already paying for backblaze and google drive just like you, why would I need a NAS? Wouldn't it be simpler to upload everything to the cloud?
Thank you Patrick, always enjoy your videos, I have a Synology 923+, I am not the most expert with such things but it’s done a great job for storing photos, files and also watching films particularly with Infuse on Apple TV. Merry Christmas to you!
What type of raid do you use if any to secure data? raid 6? 10? I understand that since the information is very sensitive, you need some type of security system. Because the fact that you have the NAS making a backup in the cloud doesn't make sense to me, the price or cost of having that capacity of space in the cloud for that backup is much higher than what it would cost you another exactly the same NAS where you could have the backups, so that your data is safe.
Can’t tell ya how much footage over the years I’ve lost because I ran out of space and had to wipe the drive. I might just go this route 🤔 Maybe I could even create a hub for all those stacks of portable SSDs I’ve acquired over the years to go along with this.
Just purchased this NAS and going thorugh steep learning curve hoping to avoid some challenges and mistakes. I have mine setup so with 4 16TB dirve in Raid 5 with a useable storage of 48TBs. I roginally purchased with the hopes to take about 3TB of video files (ripped from DVD and Blureay) over the year in one storage location and using the NAS as a media server also. This is possible but is more complicated than I expected (because I am not a tech guy). My original thought waas I was going to take these many various hard drives (hard to store them all) and be able to get rid of them once my files were transferred over. But the issue is, can't really do that without a good backup solution. The big question - have you found any reasonable cloud backup storage solution that most people would consider reasonable. The cheapest I found was $5/TB/month. If I had most of my NAS filled (40TBx$5=$200/mo or half my NS is $120/mo = $1440 to $2400 per year backup cost). Do you have cheaper backups other than buying another NAS and storing it offsite? Since becoming a YT creator this is an issue I continually struggle with. Any insights would be nice.
Quick question - did it come with hard drives or did you purchase separately? I'm confused and can't find the information that says whether or not if it actually comes with starter drives
Nice review! QQ: How can the NAS and MacMini be configured to "automatically" save every document/download/image (basically anything that takes up space) directly to the NAS instead of taking up the MacMini's 256GB of memory? Thank you.
When the NAS is connected to your internet, you should be able to connect to it from anywhere. You just need to know its coordinates. Most NAS have an app for that. Check the manufacturers website.
8:33 why would i need this as a mac user. Apples build-in Software does all that. Most of it on device. You recommend doubling functionality, paying upfront for probably more storage than i need to then feel good about increasing complexity and maintain the “cloud” myself. Yeah, we really showed Apple the value of internal storage here. Please, understand! The pricing is stupid, but this is even worse for most people, given you are one person or don’t love technology for the sake of it.
@@PatrickRambles I think what was implied is that apple already provides back-up to cloud. Why introduce NAS as a middle man, when you're anyway backing up to cloud! Also cloud gives you the flexibility to pay what you use, here you're upfront paying a huge cost for higher storage which you're currently not using completely.
I’m very close to investing in a NAS, in particular a 6 bay Ugreen. To that, are you editing video off the NAS and if so how is that working? I have WiFi 7 with 10Gb ports on the hubs and it looks like you may also have a WiFi 7 setup, how does that affect your ability to use the NAS over WiFi, specifically to edit video? I am really trying to avoid purchasing a 10 Gb switch if I can.
Oh sorry, I didn't answer your WIFI question. I don't think that would be fast enough to edit off the drive. A hard wired connection is so much faster.
Your setup: UGreen DXP4800 Plus NAS @ ~$700 USD, 4x Seagate IronWolf 20TB @ ~$1600 (~$400 USD each) and a couple of 2TB NVMe SSD’s @ ~$200 (~$100 each) we’re talking about ~$2500 for such a setup. I went with the UGreen DXP8800 Plus 8 bay model with Thunderbolt 4 when it was still in Kickstarter for a pledge of just under ~$1000 USD. I went with cheaper 500GB NVMe SSDs and lower capacity 14TB / 16TB drives (I’ve had for a while). The last drive added was a WD 20TB bought on Black Friday for ~$250 (all 8 bays still aren’t used).
