Ubiquiti NAS Pro: They Finally Did it!

Summary

TechFlow explores the Ubiquiti NAS Pro, a new network attached storage system designed for efficiency and simplicity. The video delves into its setup, user interface, performance capabilities, and energy efficiency, particularly when utilizing SSDs over traditional hard drives. While the NAS lacks advanced features like app installation and mixed drive pooling, it stands out for its ease of use and reliability, making it a good option for basic storage needs.

Highlights

• Ubiquiti's new NAS solution is game-changing for straightforward, network-based storage. ⚡
• Unlike many other NAS options, the UniFi NAS Pro is focused purely on storage with a user-friendly interface. 📁
• The power efficiency and reduced noise when using SSDs is a massive advantage for 24/7 operation. 🏡
• Sharing files from the NAS is as simple as generating a link, offering cloud-like accessibility. 🌥️
• The system's simplicity in design and use, especially with Ubiquiti integration, makes it appealing for many users. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Ubiquiti finally enters the NAS market with a promising product! 🎉
• The UniFi NAS Pro is straightforward to set up, with support for RAID 5 and RAID 10 configurations. 🛠️
• It offers a unique 'hot spare' feature, allowing for quick recovery in case of drive failure. 💾
• The NAS acts like personal cloud storage, making file sharing a breeze. 🌐
• Switching to SSDs significantly reduces power consumption, noise, and heat. ⚡
• The device is ideal for users prioritizing simple, reliable storage without extra software functionalities. 👍

Overview

The Ubiquiti NAS Pro, an eagerly awaited entrant into the storage market, has finally arrived and promises to deliver efficiency and ease of use. With its plug-and-play setup, the NAS Pro eliminates many of the complexities usually associated with NAS devices. The inclusion of RAID 5 and 10 configurations offers data protection flexibility, and the innovative 'hot spare' feature ensures reliability. All these features make it particularly user-friendly for those looking to enhance their network storage with minimal fuss.

Aside from its core functionalities, what truly sets the NAS Pro apart is its emphasis on energy efficiency and simplicity. Running on SSDs, the device not only reduces energy consumption but also minimizes operational noise, providing a quiet and efficient storage solution that's ideal for home use. Though it lacks the bells and whistles of app installations or hybrid drive configurations, for many users, this trade-off for reduced complexity and increased reliability is well worth it.

For those already entrenched in the Ubiquiti ecosystem or anyone looking for a robust, no-nonsense NAS solution, the UniFi NAS Pro is a strong contender. It stands as a testament to Ubiquiti's expertise in network solutions, even as they navigate new territory with storage. Users can seamlessly share files as if they were using cloud storage, with peace of mind about reliability and ease of access. Overall, the UniFi NAS Pro is a compelling choice for simple, effective storage without unnecessary complications.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Storage Challenges In this chapter, the challenges of data storage are explored. The speaker discusses how data needs to be stored but highlights the difficulties associated with it. Using Apple as an example, they explain that storage upgrades can be costly and impractical for most users, leading to limited options. The alternatives are either carrying external drives or paying for additional storage, both of which have their own drawbacks.
• 00:30 - 01:00: NAS Technology Overview and Introduction of UniFi Unas Pro This chapter provides an overview of NAS (Network-Attached Storage) technology, particularly highlighting the UniFi Unas Pro model. NAS has been a reliable storage solution, but the technology involving spinning drives faces limitations in longevity due to their fixed lifespan. With NAS being a crucial tool over the years, the narrator emphasizes the need for upgrades to more reliable options like the UniFi Unas Pro, which signals UniFi's entry into the NAS space.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Testing and Setup Process The chapter titled 'Testing and Setup Process' discusses the initial steps and considerations involved in setting up a new device. The author shares their personal experience and approach to testing the device's capabilities. They mention installing four fresh 8TB hard disk drives as part of the testing process, although their ultimate goal is to run the device using SSDs, which will also be covered in the video. The chapter highlights that while the device might be highly suitable and a great value for some users, it may not be the best choice for others. The setup involves connecting the device to the network either via SFP or RJ45.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Dashboard and File Management The chapter discusses the features of a mobile app related to dashboard and file management in a multi-bay storage system. It highlights the app's ability to provide different levels of data protection through RAID configurations. RAID 5 offers basic protection, while RAID 10 offers higher protection. The system supports seven bays and features a 'hot spare' option, where one drive remains inactive but ready to activate if another drive fails.
• 03:30 - 05:30: Performance Testing and SSD vs HDD This chapter discusses the ease of setting up a NAS device, emphasizing that despite its intimidating appearance, it is essentially just hard drives connected to your network with power and a user-friendly interface. The chapter also touches on the functionality of a UniFi router and its integration into a network setup, highlighted by the presence of a disk icon on the user interface.
• 05:30 - 07:30: Downsides and Features Discussion The chapter titled 'Downsides and Features Discussion' covers the user interface (UI) accessibility of a cloud service known as UI Nas. It underscores the advantage of being able to access the service from anywhere due to its cloud-based nature. The initial screen provides an overview, displaying storage capacity, HDD bay usage, and the current interface being utilized. The side panel allows users to view all files across the different drives configured within the system.
• 07:30 - 10:00: Conclusion and Final Thoughts The chapter focuses on the capabilities of a device that enables viewing images on a webpage and segregating users to access particular drives. It addresses a common concern about backing up data stored on the device. Users can back up data to another remote device, an SMB server, or Google, showcasing flexibility in data management.
• 10:00 - 12:00: Squarespace Sponsorship Message The chapter discusses the cool features of the Drive, particularly focusing on snapshots and shared links. Snapshots can be scheduled, providing systematic backups. The speaker expresses their love for the shared links feature, demonstrated by sharing a large file (3.2 GB) stored on a personal server. This is highlighted as a simple process achieved by clicking a few options.
• 12:00 - 12:30: Music Outro The chapter titled 'Music Outro' discusses the options available for sharing a link through a service that functions like personal cloud storage. The text explains various controls such as requiring a password for access, limiting the number of times the link can be accessed, and setting an expiration time for the link. It describes the process of connecting through a link to download a file, highlighting the functionality of the service as a personal cloud storage solution.

