Why I switched to a NAS storage drive to backup files - and ditched iCloud and Dropbox for good

Ugreen DXP4800 Plus

4 / 5

Very good

pros and cons

Pros

The hardware is exceptional.

The kit comes with everything you need, including cables and tools.

Fitting drives is mostly tool-free.

Cons

The ecosystem is not as mature as competitors such as Synology.

The unit can run noisy at times.

The screws on the RAM/M.2 port are not captive and are easy to lose.

$656.99 at Amazon

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Cloud service providers have convinced us that cloud storage is the way to go. And while there's no doubt that cloud storage has many benefits over, well, not backing your stuff up at all -- not to mention the ease of backing stuff up -- it's becoming a pricey option. Not only do these services nickel-and-dime you each and every month (though nowadays it's more a case of Benjamin-and-Granting you), but you also end up paying for multiple services.

Dropbox, Apple iCloud, Backblaze, Google One, plus some Adobe Cloud Storage. Not only do all those add up, but it also means my data is scattered across multiple providers, making it hard to find what I need.

The answer, at least in part, has been to go back to my own storage system.

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Before I go any further, yes, there are advantages to having an off-site cloud backup. In the event of fire, flood, theft, device failure, or simple stupidity on my part, there's a backup hosted on a server somewhere. This move isn't about getting rid of all of my cloud storage; it's about cutting down on the number of services that I'm paying for and consolidating my data to make life easier.

But I need a lot of storage. I also need reliability and easy access, both when I'm nearby and when I'm remote. I also want it to be expandable, as my digital detritus inevitably grows over the months -- because who has the time or patience to go through it all to delete the unwanted stuff? Not me.

A few months ago, I got my hands on the Ugreen DXP4800 Plus, a solution aimed at high-end home users and professionals. This unit has performed flawlessly from day one.

The hardware is top-end

I must say, I've lost confidence and patience with cheap storage systems because there's always at least one stumbling block. Either the performance is awful, the app is painful to use, the hardware isn't reliable, or I hit a wall with upgrading.

Or, worse still, I hit several of these stumbling blocks with one product.

From a hardware perspective, the DXP4800 Plus is about as good as they get. The 4-bay chassis is made from solid, durable aluminum, and the unit is powered by a 12th-generation penta-core Intel Pentium Gold 8505 chip, backed by 8GB of DDR5 RAM (yes, the expensive stuff) that you can expand to 64GB.

On the storage front, the unit can handle up to a whopping 144TB if you choose to throw caution to the wind and use RAID 0 (which is great for speed, but doesn't offer any redundancy, so if a single drive fails in your array, your data is all gone).

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To achieve this capacity, the NAS takes four 3.5/2.5-inch hard drives up to 32TB per drive, and two M.2 2280 NVMe storage slots up to 8TB each. You can use the NVMe drives for storage or caching, depending on whether you prioritize speed or storage.

This is an insane amount of capacity. Let's say I fill the unit with four 32TB drives (and assume I use the M.2 drives for caching), and I use RAID 6, which can survive up to two simultaneous drive failures and gives me 64TB of usable space. That's still enough for about 6,500 4K movies or 25 million smartphone photos.

That's a lot of storage.

There's also a lot of port expandability.

On the front, you get an SD card slot that's perfect for photographers or videographers, and a USB-C and USB-A 3.0 Gen 2 port. On the back, you get a pair of USB-A 2.0 ports, a USB-A 3.0 Gen 1 port, an HDMI port that can handle 4K, and two Ethernet ports, one supporting 10 GbE and the other a 2.5 GbE.

Reliability is key

When approaching any storage kit, my first concern is reliability. No matter how fast or snazzy something is, if it's going to fall over when the going gets tough, I definitely don't want to store my precious data on it. And that means a lot of testing is needed. To get a meaningful idea of something's reliability, you must subject it to harsh use for extended periods. You end up testing the drives' reliability as much as you test the NAS unit itself.

That's exactly what I did.

I moved terabytes of data to and from the unit over the course of a week. I ran deep scan SMART tests that took hours using the Ugreen NAS dashboard. I also did things that are definitely not in the manual, like pulling the power while it was in use, then pulling a drive out and letting the unit figure out what to do. This is stuff a NAS should be able to handle, but I still come across plenty of units that struggle with this kind of harsh treatment.

Bottom line: I had no issues with the DXP4800 Plus.

After reliability comes performance

OK, now that I'm happy with reliability, it's time to think about performance.

Those Ethernet ports on the back of the NAS can handle quite a bit of throughput. Theoretically, a 10GbE port maxes out at 1,250 MB/s, but in practice, you get about 1.25 GB/s when you account for network overhead. A 2.5GbE port has a theoretical maximum throughput of 312.5 MB/s, and again, the maximum is around 312 MB/s when accounting for network overhead.

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Using the best possible setup I could muster (short cable lengths, the fastest network switch I had, and the best hardware), I could get around 1,050 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write speeds, but I think I was maxing out my network rather than the NAS.

No matter how you cut it, that level of throughput is insane, given that you only need 3 MB/s to stream a 4K movie. Theoretically, you could stream several hundred 4K movies simultaneously, but you're likely to bring your network down before you hit that number.

On the practical front, fitting drives into the NAS is pretty easy. Adding 3.5-inch hard drives is totally tool-free, while 2.5-inch hard drives and M.2 drives require a screwdriver.

The one place where Synology wins

Pushed to come up with cons for the DXP4800 Plus, the biggest one I can think of is platform maturity.

While you do get Docker and VM support, the UGOS Pro operating system doesn't have a lot of built-in apps, and the only way to install third-party apps is via Docker. Support for native third-party apps (along with a whole bunch of other stuff) is on the roadmap, but right now, if you want a NAS with a flourishing third-party app ecosystem, you're best looking at Synology.

However, if you like to keep things simple and are happy using Docker, Ugreen is a good choice.

Whether you want a system to sync and backup your data to, a unit for media streaming, or a place for virtual machines or your Docker containers, the DXP4800 Plus is the perfect solution. And to be honest, unless your network is top-notch, this NAS won't be the hurdle to your performance.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Ugreen DXP4800 Plus is a professional package, and it comes with a pro price tag. Diskless, the unit is $656, and your total cost will depend on the drives you buy.  A 32TB NAS drive will set you back $1,150, so if you want four of those, you'll need deep pockets. A $12 TB NAS HDD is $450, so the actual NAS is only a small part of your purchase.

Is it worth the money?

Definitely. Even if you started with a bunch of 4TB drives, you'll get reliable storage that should last for years. The Ugreen NAS comes with a 2-year warranty (which is what you expect in this market sector, but honestly, I'd like to see this increased to 5 years).  NAS drives come with multi-year warranties, so you should get a lot of use out of this.

Someone is bound to ask me about the "Amazon Renewed" drives. I've never used them, and I'm not sure how drives are "renewed" beyond being wiped. All I'm going to say is that I wouldn't buy one.

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Cloud storage isn't cheap. Consider that 2TB of Dropbox or iCloud will cost you $10 a month.

Beyond that, things get serious. If you want 12TB of iCloud, that'll be $60 per month. To replicate that at home with RAID 6 you'd need the DXP4800 Plus and four 6TB disks at about $310 each, so the package comes to $1,825. That's equivalent to 30 months (or 2.5 years) of iCloud storage. I've been paying big bucks to several service providers for several years.

That's now coming to an end. And if all goes well -- and so far, so good -- I'll be saving money after about a year or so. I'll still keep my Backblaze for off-site backups, but the others have now been whittled down.