• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    87
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    The preloaded spyware OS is half baked, horribly unfinished, and also locked to the hardware. You can work around it to install your own OS but they provide zero support and explicitly say it is not supposed to be allowed by ToS while intentionally making it as hard as possible by making the BIOS inaccessible and digitally signed to their own OS. Fuck that.

    The crowdfunding fundraiser (where there are zero penalties if things are shipped broken, incomplete or not at all) is super fishy and the non-discount price is astronomical. While the hardware looks nice… Hard, hard pass right now, stinks of vendor lockin and illegal data vacuuming. Do not buy.

    Source video: https://youtu.be/Y_MgY7wgII8

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      356 months ago

      Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of Ugreen hardware (external HDD enclosures, USB hubs, adapters, etc.), but there’s no way I’d get their hardware with an OS on it. I don’t trust the brand that much.

      • @Molecular0079
        link
        English
        136 months ago

        You shouldn’t trust ANY brand’s pre-installed OS when it comes to your personal data to be honest.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          46 months ago

          QNAP is taiwanese and still providing software patches for my 8 year old NAS. I think they are reasonably trustworthy

          But i agree with you, i’m going to build my own NAS from scratch this year…

          • @Molecular0079
            link
            English
            126 months ago

            I have zero trust in QNAP. QNAP knowingly sold several NASes with a known clock-drift defect in their Intel J1900 CPUs and then refused to provide any support. A bunch of community members had to figure out how to solder a resistor to temporarily revive their bricked NASes in order to retrieve their data. https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=135089

            I had a TS-453 Pro and my friend had a TS-451. Both mine and his exhibited this issue and refused to boot. After this debacle and the extreme apathy from their support, I vowed to never buy a pre-built NAS.

            • @resetbypeer
              link
              English
              56 months ago

              Not to mention the sheer amount of security vulnerabilities they constantly have in their products. I never recommend QNAP for that reason. Out of the box solutions I only recommend Synology. Selfbuild route is uraid and my personal fav. Truenas scale.

              • @nexusband
                link
                English
                16 months ago

                Get an x86 Qnap and put Truenas Scale on it - there is no case in that form factor in existence.

              • @Molecular0079
                link
                English
                16 months ago

                Man, I have GOT to try Truenas Scale one of these days. I see it recommended so often, but I was just too used to a standard Linux ecosystem to bother learning something new. I am assuming it gets you closer to the feel of a pre-built NAS during administration tasks compared to Cockpit and a SSH session lmao.

                I think I am just always afraid of being locked into a specific way of doing things by a vendor. I feel like I would get annoyed if something that I could do easily on standard Linux was harder to do on Truenas Scale.

                • @resetbypeer
                  link
                  English
                  26 months ago

                  For sure. It’s basically a NAS software appliance. You just need to bring your own x86 hardware. Truenas core was good, but they will stop actively developing soon in favor for scale.

                  I have it running both hardware (backup) as well as virtualized (with a special sas/sata card as PCI pass thru). Works like a charm.

              • @nexusband
                link
                English
                16 months ago

                Get an x86 Qnap and put Truenas Scale on it - there is no case in that form factor in existence.

            • @nexusband
              link
              English
              16 months ago

              Do it anyway and put an x86 OS on one of the “standard UEFI” versions. There’s no other Hardware better on the market for this - even self build isn’t going to come close, there’s simply no case with 8 hotswap slots (for example).

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        4
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        I did order the 4800+. I have no need for the Ugreen OS and will replace it.
        Every report I have read about say that the hardware looks very good for the (kickstarter) price

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          36 months ago

          But if the EFI is locked and you have to use a workaround to boot?

          I’d wait a real review before purchasing a “e-waste bomb”

          The real reason the hardware is locked to their Linux distro is that the moment they discontinue security updates, it immediately becomes e-waste and you have to buy a new one instead of use it until it physically breaks. This approach works great on Apple devices, who have a 5-7 year lifetime from market launch

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            26 months ago

            If Synology decides to not support your NAS it can’t even load anything else. Synology dexided for the DS218j (or DS220j) that it suddenly can’t use BTRFS anymore. If I remember it correctly it was due to not having enough memory.
            But that was only after the upgrade to DSM 7.x
            Yet I see only confused posts on the web instead of rage and “I wont bzy Synology anymore”.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        26 months ago

        What do people think of their hardware in general?

