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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Exactly, there’s valid complaints, but they are clutching at straws and just lying in their comment.
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.
You shouldn’t trust ANY brand’s pre-installed OS when it comes to your personal data to be honest.
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…
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.
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.
They have some of the best USB cables (strongest, least breakable). Used to be cheap too until they started spending big bucks on marketing.
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.
You need those metal ones with braided cable
This is what I was already comparing. Ugreen make thinner cables?
In my experience they’re very solid. They also have thicker PD charging cables.