UGREEN NASync DH2300 2-Bay Desktop NAS, Support Capacity 60TB (Diskless), Remote Access, AI Photo Album, Beginner Friendly System, 4GB LPDDR4X RAM,1GbE, 4K HDMI, Network Attached Storage(Diskless)

Polished NAS implementation, good way to make use of old external drives.
For years I put off buying a NAS because the expense of populating it with disks was too much. Instead, over the past ten years, I have been buying 3.5 inch external Seagate drives from time-to-time with the thought that someday I would create some kind of server using ZFS. That never happened and I ended up with a stack of extension drives sitting in storage in the garage. Amazon had the UGreen NASync DH4300 Plus on sale during one of their prime events for a small discount, so I decided to give it a try.I needed disks, so I cracked open four of my Seagate external drives: two 10TB drives and two 4TB drives. One drive was difficult to open so I used my Swiss Army knife can opener. It was messy, but did the job. Surprise: one Ironwolf Pro and one BarriCuda Pro! The two 4TB drives were common drives.Ubuntu is my OS standard at home and it was unclear if the NAS would support Linux. I used Windows with the UGreen app for the initial setup, but I don’t think it was necessary. All of the support functions for the NAS are provided by the HTML interface. I use Firefox on Ubuntu to do all of the administrative activities for the NAS which is very little: setting up the storage pools and creating user accounts.The initial mirroring process takes many hours, maybe 12 hours for the 10TB Pro drives and longer for the slower 4TB drives. Everything from the drives is wiped during the installation, so many hours were spent moving files around: offload the first drive, install the first drive, copy everything from the second drive to the first (use the USB port on the NAS to mount the drive unless it is Apple HFS+), then add the second drive and set up the mirror. Did this sequence twice, once for the 10TB pool and once again for the 4TB pool which took about 3 days to complete. The Pro drives copy at about 250 MBytes/second, so you can estimate how long it will take to copy your files. I had one HFS+ drive from my old Apple Time Machine and that disk had to be mounted onto my Ubuntu laptop (since HFS+ isn’t supported by the NAS) so it took a real long time to move the files off of that drive.When the NAS setup was done, wow; it works great! I just connect through Ubuntu’s built-in network tool using any computer in my house: Dells, Macs, Raspberry Pi, NUCs, …I didn’t like the video and audio apps from UGreen, so I use VLC on my media center computer (NUC) to play movies.There is something wrong with the UGreen certificate that causes Firefox to recommend not connecting to the NAS and I don’t know how to fix that, but it is a minor irritation (I don’t use the HTML administrative interface very often).Well who knows how long the old Seagate drives will last, but I am very happy with the NAS so far and I will deal with a disk failure when it happens. I will probably go with Pro drives from now on since they seem to be about 4 times faster than the common drives.One last thing I would point out is that the interface in English is excellent with very readable help pages. This is usually a weak point in Chinese made products, but UGreen either has an amazing AI translator or they hired some native English speakers to polish up the interface.

This is the one!
Man, the hype is real! As someone who has built my own nas from my own hardware, this thing makes it simple. The interface is suprisingly great. I wanted something like Zima Os with a homepage and “apps” and this is the ticket. Tons of storage capability, simple to setup and use, has everything you need already installed, just make an account and your good to go. I love that you can use docker to deploy whatever you want and they even have a custom interface for it that looks great! Performance is great, I have hammered it with 1000’s of photos and videos and it hasnt missed a beat. Built in gpu, npu, and vpu for facial and scene recognition in photos and videos. This beast has it all. And no, I’m definitely not a shill or getting anything from this review. I just truly appreciate the thought behind the software and the ease of use. Overall, I HIGHLY recommend if you are looking for a solid, reliable, and easy to use nas! Well done Ugreen!!

Great choice for first time NAS Solution
Price is relatively fair and within the market range, With amazing technical spec compering competitors in the marketInitialization/Setup:Is very easy even for non technical userssetup including updates and initialization from start to finish (Being able to start copying files and add users/devices) Should take no more then 15-30minClients:PC(Windows users):Working smooth and very easy to useIOS(iPhone users):Great Application layout easy to use and backupAndroid(practically almost all phones out there )Great Application layout easy to use and backupLinux: Still not testedTheater(Plex like application for “Private Netflix”)Working great and easy to setup and start building lifetime video librarySummery:Highly RecommendedNote:There some features that are missingI.e Android TV (Theater App) , WhatsApp backups, from IOS/Android, flexible user permissions , etc,.

Set up was fairly easy and the software very intuitive. Good selection of apps withing the package. Haven’t tried all the various apps with in the package but the ones I have were top notch.

Great NAS system for beginners. Fairly easy to setup (lots of “how to” videos on YouTube). Long-term reliability remains to be seen, but so far everything looks promising. I installed 2 x 2TB SATA SSD’s with RAID 1 configuration and everything works as expected. I can access my NAS storage using UGREEN NAS web interface, Windows 11 file manager (need to setup network access – YouTube video shows how) and from my mobile phone. So far, so good…

EnclosureThe enclosure has a magnetic top, that lifts off easily to access the drive bays inside. Unfortunately, the drive trays require screws rather than having tool-less mounting clips.STANDARD USEThe following apps are pre-installed and are standard on most NAS devices: Control Panel, Files, Logs, Storage, Support, Task Manager. That’s all I need as I’m generally only interested in SMB file shares accessed locally or via internet.DISLIKES- Window states aren’t remembered when you logout/loginOTHER APPSFor those users that want other functionality, other apps directly available in the App Center, at the time of this review, are listed below. Note that some app descriptions are quite poor, so I interpreted as best I could. Additional information for some apps can be found on Ugreen’s website. Other apps can be added via Docker, for example Tailscale.Media and Entertainment- Jellyfin: Open-source media server- Photos: Photo manager- Music: Music player- Theater: Video media serviceUtility- Cloud Drives: View and access netdisk data- DLNA: DLNA media server- Docker: Install, run and manage container apps- Downloads: Downloads HTTP, FTP, BT/PT files- EasyNVR: Connect to various cameras to serve as an NVR, and manage multiple NVR devices in batches- File Version Explorer: Record and manage the version history of all files- Firefox: Web browser- Home Assistant: Home automation platform- Online Office: Collaborative office app that allows people to edit, collaborate, and share documents online- qBittorent: BitTorrent client- Qinglong: Scheduled task management platform supporting Python3, JavaScript, Shell, and Typescript scripting- SAN Manager: Allows clients to access a volume as if it were a local drive- Security: Clamav virus scanner- SiYuan: Personal knowledge management system- Snapshot: Backup data at specific points in time for quick restoration to any historical state- Sync & Backup: Syncs data between different devices- TextEdit: Plain text editor- Vault: Encrypt and store sensitive data with access control