Ubiquiti NAS Pro: They Finally Did it! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 so if you're anything like me you're always dealing with data like this this or this and the thing is it all needs to be stored somewhere storage isn't easy with Apple for example charging through the roof for incremental updates and the thought of taking the bottom off of a laptop to upgrade your storage is just completely out of the question for most Ordinary People and if that's the case well you're stuck unless you want to carry around a bunch of external drives with you or pay monthly for something
• 00:30 - 01:00 like cloud storage now nases aren't anything new we looked at this techology unit over 7 years ago on the channel and to be perfectly honest with you it's been absolutely fantastic but you see the problem is spinning drives like these all have a shelf life whether you like it or not so seen as this has been the Workhorse for the last seven years we thought it was time for an upgrade UniFi decided to enter the space with this the unas pro and we've put this
• 01:00 - 01:30 thing through its paces and for some people it's going to be absolutely fantastic bang for the book and for some other people it's just not going to be for them we've done all the heavy lifting so let's get straight into this I installed four fresh 8 tbte hard disk drives just for my testing my end goal with this device is to actually run it on ssds which we'll cover in this video it's super simple you just plug it into your network via SFP or RJ45 give it
• 01:30 - 02:00 some power and turn it on the mobile app takes care of the rest and it gives you two options basic protection which is raid five and higher protection which is RAID 10 now because there are actually Seven Bays on the front of this unit they have this option called hot spare which will literally leave one of the drives sat completely dormant unused and it will kick into action if and when it's needed if something bad happens to one of the drives here
• 02:00 - 02:30 30 seconds later this device is basically set up and ready to go I think when people look at a typical Nas they get a little bit bewildered by it when at the end of the day it really is just some hard drives with some power connected to your network with a nice interface now I'm currently on the homepage for my udm which is my router over in the house the reason I'm on this is to demonstrate how UniFi puts all of this stuff together so as you can see up here we have this little dis icon and if
• 02:30 - 03:00 we click on this it's going to put us straight onto the UI Nas now this is all a cloud service so you could technically be anywhere and access what I'm seeing right here so the first page is basically an at a glance overview up here you can see how much storage we have you can see what HDD bays are in use and what interface we're currently using on the device itself now on the side panel if we click all files you can see all of these different drives that I've set up with inside of this single
• 03:00 - 03:30 device and you can actually view certain things like images on this web page which is Ace you can segregate different users and have them only be able to access certain drives now this is a comment I saw a lot of whilst this device was being released and that is actually backing up the data that you've put on to your unas so we can click on this and we can back up let's say techflow and then we could select another unas if we had one a remote one which is Ace or you could back it up to a separate SM B server or to Google
• 03:30 - 04:00 Drive which is really cool and I saw a lot of comments about snapshots as well they are available and you can set up a schedule in here and then shared links this is something that I absolutely love so let's go back into here and choose a file in techflow this background Loop for example 3.2 gig and this is living on my unas now if I wanted to share this file with let's say somebody random just with a link I can do that really easily which is wicked click the Three Dots and
• 04:00 - 04:30 then click shared link and then we have these options here we can have it require a password we can limit the access to a number of times and we can also set a time that this will expire if I open up a new tab and paste this link into here as you can see we have a drop. UI link and this is connecting us directly to the unas and then I can go ahead and download this file so this basically is like your own cloud storage which is absolutely amazing now if you go down into to settings there is a
• 04:30 - 05:00 shared links portion where you can manage all of your shared links so if you don't want to share anything anymore you can just delete those shared links and then they are no longer available to whoever has the link I have all my separate drives mounted here and I can go in here and browse them as if I am just on my computer which is really awesome and it is super quick and if you are in an office environment and do have a catalog of usernames and passwords you can go ahead and add this directory and they have a whole load of different
• 05:00 - 05:30 Services here from Microsoft to Google but that's basically it it's a storage box connected to your network with a really nice graphical user interface and hopefully some fast speeds Let's test that I've got activity monitor opened down here so we can see the data and I also have a menu bar icon up here which shows me Network usage a 3.4 gigb test file here let's copy that to the nas so we are now uploading to the Nas and as you can see 2.41 gig so we are basically
