UGREEN 8-Bay NAS Review (DXP8800 PLUS NASync) 

Finally the review I've been waiting for! I backed the 8-bay and recently even added the 6-bay version to my pledge. As soon as I saw the specs of the 8-bay, I knew it was the NAS for a data hoarder like me! 🤪 I was still a little hesitant though because of their lackluster software but as soon as I found out that it is possible to install 3rd party OS like TrueNAS, unRAID, OMV, etc. and that the hardware is still covered by the warranty, I couldn't resist anymore and backed their Kickstarter campaign! 😅 I'm also hoping they soon add multi-factor authentication too and the option to change the MTU to around 9000 to be able to fully utilize the 10GbE connection. I'm not too worried security-wise though as I plan to place this NAS behind a hardware firewall and not open it directly over the Internet (as any security conscious person should!). This is even more important since their software is very new and is at high risk of 0-day attacks and vulnerabilities. Another feature I'm hoping they add is options for data checksum for advanced data integrity with data scrubbing in UGOS software since this NAS doesn't support ECC memory. Having this feature will make this NAS more resistant to bitrot and have the ability of self-healing corrupted files when doing data scrubbing. Btw those are some awesome noise levels! It's much more silent than I anticipated. But I doubt it will be that silent if you are using Seagate EXOS drives. 🤪 The power draw isn't that bad either! That's another one of my concerns. The power consumption they mentioned on ther Kickstarter page was much higher than your results. Maybe they have further tweaked both the hardware and software to improve power efficiency. Anyways keep it up! Great review as always! I'll be looking foward to your review of the 6-bay unit which I also backed on their Kickstarter page. 👍 Edit: UGreen replied to my comment in their Kickstarter page and confirmed that they intend to include both the MTU adjustment and the encryption feature. UGreen also said that these will be accessible via the dedicated app which I'm assuming their phone app.

Thanks for the review, great content as usual. Fairly recently discovered your channel but I am a fan! Primarily wanted to write this comment because of your sweatshirt though. 😂 It gave me a hearty chuckle and I agree wholeheartedly. Rats of the skies, I call them. The average pigeons are well-adjusted by comparison!

I remember you mentioning that you basically lose money doing this UGREEN series so another tremendous THANK YOU! This is the model I backed so I’m looking forward to it even more. I’m sure UGREEN watches your videos so they should know that a lot of buying with confidence is due to your selfless work.

Your effort to clarify Ugreen NAS innovations is fantastic. Thanks! Could you think of a video about the opposite view of the equation like “Best Ugreen NAS for content creators” (THE ULTIMATE WORKFLOW FOR EDITING AND STORAGE)”? or less dramatic lol… and compare the units

Would love a video covering the potential use-cases of that PCI-e slot found in this 8-bay and the 6-bay model!

as someone who is OCD, the hdd bay sequence numbering 1,2,3,4,7,5,6,8 made me uncomfortable... lol. anyway, thanks for the great review. actually i have backed the kickstarter with 6-bay NAS.

I went to NAB and UGREEN had a booth showing off these systems. They are really nicely built. That said, I’m a Synology fan.

I am glad that UGreen has blown away the status quo. Hoping we see a new generation of NAS units with more capable hardware and upgradability as the new norm.

Fantastic review, as always. I've backed the six bay, so its nice to see the larger form factors with increased capabilities. I wonder whether the performance on the second m.2 drive would still be downgraded if PCI slot was empty? Which also begs the question: What is the R/W performance on a PCI based storage card in the system?

Been thinking about picking up a second 1821+ but the DXP8800+ is very tempting. Even if UGOS sucks can just install TrueNAS. Price is actually really fair.

Thanks for this. I always appreciate your attention to detail on these reviews. I wouldn't buy a piece of NAS hardware you hadn't made a video on at this point. :) I'm a bit stunned on the lane difference between the two slots. I'd expect that on an AliExpress demon board or something, but that is clearly not how the product is marketed, and it's not acceptable for a machine at that price point targeted at creators, IMHO (he says, having backed the 8 bay model). I wonder if the 6 bay model does the same thing with its lanes. If that's a hardware restriction that can't be fixed, I'm going to seriously consider cancelling my pledge. For that price, those slots should run at full speed. Thanks for taking the time to follow up with UGREEN. :)

Thank you very much for this review and the whole UGreen NAS Series! For the noise, I guess I would buy some Noctua fans before buying extra RAM :) Exchanging built in fans with Noctua fans on brand new device became a normal practice for me. At the moment, pairing the hardware with TrueNAS Scale is the winning combination. I'm really like how UGreen handles the constructive feedback and how they are improving the software. Let's see what will they deliver when they start shipping devices.

