Ugreen began out as a charger firm, however rapidly took the NAS world by storm just a few years in the past when it began releasing NAS items. Now, its transferring from entry-level and mid-range storage servers to skilled items. The Ugreen iDX6011 Professional is the primary actually pro-grade NAS from Ugreen, and I used to be fairly shocked with simply how nice it labored for me.
9/10
Model
UGREEN
CPU
Intel Core Extremely 7 255H
Reminiscence
64GB LPDDR5/x
Drive Bays
6
The Ugreen iDX 6011 Professional AI NAS is likely one of the strongest NAS servers within the Ugreen lineup. With Intel’s Core Extremely 7 255H 16-core processor and 64GB of LPDDR5/x RAM onboard, there’s greater than sufficient energy to deal with something you possibly can throw at this technique. Add to that twin Thunderbolt 4 ports, twin 10GbE LAN ports, an OCuLink growth port, and extra, and you’ve got a really strong community connected storage system.
Professionals & Cons
- Core Extremely 7 and 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM
- PCIe growth slot with two PCIe NVMe M.2 slots
- Constructed-in 10GbE networking
- No easy technique to run your individual native AI fashions
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Value and availability
The Ugreen iDX6011 Professional can be obtainable by means of Kickstarter quickly. The recommended retail worth of the unit is $2,599 as soon as all pre-launch promotions have ended.
Model
UGREEN
CPU
Intel Core Extremely 7 255H
Reminiscence
64GB LPDDR5/x
Drive Bays
6
Growth
OCuLink
Ports
Thunderbolt 4, USB3, USB2, HDMI, SD
OS
UGOS
Value
$2,599
LAN Ports
Twin 10GbE
This NAS has a whole lot of energy
A Core Extremely 7 and 64GB of RAM doesn’t come low-cost
Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
Usually, after I consider a NAS, I consider a reasonably low-powered system that may deal with just a few exhausting drives and a few primary companies—the Ugreen iDX6011 Professional is something however that.
With a Core Extremely 7 255H 16-core processor and 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM, this NAS packs a punch. That doesn’t come low-cost, nevertheless, with this NAS costing practically $2,600. For comparability, a laptop computer with the identical specs at Finest Purchase prices $1,700 and doesn’t embody room for six exhausting drives or a full-size PCIe card or the networking capabilities that Ugreen has built-in right here. A equally specced desktop prices $1,400.
The factor to recollect is, this NAS isn’t your typical under-powered NAS—it’s a monster with the specs it has to supply. I truly transferred all of my resource-intensive functions and software program from my i9-13900K desktop with 96GB of RAM to the iDX6011 Professional, together with a number of Minecraft servers, Plex, and even some native LLMs, and it hasn’t skipped a beat.
Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
My favourite a part of the NAS is the truth that it doesn’t have an Arm processor. The Core Extremely 7 CPU within the iDX6011 Professional delivers not simply ample energy, but in addition a local NPU and industry-leading transcoding assist with the Intel Arc 140T GPU. Leveraging this iGPU permits for incredible transcoding efficiency for Plex or Jellyfin, each of that are simple to put in on the system.
Since transferring my Plex server to the iDX6011 Professional, I haven’t observed a single hiccup. Motion pictures and TV reveals begin taking part in quicker, transcoding occurs seamlessly, and the expertise is simply leaps and bounds above what it was once after I ran it on a much less highly effective system.
With the 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM obtainable right here, I even have greater than sufficient reminiscence to deal with each storage and self-hosted app duties, like working Minecraft servers, software program like GitLab, and rather more.
Usually, after I get a brand new NAS, I exploit it for storage solely, and depart the working of my self-hosted companies to the opposite programs in my homelab. However, with the iDX6011 Professional, I instantly moved a few dozen Docker containers to it and haven’t observed any slowdowns anyplace with it. I’ve been very pleasantly shocked with its efficiency.
Ugreen considered all the things with the {hardware} right here
Twin 10GbE networking and PCIe growth?!
Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
Whereas the processor and RAM are incredible already, Ugreen actually knocked it out of the park with the remainder of the {hardware} on this NAS. As an alternative of requiring instruments and screws to safe exhausting drives, Ugreen is utilizing a easy toolless sled design that makes putting in drives very simple.
There’s additionally ample I/O throughout the NAS. On the entrance, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, each rated at 40Gb/s due to the Core Extremely 7 processor. Flanking that on both facet is a SD 4.0 slot and a USB 3.2 port on the opposite facet. There’s even a touchscreen on the entrance to test the present IP, the standing of drives, and extra.
Round again you’ll discover twin 10Gb Ethernet ports, which means this NAS is prepared for multi-gig networking out of the field—one thing that I’d look forward to finding on a NAS like this, nevertheless it’s nonetheless good to see. As I run a 2.5Gb/s community in my residence, I beloved that I didn’t have so as to add any additional {hardware} to get multi-gig networking working. Because it’s a 10Gb/s Ethernet port although, I’m even good to go for future upgrades if I needed so as to add 10Gb/s switches in my residence with out having to swap out any additional gear.
Then, subsequent to the Ethernet ports are two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.2 ports, in addition to an 8K HDMI port and an OCuLink hookup. In case you’ve by no means heard of OCuLink, it’s a PCIe-based port that permits you to hook up gadgets like graphics playing cards to programs the place they will’t match internally. Which means that the Ugreen iDX6011 Professional NAS is prepared to connect with any graphics card you need for including GPU acceleration to the NAS by means of OCuLink.
