Running Different OSes on Ugreen NAS Devices + PCIe layout and CPU thermal/performance tuning

[@NetworkChuck]

Thanks for the help! Installing Ubuntu now 😁😁

[@wittywilla]

I'm glad I ordered 3 of these! (The 2 bay, 4 bay plus model & the 6 bay). I might end up running truenas on the 6 bay, then the Ugreen OS on the others (to give me an easy way to backup data offsite). Let's hope they fix the BTRFS issues some people have been mentioning. It seems to be a kernel related issue, so hopefully an update is made ☺️

[@hornetbad]

Good job UGREEN your NAS's will become very popular because of what you offer to the customer 👌and thank you for this video .

[@darthkielbasa]

Thank you for listening to the will of the people

[@TheTempic]

5:47 Could you please explain if this only happens when using UGOS as an operating system or does this also happen with the other OS you tested? This is the first time I saw this information and I wanted to use 2 M.2 for Read/Write cache and a 3rd in the PCIe slot as a SSD storage pool for Docker.

[@hamzahlydick5501]

I'd love to know this as well, wonder if its possible to steal the pcie lanes from the expansion slot by deactivating or something, and gaining speed back on the ssd slots.

[@LubomirGeorgiev]

Nice to see that UGREEN seems happy to let you install whatever you want. That probably makes sense since their software is still very early days.

[@ThatsPety]

You really are a man of the people. Doing what the other reviews won't, and even giving critique on how it could be better despite it being a sponsored video. That's why I subbed

[@jk55.]

Best u green nas review. Exactly what I was looking for!

[@chromerims]

0:50 -- Ctrl + F12 for BIOS of UGreen NAS. Thank you 👍

[@Andy-fd5fg]

interesting device... shame they are not available in the UK. Thanks for the detailed information about the system. Ive seen a few other reviews on the tube, but none go into the detail that you have

[@Yandarval]

Every review seems to miss this vital fact. Shipping to the US and Germany ONLY is a very odd choice.

[@gg-gn3re]

@@Yandarval how is that odd? probably covers 95% of users anyone can use shipito if they want it in diff countries

[@jackdaniel928]

Pretty sure that they Release the NAS later in other countries as well.

[@prenomnom2686]

You can pay a company to reroute your package elsewhere. I’m in France, and I got them to Germany. I’ll use StockShip.

[@geesharp6637]

@@jackdaniel928 At full retail.

[@MakilHeru]

I backed the kickstarter for a 2 bay. Felt nervous because the software isn't reviewing well. This review gave me a lot of confidence to not cancel knowing that I can just run something else instead. Definitely not feeling buyers remorse at the moment anymore.

[@sonictech1000]

I just bought the dxp2800 intending to use it for a Blueiris (Windows) server. The Ethernet driver ended up being an Intel i225. I still haven't found audio or other chipset drivers. Otherwise it seems like a nice unit.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Does your have a audio port? Mine don't have audio ports, and HDMI audio is the only intergrated audio option Also try the Google the device IDs without drivers in device manager if you haven't already and see if that can find the drivers.

[@sonictech1000]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Thanks. No analog audio port. It looks like maybe some of the Intel Nuc drivers may be compatible. I'm honestly not sure at this point what other functionality I'm missing but there sure are a lot of unknown devices in the device manager. It's been awhile since I've had to deal with this kind of issue on Windows and I'm out of practice.

[@jttech44]

Pretty refreshing that they're not super anti-user when it comes to 3rd party OS's. I can't think of anything else that's this easy to get working in that regard. I do wish the watchdog feature was smarter, but, at least you can turn it off. That's really the only gripe though, and these boxes with some NVME and a bunch of big spinners are going to be Truenas SMB champs tbh.

[@klaernie]

If your chosen OS has support for the chip implementing the watchdog (which Linux definitely has) you can configure the watchdog daemon and then reenable it. And for Linux watchdogd you can do some complex tests if you like.