Looking forward to the 6-bay. That's the one I backed. Just now to decide how much storage I want to shoot for next. Should hopefully arrive before I go on a cruise in your region from London to Bergen

14:58 this man gets paid by how many programs he has open in the taskbar at one time. Great job as usual.

At the very least UGreen is shooting over the bow of the established NAS manufacturers which offers us better value/hardware in the long run - competition!!!

5:27 the most you're gonna be scaling up is 96 GB, since the largest amount of RAM you can get on a single DDR5 SODIMM is 48 GB.

Would appreciate a review of the dpx2800 if possible. Love your deep dives into the new UGreen systems ❤

One day I hope Plex native app gets added 😢 (I don't want to fiddle with Docker)

Gotta love the seagulls! Great review as usual Robbie! Waiting for my 4800P+ unit!

I'm mostly interested in serving files and media; I want to clean off a lot of things on my hard drive, and the accumulation of USB drives in the house is getting to be a bit much. I backed the 6-bay. Probably more than I'll need, but I figured having the better processor and more bays doesn't hurt, and future-proofs me to an extent.

I really don't like that the trays are labled. I would prefer the label on the chassi.

I almost went with them, but ultimately my choice was QNap QuTS Hero with ZFS.

The price of $899 with this hardware is very competitive to Synology

Great to see more test and reciew on their software side . The trust me bros OS could be great if things go correctly

Another reason I just realized that they went to kick starter is to build a customer base. That way they don’t have to get the software perfect out the gate. And then they will have a base to attract others once the software is good.

Let's hope for a rack mount version of this series

I joined the presale today of the dxp8800+. Seen them for awhile but looked at the costs vs other Nas . I really think this will be a good buy for a media server for plex. I plan on loading it all with 18TB drives. Upping the memory to 64gb and 2 2tb m.2s. Should be a beast.

PCIe devices can readily downgrade their link speed when not in use. It's entirely normal to observe a "downgraded" link when the device is idle, although this capability also depends on BIOS and OS settings. Recently, one of our clients was puzzled by why their GPU was showing only a 1-lane link speed, but it turned out to be in an idle state. There was a recent lspci output from the 6-bay system that caused some concern because, in that specific test unit (although it's uncertain about production units), they used the same 4-port SATA chip as the one used in the 4800 Plus model. Since this chip is a 4-port SATA chip, it implies the use of port replication in that particular unit, which could potentially cause issues with TrueNAS. I'm not requesting a check of TrueNAS compatibility on this device, but if you have a moment, could you please look into the SATA chip used for the backplane? I would greatly appreciate this information.

So both NVME are PCIE 4.0 x4 but for some reason the second nvme slot on your unit is operating at x1? Do let us know what they tell you the issue is… I backed the 6 disk model which I think is the exact same board just 2 more sata

I got a DX 4600 . A previous generation product. It was quiet in the first place. But it become much noisy because the losen hdd rack. I hope this product line will be better.

I backed this project at the most save money time, and they actually offer to get any of the other units at the same time for the same savings. I did not as I was unsure of the unit. On paper they look fantastic though.

Hi. Love this channel. You should make a video about what to "must do" after 3 sec hard reset

As good as it might be, the fact that it's restricted to DE and USA means it's not for the rest of us.

Hey! fantastic review and I am setting mine up as we speak! I am curious what 2 port 10G card you used with it? I want to buy that one or one you would recommend!

Robbie what are your thoughts on using those Dell X540 T2 cards without the typical 200lfm required airflow? I've been looking at these and HBA cards which were designed to live in a rack unit with Delta screamers forcing air through the chassis.

Great reviews as always. I'm new to the NAS scene and have ordered the DXP8800 Plus and wondering what hardware you'd kit this machine out with. I'd like 6 HDD's maybe 20TB each in Raid 6 and 2 SSD's and 2 M.2's. Finally upgrade the RAM for virtual machine scenarios. How would you fully utilise this hardware from Ugreen and what brands and models of components would you use? Cheers 🙂

The 10Gb RJ ports, is there a way to use one to a switch directly to your computer and one for internet connectivity

I really want to get rid of my disappointing Synology ds923+ for this one. This + unraid will be epic!!!

