When I first got my Ugreen NAS, I thought about replacing its operating system. Tinkering is in my blood, and replacing the operating system couldn’t be that hard, right? Well, it’s not, but it’s also not necessarily worth replacing. After extensive testing, I’ve decided that I’m going to only stick with UGOS on my Ugreen NAS systems—here’s why.
I used to think I had to DIY everything
That meant my NAS, too
While off-the-shelf network attached storage (NAS) systems are great and all, I used to think that everything in my homelab had to be DIY. In fact, my main NAS for the past five years has been a DIY NAS I built from a retired eBay server.
Going the DIY route with a NAS means doing the operating system yourself, too. For me, I opted for Unraid on my DIY NAS because it gave me the features that I needed at the time, but it required quite a bit of upkeep to get going well.
You see, DIY NAS operating systems are great for tinkering, but when it comes to running a production environment, it can be a bit hit or miss. Unraid is fantastic, but it definitely took a lot of work to get it solid.
On the other hand, when I switched to my Ugreen NAS, I thought I would replace the operating system with my own DIY operating system. That’s what I had always done, so why would the Ugreen be any different?
After a few weeks with UGOS, the operating system on the Ugreen NAS, I realized that I didn’t actually need to DIY my NAS operating system anymore—UGOS actually did what I needed right out of the box.
UGOS is actually a really great NAS operating system
It’s come a long way
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
I first used UGOS back in 2024, and it was still in its infancy. I found UGOS to be a bit complicated to use and it wasn’t my cup of tea. After my UGOS experience in 2024, I didn’t use the operating system again until early 2026, and UGOS changed a lot in that timeframe.
In 2026, UGOS is actually a solid contender in the NAS operating system space. It has full Docker support, a growing (though currently small) set of stock apps, and all the capabilities one could want on a NAS.
I have three Ugreen NAS systems right now and have found UGOS to be perfect for any task I throw at it. Realistically, the only thing UGOS doesn’t do that I wish it did was allow for a hybrid RAID setup using Btrfs. It supports Btrfs, but it doesn’t support flexible drive layouts.
That’s not the end of the world, though. It does traditional RAID great, offers both read and write caching, and lets you build multiple storage volumes with ease.
UGOS broke my DIY cycle in the best way possible. I didn’t expect it to, but it did. Now, I’m actually looking at spinning down my big 12-bay Unraid server in favor of a few smaller Ugreen setups—all running UGOS, of course.
There’s no reason to try and maintain my own NAS OS anymore
UGREEN is doing a great job, and it takes the stress off me for maintaining the system
At the end of the day, I love to tinker—it’s in my blood. My dad ran a TV repair shop when he was younger and even has his electrical engineering degree. While I don’t have my engineering degree, I did get my dad’s tinkering nature.
The thing I’ve come to realize though is not everything needs to be tinkered with. It was fun to tinker with my NAS and its operating system at first, but now I just need something that’s reliable and rock-solid—and that’s exactly what UGOS gives me.
So, while I could replace the operating system on my Ugreen NAS with something else, such as Unraid, TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or even just pure Ubuntu, I see no reason to. UGOS gives me everything I could want from a NAS operating system, and I don’t have to worry about maintenance.
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Brand
Ugreen
Memory
8GB (Upgradalble to 64GB)
Drive Bays
2x 3.5-inch, 2x M.2 NVMe
LAN Ports
10GbE
The Ugreen DXP2800 GT NAS is the perfect starter system for anyone looking to get started in homelabbing. With two 3.5-inch drive bays and two NVMe slots, this NAS also supports user-upgradable RAM and has 10-gigabit networking.
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Brand
Ugreen
CPU
AMD Ryzen Embedded R2514
Memory
8GB DDR4, expandable to 64GB
Drive Bays
4 3.5/2.5-inch, 2 NVMe
Ports
USB-A/USB-C 10Gb/s, USB-A 480Mb/s, dual 10GbE, HDMI
The Ugreen DXP4800 GT is the latest NAS from Ugreen, featuring dual 10Gb Ethernet, two NVMe slots, and a whole lot more. Shipping with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, you actually can replace it yourself and upgrade it to have up to 64GB of RAM should the need arise. Plus, UGOS continues to mature and is becoming a very solid NAS operating system.
Sometimes things in life are best left stock
I’ve never been one to leave my devices stock. I used to root and ROM my Android phones, I modified my sports car when I owned it, I even modified my crossover SUV when I had it. I’ve built custom PCs and tweaked voltage values to overclock.
Years ago, I actually took and built my own franken-phone by transplanting the cellular radio from one model phone to another. You name it, I’ve tinkered with it.
But, at the end of the day, sometimes it’s best to leave things un-tinkered with. Tinkering is fun, but it’s not always the best solution if you want reliability—and that’s why I’m going to be sticking with UGOS on my Ugreen NAS.