That’s not the one PCIe growth this NAS has, although. Inside, there’s a PCIe 4.0 x8 lane the place you possibly can slot in some other kind of PCIe machine you need. Want extra NVMe storage? Works completely! How about quicker networking? Completely. Even low-profile graphics playing cards which can be bus-powered may go there—the selection is yours. I’m not totally positive what I’ll use this PCIe lane for, however I believe it might be extraordinarily precious for including additional functionality to the NAS down the highway.
Exterior of the PCIe 4.0 x8 growth slot, there are additionally two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe drive bays contained in the NAS for both cache or storage, nevertheless you determine to set it up. I’m utilizing my NVMe drives as quick storage for video and picture modifying, in addition to the storage for my Docker containers. Every night time the NAS backs up the NVMe drives to the RAID array for redundancy too, so I’m not fearful about dropping any information if the NVMe drives fail.
UGOS Professional is definitely pretty strong
I used to be shocked at how feature-packed it’s
As an unapologetic Unraid and Synology fan, I wasn’t positive what I used to be going to think about UGOS Professional. Whereas it’s lacking the non-striped parity storage configurations that I really like about Unraid and Synology, the general expertise with UGOS Professional has been fairly nice.
Proper out of the field you possibly can set up Docker, which opens the doorways to simply about any piece of software program you would possibly need to run on the NAS. The native app retailer is fairly missing, and I want it had Docker integration there, nevertheless it does provide some fundamentals like Jellyfin and some different functions.
So far as drive administration goes, UGOS Professional permits for the usual RAID modes you’d count on in addition to JBOD. I actually do want there was a technique to mix-and-match drive sizes like Synology’s SHR or Unraid, however sadly, there’s not.
Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
The one factor that I actually felt was lacking from UGOS Professional is the flexibility to mount distant NFS/SMB file shares on the NAS. This can be a fairly core function, I believe, and is one I anticipated to see. At the least Ugreen provides SSH entry to the NAS, which made it simple to edit the fstab so I may manually mount my NFS and SMB shares to it.
Among the best elements of UGOS Professional is it will get out of the way in which and simply lets me do what I would like. I don’t really feel like I’m combating the working system to get easy duties accomplished. The Docker implementation is fairly strong, and you’ll even add the system to Portainer in order for you.
Plus, if you find yourself not liking UGOS Professional, it’s comparatively simple to put in your individual working system on the NAS. One thing I’m undoubtedly contemplating doing sooner or later is changing UGOS Professional with Unraid, however I need to use the NAS because it comes for now, and it’s been a surprisingly good expertise thus far.
The advertising is AI-focused, however this NAS is nice for all the things
Constructed-in native AI is sweet, nevertheless it doesn’t get in the way in which, which is even nicer
Virtually all of Ugreen’s advertising surrounding this NAS is targeted on AI. Ugreen facilities its advertising marketing campaign across the 96 TOPS CPU, which can be utilized for native giant language fashions on the system. The images app on the iDX6011 Professional integrates with the native LLM to allow machine learning-enabled searches of your images. This additionally works with information and movies, too. Actually, you possibly can even flip voice recordings into textual content transcripts utilizing the native fashions.
Nevertheless, I discovered that, in my day after day workflow, I simply didn’t use that performance of the NAS all that always. It’s good to have the NPU obtainable, however I want it was simpler to leverage it with your individual software program. I wasn’t capable of get any Docker containers to truly discuss to the NPU of the NAS, however I did get it working with the GPU.
In case you’re desirous to run your individual Ollama occasion, it doubtless gained’t work. The NAS already runs Ollama for its onboard LLM, which makes working a secondary occasion a reasonably large ache. Sadly, the native AI app doesn’t allow you to select your individual fashions, both, making it fairly restrictive.
The most effective a part of the AI on the Ugreen iDX6011 Professional NAS is that it doesn’t get in the way in which. I’m not getting popups throughout asking if I need to do AI this or AI that. It’s there, working within the background, however not forcing itself on my, and that’s my favourite half.
Do you have to purchase the Ugreen iDX6011 Professional AI NAS?
Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
The Ugreen iDX6011 Professional AI NAS is certainly a premium piece of {hardware}. With the $2,599 price ticket, this isn’t an inexpensive NAS. Evaluating it to different programs, you would get an 8-bay Synology DS1823xs+ for $2,050 as an alternative. Nevertheless, Synology’s NAS solely gives 8GB of DDR4 RAM (with a max of 32GB), and it has an AMD Ryzen V1780B 4-core 8-thread processor in it, which gives far much less energy than the Ugreen mannequin for only a few hundred extra.
I believe the iDX6011 Professional is right for content material creators who want a strong and quick NAS that has high-end networking built-in, loads of storage capability, and growth potentialities due to the PCIe 4.0 x8 lane and the OCuLink port on the again.
On the finish of the day, Ugreen’s iDX6011 Professional is a incredible NAS when you have the money to drop on it. It’s very succesful and highly effective, has plenty of growth potentialities, and is even a quiet NAS besides (which I didn’t count on).
9/10
Model
UGREEN
CPU
Intel Core Extremely 7 255H
Reminiscence
64GB LPDDR5/x
Drive Bays
6
The Ugreen iDX 6011 Professional AI NAS is likely one of the strongest NAS servers within the Ugreen lineup. With Intel’s Core Extremely 7 255H 16-core processor and 64GB of LPDDR5/x RAM onboard, there’s greater than sufficient energy to deal with something you possibly can throw at this technique. Add to that twin Thunderbolt 4 ports, twin 10GbE LAN ports, an OCuLink growth port, and extra, and you’ve got a really strong community connected storage system.