[@th3r3v92]

Thank you for providing details on how the SATA ports are utilized. There were rumors circulating in the Facebook group suggesting that they were using the same 4-port host controller with some unusual port multiplication, potentially causing issues with TrueNAS. I'm glad to hear that this is not the case.

[@esadcgenbas4804]

100C seems to be the known cpu heat sink misalignment

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Haven’t heard of that one before. Let me tear it apart and see if it sees odd and re paste it.

[@DavidChiluk]

@ElectronicsWizardry , it looks like ugreen has disabled ASPM in the bios which is resulting in the cpu never dropping into low power c-states. This is causing a significant increase in the floor for power consumption. This hardware should be idling at 3-10w and possibly even lower. Ugreen really needs to fix this.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Do you know of a way to check if aspm is enabled?

[@DavidChiluk]

@@ElectronicsWizardry My kernel (ubuntu) is reporting "ACPI FADT declares the system doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so disable it". Also I never reach lower c-states in powertop other than c0. Attempting to set pcie_aspm=force as a kernel option, was unable to work around the problem.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

@@DavidChiluk Yup I see that exact line in boot messages of my Ugreen nas running Proxmox. Let me try measuring power when the force kernel option is turned on.

[@DavidChiluk]

​@@ElectronicsWizardryafaict this can only be solved via a firmware update from ugreen. All hardware on the board should support so I hope this is just an oversight, and due to the project focussing on functionality over optimization.

[@jothain]

Good job. Straight to the point. No nonsense and cover about everything few other reviewers missed. Also really dig your neutral approach in tested OS's. As multi OS user I'm getting sick of reviewers that are insnaely biased towards their own selections. I get supporting something, but dissing others selection is just dumb and doesn't contribute to anything. Let alone that many of these are just simply having their facts downright wrong. Keep up the good work! Shame that device has few caveats that render it bit bad for like Proxmox server with gpu passthrough for VM's.

[@jhroom]

Super awesome review! Realy interested in the Thunderbolt capabilities in different OS'es including the standard Ugreen OS. A specific video about this would be awsome!!!

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Yea thunderbolt networking might be interesting to look at. It can be interesting way to get fast networking on laptops and other devices without other adapters.

[@Sebyllis7350k]

​@@ElectronicsWizardry PLEASE do some tests about this. It will be massively helpful for lots of folks with Macs.

[@raeesumerpp]

Very good video shows the capabilities of the NASync hardware with different OSes. Could please test Xpenology in 4800plus model. Untill UGOS Pro attain stability, i wish to test with Xpenology. Can you confirm the same.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Its been a while since I looked into Xpenology, and it seems to have slowed down developend wise, with many of the articles online seeming a bit old. The last time I did a video of Xpenology it got copyright striked by Synology I believe, so I'm hesitant to do more Xpenology videos. I don't see a reason Xpenology won't work on this hardware, but with the slower pace of development currently, I"d be tempted to run a OS designed for any hardware like TrueNAS or Unraid that would likely have less issues.

[@yemiarimoro4752]

Splendid, thanks! One question though: Did you have to manually set up the Thunderbolt bridge in the Macbook when connecting it to the NAS through a Thunderbolt cable?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I did the thunderbolt testing with Proxmox, but the setup should be very similar to Debian and other linux distros. When I plugged the macbook in it shows up as a thunderbolt0 network device. I added that device to the vmbr0 bridge in Proxmox and started the network interface and my macbook grabbed a DHCP address. No configuration needed on the macOS side, and only basic IP configs needed on the NAS side. It looks like it needs a manual reboot/bringing up of the thunderbolt connection when plugging the Macbook in, but there is likely a auto connection option I missed.

[@tuffgongrastafari6825]

You’re awesome bud! Thx for your time

[@bassigiovanni1994]

Hi @ElectronicsWizardry, this is very useful info, thank you! Maybe one question: can you please comment on the power budget available for the PCIe slot? Are the full 75W available?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Is there a way to test the slot power available? I tried a few cards like a GT1030 and a LSI SAS HBA without issues, but my higher power cards won't fit in a single slot. I don't see markings ont he board for available power.

