🔍 Read the full analysis: How We’re Building Our AI Fleet Setup Around A UGREEN NAS on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
Thorsten Meyer says his small AI and publishing operation bought a six-bay UGREEN NAS after iCloud sync conflicts contributed to a server reaching 2% free disk space. The NAS has been equipped but is not yet connected or configured; the planned backup design and two acceptance tests remain unverified.
Thorsten Meyer says his AI and publishing operation has bought a UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro after a backup-sync problem left one server with 2% free disk space. The six-bay device has been delivered and fitted with drives, but it is not yet on the network, and its proposed backup system has not passed its first tests.
Meyer traces the purchase to a September 17 incident: two machines placed database dumps with the same filename in an iCloud folder, generating 29 conflict copies. He says that duplication nearly filled the server holding the main database. On October 29, a separate nightly job also failed while trying to remove old copies from the folder because the operation timed out while iCloud was busy. The database backup itself was intact, he writes, but managing the copies was not.
The operation currently runs several Macs for a publishing database, local AI models, content pipelines and tests. Measurements taken October 6 put storage use at about 2.6 TB on the main desk machine, 744 GB on the database server, and 3.2 TB on the model server. Meyer estimates current backup needs at 6 to 8 TB. He says the NAS was bought with his own money; UGREEN did not supply or sponsor it, and the article has no affiliate links.
The planned arrangement uses four 16 TB Seagate IronWolf Pro drives in RAID 6, which Meyer estimates would provide about 32 TB of usable capacity and tolerate failure of two drives. An NVMe SSD would hold containers and test databases separately. He says the remaining two drive bays are a reason he chose this six-bay model instead of a cheaper four-bay option, leaving room for expansion without replacing the installed drives.
Infographic 01 · The box
Six bays, two fast slots, two 10GbE ports
What UGREEN lists for the NASync DXP6800 Pro, and how we plan to fill it.
How we fill it
Delivered and equipped; the setup is our plan (1 Nov 2026)
Bays 1–4: Seagate IronWolf Pro 16 TB, RAID 6, Btrfs → ≈ 32 TB usable, any two drives may fail. Bays 5–6: free for growth. M.2 slot 1: the NVMe SSD (ordered: Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB) as its own fast pool. Slot 2: free. Six 16 TB drives in RAID 6 would give ≈ 64 TB.
What else UGREEN lists
From the product page, not measured by us
- Separate 128 GB SSD for the operating system, UGOS
- RAID: JBOD, Basic, 0, 1, 5, 6, 10
- 1× PCIe x4 · 2× Thunderbolt 4 · 8K HDMI · SD card reader
- Power: 43.07 W drives in use · 24.91 W drives in hibernation
- Stated maximum: 208 TB with 32 TB drives · 3-year warranty
Why six bays: with RAID 6, two drives always hold parity. In four bays that leaves half the raw space usable; with all six bays filled it becomes two thirds.
Sources: UGREEN DXP6800 Pro product page, checked 1 Nov 2026; Seagate IronWolf Pro data sheet DS2129.4; our setup plan, 6 Oct 2026.
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A Local Copy for Faster Recovery
The planned NAS would add an on-site storage layer that could make large restores faster than retrieving data over an office internet connection. Meyer says a Mac running the main database has also experienced recurring kernel panics since August, at its worst about every five days; one crash on August 8 caused around two hours and 15 minutes of database downtime. A NAS cannot prevent a machine failure, but a nearby backup could reduce the time needed to restore data, if the system works as intended.
The proposal also separates backup functions from experimental AI and publishing workloads. Meyer plans to run disk-heavy tasks overnight, from 20:00 to 06:00, and to keep test databases off his laptop, where a Docker virtual disk had grown to about 30 GB. These are intended benefits, not measured outcomes: the NAS has not yet run on the network, so its noise, performance, restore speed and reliability in this setup remain unknown.