@ Indeed but at the time it was a bit of a gamble. There were also some noteworthy sales on the UGreen NAS lineup this past Black Friday. They also tossed in a portable UGreen battery if you bought directly from UGreen.
6:50 you say that as if iCloud could do none of this. Yeah, you don’t get 49TB, but you get many years of iCloud for the prices of your enterprise hard drives. The integration will be better, there will be virtually no down time and no work on your side and no noise either. Very advertising your video 😅 i expected something less biased
Yeah but who wants mechanical HDD storage? it's too slow. You do know you can network share external SSDS... right? Also, uploading huge files from a hotel is not a realistic scenario. I'm not sure about you but hotel internet SUCKS balls... upload ? not happening
It's not that slow, especially when you have some nvme installed. It's storage, not meant for editing straight off the drive. If you need more, you can install SSDs instead of HDDs. Network sharing SSDs does not provide any redundancy, which is the main feat of a NAS. Hotel wifi is as good as you're willing to pay for it. Free wifi isn't it, clearly.
Good overview Patrick. Noticed the sound dropped out between 4:01 and 4:11, even on replays. Not sure if it's me or the upload, but I thought I'd let you know just in case.
That's odd. Haven't noticed!
@@PatrickRamblesthe audio definitely drops at 4:01
feels like a audio track that was muted actually. The background sound is still here, but not the voice over
@mtsteelman shit you guys are right. No, that was definitely not intentional. No idea what happened there.
Editor briefly got lost in Patrick’s gun show and deleted the audio 😂
Just installed my DXP4800 Plus a couple of days ago. I went in this direction for the same ‘Apple Tax’ reason you and many others has outlined. it mates perfectly with my M4 Pro Mini with the 10GB option, both connected by a 10GB switch. Since everything in recent years has standardized on SSDs, I did have a concern about the slowness of a spinning NAS drive, even if they are Seagate Iron Wolf Pro drives. But when I installed two 1TB M.2 SSDs and configured on read/write cache, my concerns were put to rest. It’s only been a couple of days, but so far, loving it!!!
Nice!
@ Which RAID have you found works best for you? I’m currently stupidly running four 4TB Iron Wolf Pro drives at RAID 0 which is synonymous ’Russian Roulette’…😳
I wanted a 'SSD First Hybrid NAS' i.e it would have at least four M.2 slots, accessible without tools, and one or at most two spinning disk caddies, plus of course one or two 10GB network ports so the SSD performance is not throttled (thunderbolt 5 would be a nice addition too!). The idea is the SSDs would form a RAID array and the spinning disk would be used as a simple disk for backup duties only and removed (and taken off site) when not in use. Sadly I am still waiting for this product to appear on the market!
@BlaqViper I'm using raid 5 but raid 1 would be good too.
Thanks for the followup Patrick. I opted for a 2TB external NVME drive, formatted exFAT so that I can share the storage across multiple drives and platforms. Not as elegant as your NAS setup, but it's doing the job.
NVME enclosures are fantastic for more modest space needs. Fast too!
Sorry if I missed this, but is their a subscription price to use the software? Or just hardware purchase?
Hardware purchase only. I am not aware of any paid plans.
It’s been about three years since I first considered getting one, but I still can’t decide. Synology, ugreen, unify.. meanwhile, the external drives piling up.
Audio cuts out around the 4min mark for about 20-25 seconds or so
Thanks! It's been noted but not much I can do about it now :(
@ hugely informative vid otherwise!
🙏🏻🙏🏻
So you just released the video without reviewing it?