[@bassigiovanni1994]

I was thinking of stress-testing using Heaven or similar benchmarks but it seems that the GT1030 has a maximum power of 30W and HBAs usually require even less I think. However when running the lspci command there should be a SlotPowerLimit entry saying the available power. Would it be possible for you to check this? I was asking because sometime the available power is restricted below 75W. There is nothing in the documentation about this right?

[@shephusted2714]

good overall look at the system - much more thorough than other reviewers

[@nishant7ng]

Hi can you install redpill dsm 7.2 on this?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Let me give it a try and report back in a bit. I haven't poked with Xpenology and similar projects for a bit. I'm also a bit unhappy Synology seems to have given me a copyright strike on my last video about Xpenology.

[@hhuey5]

Regarding OS NVME ; just use another NVME m.2 as wells as make an image copy of it Instead of using it

[@EduardoFierro-ij4tn]

thanks

[@Ammarsays]

How to reinstall the original OS if you messed up with the storage while testing 😁

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I asked Ugreen if they have a way to download the OS for a reinstall and they said no. I'd contact their support, but there doesn't seem to be a public way to restore the OS.

[@Ammarsays]

That means i am stuck with truenas for a while…

[@Ammarsays]

@@ElectronicsWizardry The support wants me to send back the device so they can check if there is a physical damage to the device. Physical damage by formatting the drive. Nice 😂

[@PizzlesTechTime]

Do you have any idea how I should connect Thunderbolt 4 with windows?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

What do you want to use the thunderbolt port for? You should be able to do the same thunderbolt networking on windows, along with using thunderbolt devices.

[@PizzlesTechTime]

@@ElectronicsWizardry I have a you green DXP 4800 Pro and I am having issues getting a PCIe card working for networking. So I bought a external USB thunderbolt 3. That gets me by with 1 10 GB port. I would really like the bandwidth of thunderbolt 4 to use between the NAS and the windows PC. I got them under the same IP but because I'm using a network switch everything got really complicated. My little mind lol

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

What OS are you running? What do you mean by a external USB thunderbolt 3? IP over thunderbolt typically is much slower than the peak port performance, I think it was ~10gbit for earlier versions and a bit more for v4. You want the NAS and your PC to have different IPs but to be on the same subnet. Then try pinning the NAS on its IP in that new subnet.

[@PizzlesTechTime]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Yes I was able to change the IP addresses on both the NAS in Linux and my PC. Got it connected but I don't know if it's working for transfers. It ended up losing connection if I remove the ethernet from the NAS. Correction I have the 6800 Pro the six Bay prone as and I am running you ugeen OS

[@PizzlesTechTime]

@@ElectronicsWizardry When I said external thunderbolt 3 I meant I am using an adapter for thunderbolt 3 to 10 gig ethernet. It works pretty well but gets super hot. So I am assuming connecting it directly through thunderbolt 4 will yield better results

[@kaitoushuntaka]

Very great review! How about connecting the thunderbolt port with an egpu and testing some gaming performance:)

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I unforantly don't have a eGPU for testing this. If I get my hands on one I'll test it and let you know.

[@v000000000000v]

just got mine today, gonna run truenas on it and see how it goes, thanks for the video

[@Tranfamilies]

Love to hear your suggestion on the improving of heat to gain that 20% power.. wonder if UGreen will listen and help

[@Mongolians]

Villian from Green lantern motion film making good videos on youtube

[@iC3bErG2020]

what about wifi cards?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Never tried a WiFi card but it should work fine in the pcie slot. I doubt their included is will support WiFi cards though.

[@hpsfresh]

Soooo… no ecc?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

No listed ECC support, and the CPU doesn't support ECC either. DDR5 has some internal error correction that might help, but not full ecc.