For readers managing small teams or home-office servers, the report illustrates a practical distinction: cloud sync can copy files offsite, but it can also reproduce deletions or unwanted changes. A separate backup system needs its own retention and recovery safeguards. Meyer’s design adds local copies and snapshots while retaining an encrypted offsite copy rather than treating either sync or a NAS alone as sufficient protection.
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From Sync Conflicts to Storage Plan
Meyer says the fleet is modest compared with an enterprise data center, but its database and services run across several Macs. The immediate issue was not simply insufficient capacity: duplicated files and a timeout disrupted backup management, while recurring crashes increased the importance of restoring the database promptly. His account distinguishes recoverable AI model files from operational data such as the publishing database.
The proposed safeguards follow a layered approach. Each Mac would back up through its own non-admin account with a quota; daily snapshots would be kept beyond those accounts’ ability to see or delete; and restic would send an encrypted copy to Backblaze B2 with Object Lock against deletion. Meyer also says there will be no internet-facing remote access, no administrator credentials for AI agents, and no live database change log on spinning disks. He cites the 3-2-1 backup principle—three copies, two media types and one offsite copy—as the rationale for adding local storage alongside cloud storage.
UGREEN’s published specifications, as relayed by Meyer, list six SATA bays, two M.2 slots, a 10-core Intel Core i5-1235U, two 10GbE ports and 8 GB of DDR5 memory expandable to 64 GB. These are manufacturer specifications, not results from Meyer’s use. He says he has not conducted a long-term test, and that the article is a plan rather than a product review.
“That was the day I stopped treating a sync service as a backup.”
— Thorsten Meyer, describing the September 17 incident
Installation and Recovery Tests Pending
The NAS has been delivered and equipped with four hard drives and one NVMe SSD, but it is not connected to the network. Meyer says two acceptance tests must come first: whether Time Machine works with a non-admin account, and whether snapshots remain inaccessible to that account. Neither test has run, so the proposed account controls and recovery setup are not yet demonstrated.
Other practical questions remain open, including actual usable capacity after formatting and system overhead, restore times, day-to-day noise, and whether the drives reliably sleep during working hours. The planned RAID 6 layout can provide tolerance for up to two drive failures under the described configuration, but it is not itself a substitute for independent backups. Meyer’s offsite copy and deletion protection are plans; their operation has not been reported.
Two Tests Before Network Rollout
Meyer says he will first test Time Machine using a non-admin account and confirm that the account cannot access or delete daily snapshots. If either test fails, he says he will return the NAS rather than proceed with the planned setup. If they pass, the next stage is to configure the backup accounts, quotas, snapshots and encrypted Backblaze B2 copy, while keeping remote internet access disabled.
The current backup routine remains unchanged: local Time Machine disks on two Macs and an iCloud copy of the nightly database dump. Meyer says he plans to report real-world results after rollout. Until then, the purchase and design are confirmed, but the NAS’s performance and its ability to improve recovery are not.
Key Questions
Is the UGREEN NAS already backing up the computers?
No. Meyer says the device has been delivered and equipped, but is not on the network or configured. Existing backups still use local Time Machine disks and an iCloud database-dump copy.
Why did Meyer buy a six-bay model?
He says the extra two bays provide room to expand without replacing the initial drives. The proposed setup starts with four 16 TB hard drives in RAID 6 and a separate NVMe SSD.
What caused the server’s low free space?
Meyer says two machines sent database dumps with the same filename to an iCloud folder. The resulting 29 conflict copies left the database server with 2% free disk space.
What tests must the NAS pass?
Meyer plans to check that Time Machine works under a non-admin account and that daily snapshots remain out of that account’s reach. He says the NAS will be returned if either test fails.
Has the planned setup been shown to improve recovery?
No results are available yet. Meyer says the NAS has not been configured, so restore speed, reliability, noise and the effectiveness of the proposed offsite backup remain untested.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