        I have some caddies HDD and NVMe. I think their gear is fairly mid. some aspects are quite nice but other aspects is dog water.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          46 months ago

          What do people think of their hardware in general?

          I’ve been very happy with their external HDD enclosures, and various USB chargers.

          Their USB car charger has been the only one to survive Canadian winters and summers for more than a year (going on 4), which is impressive.

          I’d say their quality is as good, or better, than most of the Anker stuff I’ve purchased.

        • @Linkerbaan
          link
          English
          1
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          They have some of the best USB cables (strongest, least breakable). Used to be cheap too until they started spending big bucks on marketing.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16 months ago

            As a comparison against Anker, the cables are thinner - almost as thin as the cheap unbranded cables. Or at least this is what my ugreen cables are like.

            • @Linkerbaan
              link
              English
              36 months ago

              You need those metal ones with braided cable

                • @Linkerbaan
                  link
                  English
                  -16 months ago

                  In my experience they’re very solid. They also have thicker PD charging cables.

    • @Molecular0079
      link
      English
      126 months ago

      The preloaded spyware OS

      Nowhere in that video did it say this. I am all for DIY NAS and I have an Arch-based one at home, but saying this while implying that that’s what the source video you linked said is a bit disingenuous.

      To be honest, nothing about this UGREEN is any different from any of the other off-the-shelf NAS solutions out there like QNAP, Synology, etc. If you don’t trust the UGREEN pre-installed OS, you shouldn’t trust any of the other ones either. I am not saying you should, but my point is that this pretty par for the course as far as pre-built NASes go.

      Most companies do not provide support if you install a custom OS. That isn’t a sign of vendor lock-in, just a matter of keeping support feasible in the long-term, especially since they’re relatively new at this. If you want a custom OS, it is far easier and cheaper to just build your own.

      • warm
        link
        fedilink
        66 months ago

        Exactly, there’s valid complaints, but they are clutching at straws and just lying in their comment.

    • Brickfrog
      link
      fedilink
      English
      5
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Bummer, the formfactor / specs look okay but it’s kind of a dead end if I can’t just install & use a vanilla Debian OS or similar.

      With all the NAS OS options probably Synology has the best one but even there I don’t actually want to get locked into that. I doubt this UGOS software can match Synology’s let alone Debian.

      If it’s any consolation it looks like UGREEN is responding to comments about installing other OSes at their kickstarter page https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urgreen/ugreen-nasync-next-level-storage-limitless-possibilities/comments

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        36 months ago

        You can. But you need to circumvent the default settings and deactivate the watchdog in the UEFI.
        There are already guides out there by reviewers. Youtube review about the NAS and how they replace the OS (around 11:00min)

  • @Eideen
    link
    English
    126 months ago

    Depending on the price I would like to use to replace my Synology, I will strip os and run standard Debian.

    Sadly is very hard to repurpose an Synology.

    • @TCB13
      link
      English
      96 months ago

      I will strip os and run standard Debian.

      This is the problem, it seems to be very hardware do it because the UEFI is inaccessible and the OS is signed. Kobol was our one and true hope for an open and well designed NAS solutions however they quit.

    • @nexusband
      link
      English
      86 months ago

      QNAP x86, standard uefi! Can run anything. Been running mine with Proxmox, ZFS, Runtipi and others. Easy GUI setup for everything, Runtipi is just clicking add for various things.

      • @MigratingtoLemmy
        link
        English
        16 months ago

        Wait which model line? I never knew one could run their own OS on QNAP

          • @MigratingtoLemmy
            link
            English
            16 months ago

            Hmm, how do I know which models can only boot from the DOM? AFAIK Terramaster NASes don’t have such restrictions.

    • Dark Arc
      link
      English
      26 months ago

      Consider TrueNAS Scale with mirrored drive pairs DIY.

  • @[email protected]B
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
    SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
    SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access
    ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity

    5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.

    [Thread #631 for this sub, first seen 27th Mar 2024, 01:25] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]