[@hpsfresh]

@@ElectronicsWizardry yeah, I know. Can’t understand why qnap is the only one who cares. Maybe they are the one who uses zfs :/

[@hchn-f9m]

You can use HWiNFO in Windows to check the PCI-E channel speed, and also check which solution the SATA controller is. Are all 6 SATAs extended, or are there two native SATAs on the CPU?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

4 data ports are from a asmedia controller the other 2 are from the cpu. I think bays 1-4 are on the asmedia controller.

[@TheRealGally]

Any concerns (outside the norm) with utilizing a NAS from a company based in China? Have you noted any newly-open listening ports or conducted network analysis to check if there are any unknown outbound connections from the NAS or any of your other networked-connected devices after connecting the NAS to your home network?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I didn't see any specific issues or abnormality to note with this unit, but I lack the credentials to correct analyze security threats on devices like this. I'd guess these units have the normal amount of supplier risk.

[@bobbyLovesTech]

Wonder if it will run Xpenlogoy...

[@kevinhu196]

I hope the BIOS supported ASPM settings so the system can reach better C-states and lower idle power consumption. How much power does the NAS draw at idle? The problem with most DIY solution are those boards from China usually have the JMB585 chipset which do not have ASPM support, there are no such devices that have a Intel CPU better than N100, have many SATA ports and do not have the JMB585. The closest I've seen in Wolfgang's channel who rigged up a AsRock N100 ITX with ASM1166, but that is only N100.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I tested the 4 and 6 bay models at idle with only the included nvme boot drive(no HDDs). the 4 bay model sat at about 20w, and 23w for the 6 bay model. This power was about the same in all OSes I used. I also recently got a N100 miniPC to test with and its pulling about 8.5w Idle. I'd guess the extra power on the Ugreen NAS boxes is from the JSM585 as your pointed out, the 10GBE AQC107 nics and a few other parts. I'd love to get a breakdown of what all is pulling power, but I don't know of a easy way to get that on these systems. Do you have a way to test the idle states of the JMB585 chipset?

[@kevinhu196]

@@ElectronicsWizardry I'm using powertop a linux tool to optimize and check which idle state a system is in, I got most of my power optimization tips from Wolfgang Channel. Since JMB585 does not support ASPM, I think the most your system can go is C3. I know in the Unraid forum, there is a command that list out all the PCI devices in the system and check if ASPM is supported. The SATA card does not have idle states, but it can prevent the CPU from entering certain C-states. On the google search, I do not know whether the 10G card has ASPM support and if it prevents a CPU from entering a C-state.

[@NeerajKumar-jz7es]

Does the fan works with other os

[@FinalGrade]

I have a pc with thunderbolt. If I plug it into the thunderbolt on the NAS can I use it instead of the 10Gbe connection and get high speeds? Does it work as expected since I am seeing comments on here saying it is intended for working only with TB4 external drives not computers?

[@Johnwhodunit]

Maybe? But you might not be able to configure it in the Ugreen NAS GUI. Plus, his initial testing using a different OS only showed a 30% improvement over a 10 Gbe Ethernet connection. Why? That's a mystery.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I can test their included OS, but if you plug this NAS(and all the other NAS units with thunderbolt Ive seen) to a computer it will show up as a network card that is about 10GBE or faster. Then you can mount the network share over this network link. I see this being most useful as its cheaper and easier than a thunderbolt to 10gbe adapter if you already have a laptop with thunderbolt, but the speed boost is a nice bonus too.

[@FinalGrade]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Yeah definitely. Cause the adapter is already 200 bucks and for that I can just go for the 6 bay at that point since it would be the same price as buying the 4 bay and then an adapter.