I have a Western Digital and have had a drive fail but have the NAS set up in RAID 5. It’s the best storage ever and always have a back up of your back up like Patrick said. Another great video, Patrick! Will you squeeze in another video before Christmas? Not rushing you of course…
Thanks! Yes definitely one more before Xmas.
what makes ugreen's nas lineup better than synology or any other manufacturer? I was thinking about just buying a mac mini and then buying 4 4tb SSD'ds. Expensive, but I get flexible storage that i could use portably in the future.
Superior CPU for 1.
I have been watching other reviews, and the pros and cos are as follows:
UGreen Nas:
Pros - Better hardware options for the price. Attractive form factor. You can nuke all existing software and use the hardware with whatever software package you choose. Because of this flexibility and good hardware, you can use this for a more all-in-on server/NAS solution.
Cons - Comparied to synology, the software is very weak from the NAS management standpoint. There is no 2-factor or dongle authentication supported making is susceptible to being compromised when using its remote features, for instance. In fact, most weakness will revolve around the weakness of the UGREEN software in general...all of which you can nuke and install your own if desired (which is kinda a pro, but having the software being not very powerful, thus needing a format is def a con).
Overall, if you aren't a power user, aren't planning to use this as an enterprise backbone, and are ok with the potential security weaknesses of a remote attached-internet facing platform with no other auth methods then basic user/password, this it does seem like an attractive solution.
Who this is for is really just a person that is mostly a casual-non-enterprise person that just wants a place to put a bunch of video and pictures. You could make your own NAS for cheaper, so you are paying for the nice, integrated package, with "servisable" level NAS software in an attractive package with relatively good hardware vs its competitors
Curious…what kind of cloud device are you backing up 49 TB of data to? A service? Another personal NAS at a different location?
Backblaze (nowhere near 49TB for now 😅)
What kind of hdd enclosure is that on your video, similar to a Mac Pro? Looks stunning!
what happened to the audio from 04:01 to 04:11 ?
there is no audio ? is that just me ?
Yeah the audio got cut, I have no idea what happened there.
if you back up to cloud any way, you defeat the purpose of the local NAS as a backup also. If your use-case is simply the faster transfer speeds you would get with a physical network, then sure, that could be a reason. But if you need to be mobile/wireless, you lose this advantage against a cloud - without a local home server exposing the proper endpoints for you when you aren't at home. I didn't see you go into your reasoning in this video for your choice, but you did allude to an earlier one, which you may have there.
My local NAS will be much faster, and I am not reliant on external servers for maintaining the data. If something happens to those servers and the cloud is all I use, I am cooked. I back it up to the cloud as an additional layer of security, because drives can always fail, I could get robbed, my office might burn down... It's all about spreading risk.
8:14
Which cloud provider do you use? 50TB must cost a BOMB.
I am nowhere near that storage amount yet but Backblaze and Google Drive
@@PatrickRambles
I'm curious, since I'm already paying for backblaze and google drive just like you, why would I need a NAS? Wouldn't it be simpler to upload everything to the cloud?
@@jackipiegg cloud needs backup, read their terms and conditions!
@@jackipieggThe point is to keep the internal storage of one’s computer free of files.
very good video, thank you. Do you know how it compares to Synologie?
I haven't done a comparison so I can't give you my own experiences on that one.
Thank you Patrick, always enjoy your videos, I have a Synology 923+, I am not the most expert with such things but it’s done a great job for storing photos, files and also watching films particularly with Infuse on Apple TV. Merry Christmas to you!
Thanks man! Merry Xmas to you too 🎄
What type of raid do you use if any to secure data? raid 6? 10? I understand that since the information is very sensitive, you need some type of security system. Because the fact that you have the NAS making a backup in the cloud doesn't make sense to me, the price or cost of having that capacity of space in the cloud for that backup is much higher than what it would cost you another exactly the same NAS where you could have the backups, so that your data is safe.
