Author Replaces iCloud and Dropbox With $656 Ugreen NAS as Cloud Costs Mount
Updated
Updated · ZDNet · Jul 7
Author Replaces iCloud and Dropbox With $656 Ugreen NAS as Cloud Costs Mount
1 articles · Updated · ZDNet · Jul 7
Summary
$656 Ugreen DXP4800 Plus became the author's main backup hub, replacing iCloud and Dropbox while keeping Backblaze for off-site protection.
Rising cloud bills drove the switch: 2TB on Dropbox or iCloud costs $10 a month, while 12TB of iCloud runs $60 monthly across scattered services.
The 4-bay NAS offers up to 144TB, a 12th-generation Pentium Gold 8505, 8GB DDR5 expandable to 64GB, and 10GbE networking.
Stress tests moving terabytes of data, running SMART scans, and even cutting power produced no issues; the unit reached about 1,050 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write.
The main drawback is software maturity—UGOS Pro trails Synology's app ecosystem—though the author says the hardware pays back versus cloud storage in roughly 30 months.