[@razvanradoi2139]

Is there any way to get the HDD LEDs working correctly after you install TrueNAS? Haven't found anything in the BIOS menus to fix them

[@sinisterpisces]

The fact that they work in UGOS Pro but not any other OS seems to suggest that it's a driver issue. I'm guessing that the strobbing from side to side is the default ON behavior, and at some point after UGOS boots, a driver takes over and actually controls the lights based on data from the OS. I'm actually curious if a driver could be extracted from the UGOS disk image and ported to TrueNAS or some other Linux/BSD.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Yea that's my thoughts too. It seems like a interesting project to do and I'll post my results if I figure it out. I just haven't gotten around to trying to figure it out yet.

[@dc2044]

I’m running truenas scale

[@junior-OG]

Do you know if the slot where the ugreen nvme is a pcie 4x4 or 3x2?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

@junior-OG I think it’s a gen 3 x1 if my memory serves me right but it may vary depending on unit.

[@junior-OG]

@@ElectronicsWizardry yeah i just find out on reddit the os slot is 3x1 then one is 3x2 then 3x4

[@francosilvestri123]

Thanks for the very informative video! I have a question: what is better: 1) to clone multiple operating systems to the same external HDD where I have backups of my documents (one separate partition for each OS and another separate partition for my backup)? 2) Or is it better to clone my operating systems (I have 4 of them) to one HDD for each OS, 3) or last option, to backup my documents to HDD #1 and to clone my OSes in one HDD #2 with as many partitions as OSes ? And if so, why?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Are these OSes backups of a running system? I'd generally recommend using Image backup software to make images of the running system, and store it as a file on the filesystem. I'm generally a fan a Veeam for windows client/server backups. They have a free version that handles 10 systems and can store all the backup files on a nas like this. There is other alternatives like ubackup I've tried but ran into more issues than I'd hope for. If your cloning OSes with DD or similar tools, I'd clone the OS into a img file and store it as a file. Then its easy to work with and copy as needed. I fine this easier to work with than cloning a HDD to another HDD. Hope this helps here.

[@francosilvestri123]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Thank you for your reply! Actually I'm a noob and I'd like a very simple backup of my personal data (around 3TB atm) and OSes cloning (no NAS or RAID, they still scare me). I plan to make 3 partitions in my external HDD: #1 for my Documents and Data; #2 for clone of my OS Windows10; #3 for clone of my OS Windows 11. For simplicity I would like to use Macrium for OS cloning but as you advice maybe better to use DD (or Clonezilla? Even I think they are less user friendly). You advice to clone OSes with DD into a img file. In case my original booting drive will fail, is it easy to replace with a new drive with the saved img file of my OS and reboot with it?

[@SimoneTavera]

Great review! What it's unclear to me your passage about the coexistence of iGPU and dGPU. From the bios do you completely disable the iGPU in favor of the dedicated one or only its video output (and so the HDMI port on the mainboard)? This might be a game changer if you could use quicksync (iGPU) on a container for transcoding while having the dGPU passed through another VM using both at the same time in different contexts

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

There isn't any BIOS options I found that affect the iGPU or primary display adapter. When a dGPU is added the iGPU seems to be fully disabled with the onboard HDMI ports having no output and the Intel iGPU not being listed as a device in lspci or device manager. Since I don't see the iGPU at all, I don't think there is a way to pass the iGPU to a VM/CT and use a dGPU for other tasks. Hope this clears up what is going on with the GPU here.

[@SimoneTavera]

@@ElectronicsWizardry it does, thanks :) (sadly in a different way than the one I hoped :D)

[@PreDaToReLeaSeD]

first time watcher, i subbed, not sure if you check comments but i recommend moving camera/screen you are looking at so they are together, so you are looking at the audience when you are speaking, will make you look much more trustworthy and professional. just my 2 cents

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Thanks for the sub. God suggestion and I'm working on making the video feed more cohesive. I might just get a teleprompter so I can look at both at the same time.