• 05:30 - 06:00 completely saturating our 2 and 1/2 gig link here which is crazy now let's copy that back from the nas to my desktop to look at the read performance on this Nas and as you can see again 2 gig up there it's coming over faster than we were able to upload to the nas again it's taken us about 5 Seconds now Jeff gearing did an excellent blog post talking about the differences between Mac and windows window and their file
• 06:00 - 06:30 transfers and basically the top and bottom of it was Apple Macs in finder are slightly slower than Windows so I've done all of these tests in Windows as well and as you can see on Windows using the exact same setup we are able to saturate again around 2 gig per second which is crazy and I think my infrastructure here at 2 and 1/2 gig instead of having 10g switching is the bottleneck still crazy fast performance now bear in mind all of our tests that
• 06:30 - 07:00 we've done so far were done on hdds hard dis driv spinning old school discs now my plan with this is to run this Nas with ssds for numerous different reasons the main three being noise heat and power consumption now this is where I saw a massive difference running the unas with ssds only used around 20 WTS whereas with it full of hdds we were pulling closer to 50 more than double the power to run this thing with hdds
• 07:00 - 07:30 now considering a device like this isn't like a computer that gets turned off they usually just left on 24/7 getting that total running cost down is massive and to put it into context a 20 W light looks like this whereas running the same light at 50 WS looks like this it's a massive difference having the reduced latency that ssds offer is massively helpful within editing software not just for quickly pulling down massive files
• 07:30 - 08:00 which are usually in 4k 10bit but also for things like Premier Pros media cache which is actually the thumbnails and all the caching that it does behind the scenes having this done with ssds makes the editing process far easier there is a few downsides though that I'd like to go over now and they're kind of expert downsides a lot of people won't even really be bothered they just want some storage connected to their network but on a typical Nas like this one from son techology even with it being 7 years old
• 08:00 - 08:30 they come with some software which is great for managing all of your hard drive space but you can also typically install applications on these because it is basically a server so you could run a Plex server on this to host all of your media files and stuff whereas with this device from UniFi there isn't an app store or apps or anything of that nature that you can actually install and run on this this is basic storage as basic as it comes and it does it well and I think
• 08:30 - 09:00 a lot of people are fine with that another thing which is usually a feature of higher end nases is the fact that you have multiple bays in this so you could do a mixture of different hard drives let's say in this one for example I could have an SSD and the rest hdds and I could set them up as completely separate pools so I could have an SSD pool on my network as one pool and then I could have my hard drives in a raid array for example with this you can't do do that it simply is adding all of your
• 09:00 - 09:30 drives up whether you've got hot spare enabled or not giving you a raid array and then all of the segregation is done within software for all of your drives so yes you can have multiple drives and give people multiple different levels of access but you couldn't do let's say a mixture of ssds and hdds in here and assign certain pools to certain storage drives which again is a bit more of an advanced feature and for the price of this and for the Simplicity for me it really doesn't not knock down any points
• 09:30 - 10:00 if you already have a UniFi system and you're after a Nas Just for storing files this thing is a complete no-brainer and even if you don't have a UniFi system but you just want a great NASA experience for storing files on a network and heck even VPN into your network from out of the house or office and still having access to this it is a absolutely great device and I've been using it now for over a year and I can't speak highly enough of it especially running it with SS d s is only sipping
• 10:00 - 10:30 20 wats of power which is my end goal with a net zero home the general feedback from other creators on this device as well has been nothing short of really really good nobody has anything bad to say and the only thing you could say is ubiquity have never been in the nas game before so reliability is kind of a touchy subject because if you're storing all of your personal files on here you want to make sure that when you come back to this in a few years time that they are 100 % still there now
• 10:30 - 11:00 Drive failures do happen but you've got to look at ubiquity as an internet company they've been making routers for years and if your routa goes down you're going to be just as annoyed as if your Nas goes offline and from my many years of using ubiquity products they seem to be really reliable but with that one only time will tell anyway guys my name's been Alex this has been techflow and I'll see you in the next one peace Squarespace the all-in one place to make building website easier than ever we
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• 12:00 - 12:30 yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [Music]