Thank you!! Looking forward to the 6 bay review. Excellent review as always :) I agree the hardware is very impressive. Looking to upgrade from a ~2015 WD system. QUESTION:: A make-or-break item for me is the (1) using one NMVE as a cache (possible?) (2) using the other NVME as a drive that is mirrored into a folder structure of the warm storage of the magnetic SATAs. Is this viable on this system??? @NASCompares

Could you try installing Windows 11/Server or a Linux distro with a GUI, plug in a monitor to that HDMI port and see what happens? I’m surprised no one has tried it yet 🤷🏻‍♂️

Becaus uou can run third party software it is much more time proof then the others were software is nit getting updates and force you to use online connections. This could be my new truneas server replacement (now use a old xeon pc) that i bought in parts, it was very very cheap.

I've been watching your reviews on this NAS and I feel like from what you said, im going to risk it and get the 6 bay from them. I have no real need for a NAS but I want one to have a network at home to stream movies. Great stuff, i hope they continue to improve the software. Would anyone know if you can run emulators off of it like NES so i can play old games from a TV?

There is a non-technical reviewer who had close to 10gb transfers from the 4-bay after upgrading to 64gb and making sure that the drive the utility moving and accepting data was running on their their nvme and not their sata ssd. You can definitely get faster speeds.

I tried to reserve this model when it was announced, right after you started posting about them. the $5 payment didnt get thru. Now with it up about $80 I'm not sure Im going to risk it.

If I am editing 4k CDNG or 6k BRAW video files in davinci resolve, would i get essentially the same performance with this NAS wired connection than with a Thunderbay8? It looks like they have the same USBC thunderbolt ports and the price is even cheaper to the TB

Thank you for pointing out the lack of proper ECC!!!

Nice video, the content is very detailed and professional😄

wow very comprehensive review exactly what i was looking for

Can anyone tell me what is the clearence hight for the M2 NVME (if for example it will fit the : MP600 PRO LPX 4TB PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD or the MP600 PRO XT 8TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen. 4 x4 SSD) ?

Do you see the NVME lane downgrade when in other operating systems? maybe its a driver issue.

at this point, i'm just hoping for a solid software with many apps and features, aside from this, ugreen got my money straight away, i almost bought a synology nas for backing up my photos mainly, but ugreen came at the best moment

the thunderbolt network bridge functionality maxes out at like a quarter of actual thunderbolt throughput

Seeing that that the dust filter is on the back of the NAS, I presume the airflow is back to front? I don't recall this being mentioned.

I've started seeing more and more established companies using crowdfunding to pre-load their R&D or manufacturing spend. This includes the unofficial crowdfunding methods like pre-orders with a 30-day or longer lead time before the product is actually released. I not really a fan of this mentality. In the case of ugreen I also think this is inappropriate as it shifts a lot of the risk to the customer.

Is the 10g Ports?? Intel® 82599EN 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Just need to point out that all Macs have for years supported Thunderbolt networking, even the old Intel Macs - and that Thunderbolt is at this point from Intel and not exotic. Just because the NAS sector treats it that way, does. It means it actually is - and I would argue Thunderbolt is far more common than 8k (and far more useful) and so deserves at least as much attention as 8k. I would appreciate if you would stop making it sound exotic in order to help normalize TB for your community and to normalize it as a product expectation for modern NAS units. If it is desirable enough for storage transfer to eat the hardware engineering costs, then it is also desirable for peer to peer for the same reasons.

Any data surveillance or security concerns based on the company’s location and known oversight of it's companies? I wonder if anyone’s done a network analysis to see if the NAS establishes any unknown outbound connections, opens listening ports, or transmits any data outside of your home network (either from the NAS itself or from other interconnected devices on your network).

Hello there, Is this a good NAS for PLEX 4k and 8k? For PLEX Can it be better than the QNAP TVS-h874? Reggards

This Kickstarter only ships to US and Germany. You really need to make that clear in the introduction.

I saw you touched on the thunderbolt ports, but I did not quite fully understand you explanation. What do you mean when you say it will only be a host? Would I be able to connect a thunderbolt compatible computer and transfer files back and forth using the cable at full speeds?

Tho use network performance numbers look terrible - and they are far below what Storage Review showed on the 6 Bay. At one point they showed 2x10GbE saturation on one of their results (flashed on the screen).

SO one of the M2 slots is downgraded? :(

Is there any airflow going across the PCIe slot?

Can the software expand the raid pool by adding disks on the fly (5 drives in raid 6 -> 6 drives for example)? I would love to get the 8-bay and add drives as I need them, rather than purchasing all at once.

can you play mkv's via directly connected hdmi to tv?

Do you happen to have the full final packaging size please?