[@PreDaToReLeaSeD]

@@ElectronicsWizardry or use one of those AI eye direction correctors lol im sure i heard of something like that a while back

[@gmdc5850]

Hi, do you think it would be ok to use to use a memory with higher clock speed? Like Crucial RAM Crucial D5 5600 32GB. Sometimes 4800 mhz is not available. Also interested in seeing truenas scale running, given the pci differences it may not be worth it to run 2 nvmes in raid1 (for the OS for example). Perhaps 1 could be read cache and the other write cache..

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I didn't see a setting to change memory speeds in the bios, and don't have other DDR5 SODIMMS to test with. TrueNAS scale works fine for me. As far as mirrored boot drives, I don't see an issue with PCIe speed limits as the boot drives don't need much IO for TrueNAS. You can also restore from a boot drive failure realtivity easily in most setups and all the data is on the data drives, so mirrored boot drives aren't that essential for most uses. When it comes to cache drives setup, it really depends on your usecase for ZFS. I'd probably skip cache drives for a home backup/media server, and use the SSDs for something else like Plex metadata or VMs. ZFS doesn't really have a write cache, and the log drive is only for sync writes. If your usecase doesn't have sync writes a LOG drive won't help at all. A read cache or l2arc may help, but depends on your usecase. I have found it to typically not have a huge impact in home server usecases.

[@gmdc5850]

Thanks for the thoughtful answers. Follow-up question, what’s the PCI definition for the 3d nvme slot? The one hidden. Thank you.

[@hamzahlydick5501]

@@ElectronicsWizardry would love to know this as well, what’s the PCI definition for the 3d nvme slot? The ones that's hidden

[@madiathv]

Is the pcie express slot a low profile slot or a full height slot?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

It’s a low profile slot.

[@blademan7671]

100C temps means cpu thermal throttling. Did you check thermal paste? Great in depth review. 6 bay with an Nvidia card for HW transcode would be great for Plex or jellyfin to replace my aging Synology DS918+.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Never took the cooler off as I wanted to test with the included thermal compound. Might take it off and see what the application looks like and will reply to this if I do.

[@th3r3v92]

@blademan7671 Unless you specifically require AV1 encoding, I would recommend using the built-in QuickSync instead of a dedicated GPU for transcoding. QuickSync encoders are really underestimated in terms of their power and efficiency. However, if you do need AV1 encoding, then a small, single-slot ARC card is still a better choice than an NVIDIA card.

[@blademan7671]

@@th3r3v92 like this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZfYo2pri7d_msU

[@Number1fanofcaptain]

What is the specific NIC being used for 10gbe on the bay bay NAS?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

The 10gbe nic is a AQC-107. Is there other details about the nic if you want? The dual 10gbe models appear to have 2 of these nics inside them.

[@friedrich1277]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Whats the difference in the power draw of the system (idle) if the NICs are disabled in the BIOS or not?

[@Medrono]

Have you tested the Power Consumption with other the Os ? Seems no one has tested this, and comparison on power Consumption of the 4 and 6 bay ?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I tested idle power with all the oses to see if they would turn down components correctly. All sat at around 22-23w at idle.

[@Medrono]

@@ElectronicsWizardry oh, wow thx for the quick response 👍 and the 6bay is without drives at the same Watt at idle +- ? Other say something from 40wat at idle.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

That 22-23w is idle on my 6 bay DXP6800 Pro with no HDDs. The HDDs use a bit less than 5w each spinning, so that's where 40w idle would likely come from. I took the drives out when doing my idle power testing.

[@Medrono]

Thank you so much, i ordered the 4 and 6 bay because i wasn't sure with the power consumption but now i will cancel the , 4 bay model and take the 6bay 👍 here in Germany the power consumption is a big factor 😅

[@xenonlp9189]

What are the size of the build in fans in the 6-Bay and 8-Bay Models? Do both has 2 x 92mm fans? Are 3 x Fans Possible and in which size then? The Fan in the PSU has 40x25mm, right? Is it possible to change ist and do you think an 40x28mm fan will also fit?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

My 6 bay has dual 92x25mm fans. It looks like the 8 bay has dual 120mm fans from a video I see online, but I'd measure the fans on the 8 bay model first. The main fans are pretty nice, and have fan control in the bios so I don't see an issue keeping them stock. As far as the PSU fan, upon measuring it again it appears to be a 40x20mm fan. A thicker fan won't fit, but noctua makes a 40x20mm fan that would likely be a good fit here.

