UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus 4-Bay Desktop NAS, Intel Pentium Gold 8505 5-Core CPU, 8GB DDR5 RAM, 128G SSD, 1 * 10GbE, 1 * 2.5GbE, 2 * M.2 NVMe Slots, 4K HDMI, Network Attached Storage (Diskless)

Amazing piece of tech. Wish I got into this stuff years ago.
Background was I found myself with $1000 in Amazon gift cards and I’ve been thinking about getting into this stuff on and off for a while now – it’s one of the things I told myself I’d look into when I went for 2Gb Fiber internet at the beginning of this year. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.Gear:- UGreen DXP4800 Plus- Upgraded with 32GB 4800MHz DDR5 RAM- 3x 18TB Seagate Exos X18 HDDs, will add a 4th down the line- Added a 2TB 990 Pro NVMe- Opted to get a 10Gb PCIE expansion card for my personal PCStorage Config:- Volume 1: 36TB RAID5 (54GB total from the current 3 x 18TB, but 18TB of that reserved for parity)- Volume 2: 2TB NVMeDidn’t do that much upfront research on OS options and decided to stick with whatever UGOS was going to end up being, which is …. okay? Easy to use for the most part but some baffling decisions. For example, it took me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to delete folders in the UGOS UI and now I just do that through Windows.On using an NVMe – looked into it and decided how could I *not* do it. For example, I edit videos fairly often. So one thing I can do is copy raw footage from the HDDs into the NAS nvme and make it so that Adobe Premiere Pro on my pc does everything on that nvme over a 10Gb cable without ever having to move stuff to/from my pc. 8pm rolls around, i export a draft copy of the video to the nvme that takes 10 minutes or so to encode while i cook, then I hop on my phone/pad while i’m eating and view the exported draft video still on that nas nvme. Workflow can’t be that smooth with just HDDs.Another thing, if you can tell from my PC, I also game here and there and like to record footage. I don’t have good warm and fuzzies recording 4k/60 footage over a 10Gb onto HDDs, so instead Nvidia Overlay points to a “Passthrough” folder on the NAS nvme where throughput is seamless. Then wrote a cron script that executes a mv command to migrate footage on the nvme into the HDD every night at 4:30AM.Other things I got done over the first weekend:- Pihole up and running for network wide DNS-level adblocking. This alone is lifechanging and worth the price of admission if you ask me. I actually had a friend come over at one point over the weekend and he freaked out about his phone browsing feeling so nice at my place.- Set up a homegrown VPN so I can benefit from pihole outside my home. Fun fact: most name-brand subscription VPNs charge extra for enhanced adblocking. With your own home server and a little coding DIY, you can set up your own service for free (outside the hardware costs, obviously)- Took about 18hrs to migrate ~7TB of data I’ve been slowly accruing since like 2014, and that’s WITH numerous cleanups and whatnot over the years. Feels really good to not have to delete stuff anymore just to make room…… for now- Got Plex and Jellyfin up and running- Got an “arr” docker container stack going to automate media acquisition.- Least exciting thing, obviously I got remote phone and automatic pc/data backups going on a reasonable scheduleThings I’m looking to work on throughout this next week or two:- Finish up that VPN/reverse proxy project, likely using Tailscale, featuring Pi-hole as the adblock service- Start messing around on a VM or two, plus there are definitely games I’ve been wanting to host persistently in the background with friends.- Been meaning to host a personal website- Look into Home Assistant- Get a retro game arcade cabinet going that pulls from the NASI can’t remember the last time I was thrilled about getting into a new thing that slots into the rare “lifechanging new hobby” category. Snowboarding maybe? This homelab stuff with the UGreen DXP4800 Plus at the center of it all has been a blast.

Excellent hardware, good enough software.
I have had this NAS for about 10 days I also have a Synology DS1910+ that is 6 years old. So this is kind of a comparison. The hardware is excellent. Much better processor, faster LAN ports, better USB ports, and it seems quieter. The software selection is smaller, but they have most of the stuff I want to use. Most of the software is easier to set up, but for some things you have to use docker, and that can be complicated. I have also found it difficult to mount folders so I can use them from Windows Explorer. It works, but it is more complicated than Synology. The remote access works great. One big negative is no SHR raid so all your drives have to be the same size or you lose storage capacity. I am also less trusting of a Chinese company from a security standpoint. I would also like to have the ability to add external drives if needed. Synology has this feature. I am also hoping for software upgrades in the future.

Powefull unit. Constantly getting updates and making it better .

Super easy to set up and works amazing.Great way to access files remotely without having multiple smaller hard-drives.