Raid 5
Can’t tell ya how much footage over the years I’ve lost because I ran out of space and had to wipe the drive. I might just go this route 🤔
Maybe I could even create a hub for all those stacks of portable SSDs I’ve acquired over the years to go along with this.
I've dumped them all on here and then backed it up.
Just purchased one, thanks 🙏🏼
Thank you! Cheers!
Just purchased this NAS and going thorugh steep learning curve hoping to avoid some challenges and mistakes. I have mine setup so with 4 16TB dirve in Raid 5 with a useable storage of 48TBs. I roginally purchased with the hopes to take about 3TB of video files (ripped from DVD and Blureay) over the year in one storage location and using the NAS as a media server also. This is possible but is more complicated than I expected (because I am not a tech guy). My original thought waas I was going to take these many various hard drives (hard to store them all) and be able to get rid of them once my files were transferred over. But the issue is, can't really do that without a good backup solution. The big question - have you found any reasonable cloud backup storage solution that most people would consider reasonable. The cheapest I found was $5/TB/month. If I had most of my NAS filled (40TBx$5=$200/mo or half my NS is $120/mo = $1440 to $2400 per year backup cost). Do you have cheaper backups other than buying another NAS and storing it offsite? Since becoming a YT creator this is an issue I continually struggle with. Any insights would be nice.
You can use Google drive even to back it up. A lot of people seem to like backblaze.
I went for the Asustor GEN 3 NAS with TB4 interfaces as well as 2.5Gb and 10Gb ethernet interfaces
Quick question - did it come with hard drives or did you purchase separately? I'm confused and can't find the information that says whether or not if it actually comes with starter drives
Ok I bought a 4TB M.2 for the 4800. Is that actually a bit unnecessary and cost ineficient? Should I change to maybe two 1 TB?
Nice review! QQ: How can the NAS and MacMini be configured to "automatically" save every document/download/image (basically anything that takes up space) directly to the NAS instead of taking up the MacMini's 256GB of memory? Thank you.
How do i access anywhere, i can only access mines at home. Do i need to change a setting in the nas?
When the NAS is connected to your internet, you should be able to connect to it from anywhere. You just need to know its coordinates. Most NAS have an app for that. Check the manufacturers website.
I like Synology, easy to use. Nice video!
Cool, thanks!
8:33 why would i need this as a mac user. Apples build-in Software does all that. Most of it on device. You recommend doubling functionality, paying upfront for probably more storage than i need to then feel good about increasing complexity and maintain the “cloud” myself. Yeah, we really showed Apple the value of internal storage here. Please, understand! The pricing is stupid, but this is even worse for most people, given you are one person or don’t love technology for the sake of it.
You're not making a lot of sense mate. Apple does what on device?
@@PatrickRambles I think what was implied is that apple already provides back-up to cloud. Why introduce NAS as a middle man, when you're anyway backing up to cloud! Also cloud gives you the flexibility to pay what you use, here you're upfront paying a huge cost for higher storage which you're currently not using completely.
So tempted but I’m sure I’ll end up taking a bat to it in frustration when I can’t set it up! 😂
🤣🤣
Just realized you have the same exact plant MKBHD does in your B roll shot!
😂. The mandatory youtube plant.
I’m very close to investing in a NAS, in particular a 6 bay Ugreen. To that, are you editing video off the NAS and if so how is that working? I have WiFi 7 with 10Gb ports on the hubs and it looks like you may also have a WiFi 7 setup, how does that affect your ability to use the NAS over WiFi, specifically to edit video? I am really trying to avoid purchasing a 10 Gb switch if I can.
Hey man! I think you'd need to use SSDs instead of HDDs for that to work well.
Oh sorry, I didn't answer your WIFI question. I don't think that would be fast enough to edit off the drive. A hard wired connection is so much faster.
@@PatrickRambles that’s for the insight and good content!
Hope you can get hold of the latest XReal One Pro for a review !