[@xenonlp9189]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Wow, thank you very much for the information, it has helped me a lot! I've also heard elsewhere that the 6-bay model has significantly better fans than the 4-bay model. I guess the tiny PSU fan will still be louder even the Noctua one, than the 92 fans, so I'll probably keep them in. But what I found interesting was that I read in another video comments, that someone wants to use the "HDPLEX 250W GaN Passive AIO ATX Power Supply" PSU in their 6-bay model. That would be a small PASSIVE cooled power supply. Do you possibly know this thing and do you think it would be possible? That should mean quiet operation and power saving, as it is very efficient, if it would be usable.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

The main fan on the 4 and 6 bay models are fine to me. They feel reasonably nice quality. The PSU fan in the 6 bay(and likely 8) is the loudest at idle. A noctua fan should help with that noise(you likely could also spin the included fan slower, but there is risk with less cooling that it was designed for). The CPU fan is a bit annoying if its changing speeds next to me on the desk, but I think a bit of fan tuning would help here, especially since drive temps are very good in this case, and the CPU is typically power limited instead of thermally limited. It looks like the main board uses a 24 pin ATX PSU, and a 8 pin CPU power is used for the HDD backplane. That aftermarket PSU should work fine in this box, but I'd check voltages just to be sure. I will note if noise is your biggest worry, the HDDs are likely going to be more annoying than the fans when your reading/writing data

[@xenonlp9189]

@@ElectronicsWizardry I plan to install 3 x 20TB Toshiba MG10 HDDs for the time being. They are really quiet, even when writing. Since I'll also be using Unraid, they'll be in spindown most of the time anyway. I think I'll probably just replace the PSU fan with the Noctua, do some fan fine tuning and then it should be fine. The NAS is in my wife's room anyway, so I don't really care anyway 😂(just kidding)

[@michaelpaolini]

Great Video! 7min in, you mention the Thunderbolt Networking is working! Can you tell me which OSes that you tested this was true of please (I'm assuming it is still not true for the Ugreen OS)? Also any idea what it was only giving you 13Gb/s - do you think it was lanes, or was it not fully populated etc).

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I did my thunderbolt networking testing with Proxmox, but its likely the same with debian and other Linux distros. I didn't test it with other OSes, but I run a test on a specific os if you want.

[@michaelpaolini]

@@ElectronicsWizardry I was really wanting to know if it would work with the 3rd Party NAS offerings, like TrueNas, since I know those often aren't full distributions. The goal for me is a Thunderbolt Networking Connection to a 6+Bay NAS for video editing (and I'd prefer not to have to go to QNAP and their Thunderbolt line - though they are showing up to 26Gbit over Thunderbolt in some cases). In the Ugreen NAS group this has been a subject of constant discussion among the video editors out there - so you have a built in audience here (at least while we wait for Ugreen to come back with a reversal of their Official position it isn't supported and can not work).

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

I can give truenas a shot with my macbook and see how it goes. I'm guessing scale will work fine as its linux under the hood, but not sure how the gui will show the thunderbolt network interface. I'm also not sure why I was seeing 13gbit instead of higher speeds that seem possible. Could possibly be a limit of my m1 macbook as its the only thunderbolt laptop I had for testing.

[@MasterMind187b]

@@ElectronicsWizardryis more possible? The Thunderbolt Standard can Simulat a 10gbit Connection as i know. You dont get the Full 40gbit as lan Connection

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Yea I thought it was a 10gbe link for IP over thunderbolt at first, but seems to be faster now. Other forum posts confirm what I was seeing with faster than 10gbe link speeds. Can't seem to find much info on what the real cap is, and thunderbolt can be complicated to see what max speed a transfer type will get.

