This is What Happens When a Charging Cable Company Makes a NAS. - Ugreen NAS

40% OFF on (Mar 26th 8：00 am PDT-28th 8：00 am PDT)-48Hours
40% OFF on (Mar 26th 11:00 am EDT-28th 11:00 am EDT)-48Hours
Up to 35% OFF during 3/28-5/9

People who pays a $5 deposit on the pre-sale will receive 40% off from 3/26-5/9

The above link to Ugreen's kickstarter is NOT a sponsored or an affiliate link.

One space I think that really needs some more competition is the NAS space. So, UGreen has decided to throw their hat into the ring... and it sure is far from perfect.

Some of the following product links are affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

My Gear:

[aChairLeg]

UPDATE:
1: After some discussion with Ugreen, it appears they WILL honor their hardware warranty if you use another Operating System. It is still not a supported use case though. They want you to use their own OS, and will NOT provide tech support for issues third party operating systems. - There were rumors regarding lack of warranty with another OS, but I am glad to hear they'll keep you covered hardware wise.

2: The NAS HAS been produced, and WILL be for sale at the end of May. They're telling me the Kickstarter is for consumer feedback and communication prior to launch.

3: With the $5 deposit: "This deposit will be refunded in full at the end of the crowdfunding campaign, regardless of whether or not purchase NAS, but guarantees that you will get 40% off at any time during crowdfunding."

4: Docker and VMs are planned for release in April. - There wasn't a set release date before so glad to see that.

[SilverSmrfr]

Software on a pre-build NAS is everything, if your OS sucks ass nobody cares about the great hardware. That's why Synology is dominating the market imo.

[EthanBB]

There is a setting in UEFI you have to turn off so it doesn't restart when it's not detecting default OS running.
Advanced > WatchDog Settings > WatchDog Control > Disabled
That's what I get for posting before watching whole video ... you found it :D
And you don't have to remove the SSD, it is enough to rename EFI folder on it to get to UEFI.

[thrv]

For me, it gives the impression that they are trying to cover two totally different markets at the same time. There are the "OS is a must!!!" type of guys who, as you mentioned, don't even want to install something on a USB. Then, there's the other segment who dislike underpowered or overpriced solutions like Synology, but love good hardware, and their first question is often "Can I wipe the SSD and install TrueNAS?"

To be honest, the cheapest solution is priced (at least during the Kickstarter campaign) like a Beelink EQ12. If it had 2x2.5G LAN, I would probably buy three and build a simple cluster from it, just for luls. Three N100 nodes with 2x3.5" HDD + 2 NVMe each? That would be a pretty cool Proxmox cluster! :D

[Daktyl]

The kickstarter is almost certainly aimed at showing investors that there is a demand for these products. They're going to take a loss on any units sold via Kickstarter but that's fine because they'll make it up with both investor funding and the profit margins from those sold after the kickstarter discount is over. The first generation is basically going to be a wash money-wise intended purely to get their name into the prebuilt NAS market. The 2nd and 3rd generations I expect to be both cheaper as a whole, and the "real" products that they're intending to sell at MSRP.

[marcusm]

They never take a loss when discounting, never. But to servive they need the margins to fund the next development and the support for the sold products.

[wehavetogoback]

I kinda like it, hardware wise at least. Let me throw the OS I want on it and it could be a nice quiet backup server all day.

[alexpio]

What makes the NAS completely obsolete for me is that they want to force you to use their own OS. And if you install anything other, they void your warranty. So yeah, I'm sticking with my Dell Optiplex. Great Review anyway. You actually showed what i wanted to do with this. Keep it up.

[Matt-oqjq]

i freakibng LOVE STORAGE SOLUTIONS AND ENGAGEMENT

[TwistedMe]

3:16 They actually did a Q&A session with another Youtuber on this. According to them-- As they are just entering the NAS space, they wanted to scout demand and advertise using space available that crowdfunding sites offer to emerging tech. Two their software still has issues (and people are significantly more forgiving towards a crowd-funded early release product vs a product launched into retail), and the reason why they went with a customized fork of Debian instead of barebones is that they don't want to be sucked into offering tech support to every software configuration edge case.

[MrDrPhDDakamC]

Definitely interested in something like this for family and friends that ask for a cheap NAS that just want something that'll store family photos that they don't have to kerfuddle with Synology's crazy HDD practices. Guess the kickstarter is so Ugreen can steal Synology's homework when it comes to the UI.Either way, loved the video. Gonna go back and watch the rest of your stuff because your editing is on point and you're not drawing things out to feed the algorithm.

[TechHut]

Thanks for this, I've been holding off on my video until the docker support comes out.

[almuchu]

I think the reason for the 40% discount is because NAS in general are very high margin products. The competition is also asking for a lot of rupees. I think this is because there is a relatively small amount of people actually considering buying a prebuilt NAS. Those same people generally know stuff about building computers. If anyone reading this comment wants a NAS and know how to tinker with custom pcs, you might consider building your own.

[foglebr]

Fantastic rundown and tear down vid! So happy YouTube served this to me, you’ve gained a new subscriber! I saw how there was a social media marketing push for this, but I ignored all the other videos and for some reason decided to watch yours because you had a pretty catchy title. I’m really glad I did. You went through things that other YouTubers obviously wouldn’t. You did things that most people would never do, and now I know that while yes this is a pretty slickly built little machine, it’s not for me.

[waralo]

With Kickstarter they don't actually have any obligation to deliver anything, if something goes wrong with production. Stuff like warranty might also be handled differently. It also serves as a form of advertising, with Kickstarter listing top selling projects at the top.

[user]

As someone who would never buy a premade NAS, preffer TrueNAS, this might be something I would look into in the future as a "hardware only" option.
So, really hope they keep it unlocked... Think with the cost of good NAS cases, CPUs, RAM and MOBO... THIS might be a great option for both new to NAS people and those looking to grow into fully customizable software builds.
But hey, odds are they want the tracking software intact, will lock it down and fail to sell very corporate mentality vs reality.

[samin]

Compared to Synology crap, the hardware is actually solid. The OS is half backed but it is running on Debian so it has a solid foundation. I think if they take care of the jank and allow you to run it as a Plex server instead of trying to develop their own system, it will fulfil the needs for a lot of people

[ericepperson]

Kickstarter these days feels less about raising capital to do the thing, and more marketing of the thing we are going to make anyway

[JonathanSwiftUK]

I'm in the UK, it's now only available in the US and Germany for the Kickstarter. Because of that, with no idea when it will really be available worldwide I'll probably go for a Terramaster. For a company with no history in the NAS space those Kickstarter prices will, I believe, be near the selling prices, their RRP pricing isn't competitive.

[shApYT]

You're officially in the big leagues now.