Ha! I'm actually schedule to see them at CES in Vegas in a few weeks. Watch this space :)
@ great can’t wait ! Your previous reviews of Xreal glasses were stunning !
Can this be used to replace iCloud?
It can to an extent. It won't have all of the automatic integration but you can direct your photos to upload to the NAS instead (for instance).
I feel with NAS systems. I
Have 4 now and one system is 120TB running Unraid. Great video though.
Very nice!
Can you use this NAS as a DAS?
As in USB c? Interesting question, I haven't tried but I don't think that would work. You could run it as unraid, directly via ethernet though.
Your setup: UGreen DXP4800 Plus NAS @ ~$700 USD, 4x Seagate IronWolf 20TB @ ~$1600 (~$400 USD each) and a couple of 2TB NVMe SSD’s @ ~$200 (~$100 each) we’re talking about ~$2500 for such a setup. I went with the UGreen DXP8800 Plus 8 bay model with Thunderbolt 4 when it was still in Kickstarter for a pledge of just under ~$1000 USD. I went with cheaper 500GB NVMe SSDs and lower capacity 14TB / 16TB drives (I’ve had for a while). The last drive added was a WD 20TB bought on Black Friday for ~$250 (all 8 bays still aren’t used).
Sometimes it pays to be an early adopter.
@ Indeed but at the time it was a bit of a gamble. There were also some noteworthy sales on the UGreen NAS lineup this past Black Friday. They also tossed in a portable UGreen battery if you bought directly from UGreen.
What cloud source can I use to backup my NAS drives?
Hey man, Backblaze is good but Google drive does the job too!
@@PatrickRambles The UGREEN NAS has the option to automatically backup the file to a Google Drive account?
Cool update. Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Without native Plex support, I can't pull the trigger on Ugreen
I don't personally use it but I can see your point.
What happened? 4:02
Audio cut out. I have no idea what happened :(
Please disable the auto-dubbing feature.
I have no control over that. You're the first person to mention it but I've heard other youtubers complain about this.
cant get the link in the descriptions
The links don't work?
Isn’t Ugreen a chines company ? I could imagine they build like a back door inside this thing. Is there a way to encrypt the storage?
I am looking at an ssd external hard drive. Aren’t that Naz systems expensive
They are as an initial investment. But they serve all your devices and can do so for many years.
6:50 you say that as if iCloud could do none of this. Yeah, you don’t get 49TB, but you get many years of iCloud for the prices of your enterprise hard drives. The integration will be better, there will be virtually no down time and no work on your side and no noise either. Very advertising your video 😅 i expected something less biased
Are we just casually glossing over the fact that "the cloud" is painfully slow. It's nice for idle storage, nothing else.
Are we just casually glossing over the fact that "the cloud" is painfully slow. It's nice for idle storage, nothing else.
envious of that sea dweller
Submariner 😁 thanks man 🙏🏻
awesome
Are you worried about ransomware?
please i swear stop using robotic voices for your multi-voice videos, i just want to instant quick
Wit respect, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
@@PatrickRambles you are using the multi-language audio track feature, and with the french voice, it's sound horrible, stop using robotic voices
I'm not using anything. It's a feature youtube has introduced unfortunately. I don't like it either.
@@PatrickRambles Oh ! so i'm sorry !
I'm looking into disabling it if possible. Sounds like a crappy experience.
Yeah but who wants mechanical HDD storage? it's too slow.
You do know you can network share external SSDS... right?
Also, uploading huge files from a hotel is not a realistic scenario. I'm not sure about you but hotel internet SUCKS balls... upload ? not happening
It's not that slow, especially when you have some nvme installed. It's storage, not meant for editing straight off the drive. If you need more, you can install SSDs instead of HDDs.
Network sharing SSDs does not provide any redundancy, which is the main feat of a NAS.
Hotel wifi is as good as you're willing to pay for it. Free wifi isn't it, clearly.