[@Johnwhodunit]

Did you happen to test hardware passthrough in Proxmox of one or both of the SATA controllers? Would like to run TrueNAS Scale as a Proxmox VM but prefer to passthrough the controller rather than the individual disks.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Didn’t try that. Let me give that a shot and see how it goes.

[@jay9404]

Thanks for all your hard work. I'm interested in this as well ​@@ElectronicsWizardry

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

@@jay9404 I just tried PCIe passthrough on this 6 bay model using Proxmox as the Hypervisor. I could pass both the onboard Intel SATA controller and the Asmedia controller to a TrueNAS VM without issues, and all the drives show the full smart data. Also on the 6 bay model the 4 drive bays on the left are controlled by the Asmedia controller and the right most 2 drives are connected to the Intel controller.

[@jay9404]

@@ElectronicsWizardry thanks for the update and although not ideal in all situations, this helps alleviate some concerns with TrueNAS in a VM in Proxmox. Again appreciate your knowledge and testing.

[@jay9404]

@@ElectronicsWizardry something just came to mind, does the NVME have their own sata controller? I plan to install proxmox mirrored on the NVME and want to ensure that passing the Intel and asmedia controller won't affect booting from the NVMEs

[@chromerims]

2:32 -- dd command is right. Also, dd save the U-Green OS before booting via a live usb. Great video 👍

[@friedrich1277]

And extract the LED control script :D

[@chromerims]

@@friedrich1277 I am not going to back the nas creator. Finally decided.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Yea I should try getting that led script off the included os. Any clue of where it might be?

[@chromerims]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Good morning. Kindly look up journalist Jason Chen's commentary on kickstarters. Is any non-rewards rate acceptable? I fear.

[@chromerims]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Google for: Jason Chen kickstarter wirecutter 2022

[@thefoxhouse]

Thank you for the review! Would you happen to know the fan size in the DXP6800 Pro?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Dual 92x25mm in the back, 40x25mm in the PSU(loudest in the system), and a non standard fan on the cooler.

[@ehrenpinus]

How is about PWM and other specs of the fans?

[@thefoxhouse]

@@ElectronicsWizardry Thank you so much! I’ve been trying to find a clear answer on this for a while.

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

The fans are pwm fans. The label says coolcox cc9225m12d. Googling that gives me a data sheet that says it’s a 2000rpm fan with ball bearings.

[@ehrenpinus]

Is the fan of the psu also known?

[@philipphellmich7644]

Can you change the fan profile in the bios?

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

The bios has options for fan control and options to change the fan curves and speeds. Look in the bios menu pages in the video for more details of exactly what can be changed.

[@waynetaylor2784]

I would have liked to see them running a AMD mobile processor such as 7840hs or 7940hs , i think the inbuilt gpu 780m would do wonders for transcoding

[@ElectronicsWizardry]

Yea I'd love to compare the 1235u to a AMD CPU like the ones you listed. I think the all P cores would work better for a NAS like this, and I think those chips have more PCIe lanes too.

[@LeonGames]

"Running Different OSes on", no other OSes seen 😂

[@winandd8649]

I would buy the 4 bay version... BUT you can't buy it! It's a Kickstarter so you COULD loose your money and it's only available in US and Germany, so Ugreen says FU to the rest of the world.. 👎

[@th3r3v92]

Shipito, forward2me :) In this case, Kickstarter is simply another marketing tool for Ugreen; it's not quite the same situation as with a no-name Chinese startup on its first KS campaign.

[@winandd8649]

@@th3r3v92 Kickstarter equals risk, there is no other way around it. I don't get why this company uses Kickstarter for this.. It throws people off..

[@kevincedeno8899]

Just wait until the thing comes out and up on sale 2-weeks later.

[@Scresho202]

Shave your head my man, you would look better :) And feel too i would guess!