Please do a test with a 3rd party OS and jumbo frames. That hardware should easily saturate a 10 GBe link even if it's just full of spinning rust with an NVMe cache. I get better transfer speed going to a 2 bay Synology over 2.5 GBe from my desktop than you were going over 10 GBe. It has to be the overhead taxed from the lack of jumbo frame support in the OS. Let's be honest, not a single person backing this product gives a shit about the native OS, as a matter of fact, the selling point is that I can put anything I want on it, even if it voied the warranty I wouldn't care. How would they know? I can just plop the original NVMe back in and send it back for repair. If people really care about product support from a software level, they're barking up the wrong tree buying anything funded by a crowdfunding campaign.

What's the point of the magnetic dust filter, if (I assume) the air is vented out of the back?

I actually think the access door on the bottom side should have been designed to reduce the space between it and the NVMe SSDs. That way those massive thermal pads could be a more conventional size. I mean, good god, those things are huge,………..(that’s what she said).

For anyone wondering about the ECC support - DDR5 ODECC is not true ECC - "While traditional ECC ensures data integrity by handling memory errors while data is being moved, on-die ECC ensures higher reliability of higher-density memory and protects the data that is in the memory chip." All the Ugreen NAS support ODECC, which is great,... but it is not full ECC... so,.. e.g. ZFS will not benefit for data in transit.

Any chance of a Plex - docker setup tutorial on UGreen UGOS? I ask because I have a DXP8800 Plus and just can't quite get Plex working.

Great hardware. But correct me if I'm wrong, 64gb max ram is kinda insufficient, if I want to run truenas with 20tb hdds.

My self I just backed DXP2800 2bay nas. perfect for my need

I just want an enterprising case manufacturer to build an mATX case in the same vein of the DS3615xs. The market has been ruined by catering to gamers.

Oh yeah is the PCIE slot 4.0 x8?

Nice!

When these larger companies do crowd funding it's just free advertising. Pre buy, like and share our new product...

Orico has a new 8 Bay USB DAS (I bought one for 144 $ on Alibaba). Which could be paired with a 250$ mini pc to basically get the same results as this 1000$ unit. I wish you had a video comparing them :)

I backed this, but I think before the campaign ends I'm probably going to cancel it. If I do a build with the W680 chipset I get QuickSync AND ECC, which seems like the gold standard for a NAS build. Those motherboards are pricey, but it doesn't seem like it's worth saving a bit of money to miss out on ECC. The problem is basically every NAS chassis I can find pisses me off in one way or another. I wish there was a NAS chassis in this shape and style with full ATX support and hotswap bays.

Do you know how big the built-in fans are and eventually if the 6-bay model has the same size? Nice Video as always!

I am looking into buying this unit for PLEX. Would you recommend it, and that kind of optimization would do for that? Or is there a better option out there for 4k streaming?

This is a freaking PC!.....Synology, please take a good look at this! Why does Synology does always have such a weak hardware out of the box?

Just to be clear the 6 bay and the 8 bay are spec’ed the exact hardware wise correct ? CPU etc

Never heard of this. Never will !!

I backed it at the $899 but as soon as it arrives I will be installing unraid without ever launching ugreens software. Is it possible to use the OS nvme slot for Plex meta data?

Is it possible that adding the PCIe card is what throttled the second NVMe card? I just built a new desktop and had to make sure I used the right PCIe and NVMe slots so my OS SSD wouldn't get throttled and also wouldn't kill access to two of my SATA ports.

I am new to this and many people recommend buying Synology or QNAP. They say Synology is more consumer grade whereas QNAP is more business grade. Is that true? What are the biggest differences and which one do you recommend?

They need a 10/12 bay

if one wants to simply play tv shows & movies via plex, is there any reason to get the plus version of the 4 bay instead of the non-plus of the 4 bay? thanks for your reviews!

Which nvme slot is 4x4 and which 3x2? Should I just buy a Pcie 3 ssd for that slot? And what 8TB sata SSDs did you use? Gonna be my first NAS

Can this be rack mounted?

I wonder if you can fit an RTX 4000 ada in that slot? Load this with TrueNAS and you can bypass the still not ready native O/S. This might make a decent system to play with some AI models. I have been sold on ZFS for quite some time despite the limitations (old Solaris admin here). Bit rot is real.

I own a Qnap 453be and I'm upgrading to the Ugreen 6bay. Nothing that these guys can offer will be worst than the near-to-trash QTS.

US and Germany only

Is it just me or is their OS looking a lot like a ripoff of DSM? Also, I find the Thunderbolt and SD card slot very gimmicky for a NAS. Your NAS should be somewhere hidden, and your thunderbolt port isn’t going to be reaching any speeds of use off a network.

My OCD is getting crazy when i saw the disk bays 😢

Is there a limit or sweet spot for the speed of the RAM?

M8, you’ve got the drive bay numbers sat the wrong way round :)

none the less

need more affordable nvme storage