🔍 Read the full analysis: Why A 6-Bay UGREEN NAS Made Sense For Our AI Fleet on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
Thorsten Meyer says his publishing and AI operation bought a six-bay UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro after duplicate cloud-synced database dumps nearly filled a server. The NAS has been delivered with four hard drives and an NVMe SSD, but is not installed; its planned backup setup has not passed acceptance tests.
Thorsten Meyer’s AI and publishing operation has bought a six-bay UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro after duplicate database dumps in an iCloud folder left one server with 2% free disk space. The NAS has been delivered with four hard drives and an NVMe SSD, but is not yet connected to the network, so the planned backup system remains untested.
Meyer said the immediate trigger came on September 17, when two machines saved database dumps under the same name to one iCloud folder. The service retained repeated conflict copies; Meyer counted 29 duplicates before the server was nearly full. On October 29, a separate cleanup job timed out while trying to delete old copies. Meyer’s account distinguishes those incidents from a failure of the database dump itself: the difficulty was managing and storing copies through the sync service.
The operation’s measured storage needs are modest by data-center standards, Meyer wrote. On October 6, the main desk machine held about 2.6 TB, the database server about 744 GB, and the machine running AI models about 3.2 TB, much of it replaceable model files. The author estimates the current backup requirement at 6 to 8 TB. The machines also include one running a publishing database, local AI models, content pipelines and tests.
The planned configuration uses four 16 TB Seagate IronWolf Pro drives in RAID 6, which Meyer estimates would provide about 32 TB of usable capacity, alongside the NVMe SSD in a separate pool for containers and test databases. The author says the NAS was bought with personal funds; UGREEN did not provide or sponsor it. Meyer describes the piece as a setup plan, not a product review or long-term test, and says he will report results after rollout.
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 purchase addresses a gap between syncing files and maintaining recoverable backups. Sync services can copy changes, including deletions or unwanted duplicates, while a local NAS could give the operation a separate on-site copy and a faster route to restoring large amounts of data. Meyer said recurring kernel panics on the database Mac have caused downtime; the NAS would not prevent a crash, but a local restore could take less time than retrieving hundreds of gigabytes over an internet connection.
The plan also adds controls around access and deletion. Each Mac is to use a separate, non-admin account with a storage quota. Daily snapshots are intended to remain inaccessible to those accounts, with an encrypted offsite copy sent through restic to Backblaze B2 and protected against deletion with Object Lock. Those protections are proposed, not demonstrated: none has been tested on the delivered NAS.
For readers running small AI or publishing systems, the account highlights a practical distinction: large storage capacity alone does not make a backup reliable. The proposed system depends on isolation, snapshots and an off-site copy, as well as successful restore tests. Meyer’s experience is one operation’s report, not evidence that this model or product will work equally well for other users.
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From Sync Folder to NAS Plan
Meyer says the existing setup relies on local Time Machine disks for two Macs and an iCloud copy of the nightly database dump. That arrangement remains in place. The NAS is intended to add local network storage, not replace every existing copy or serve as the sole backup destination.
The choice of six bays over a cheaper four-bay option was about expansion capacity, according to Meyer. UGREEN lists the DXP6800 Pro with 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. Meyer estimates that filling all six bays with 16 TB drives in RAID 6 would yield about 64 TB usable; actual usable capacity can vary with formatting and system configuration.
The planned arrangement reserves the SSD for containers and test databases rather than putting those workloads on the spinning disks. Meyer also says disk-heavy work is meant to run overnight, from 20:00 to 06:00, with drives sleeping during working hours. The author cites the 3-2-1 backup principle—three copies, on two media types, with one offsite—as a rationale for adding local storage while retaining cloud storage for an offsite copy.
“A sync service is not a backup.”
— Thorsten Meyer
Setup and Recovery Tests Pending
As of November 1, 2026, the NAS is delivered and equipped but has not been connected to the network or configured. Meyer has not run the two stated acceptance tests: whether Time Machine works with a non-admin account and whether snapshots remain beyond that account’s reach. The current backups still use local Time Machine disks and an iCloud copy of the nightly database dump.
It is also not yet known whether the planned RAID layout, account restrictions, snapshot policy and Backblaze B2 Object Lock configuration will work together as intended, or how long real restores will take. Meyer says no AI agent will receive admin credentials, the NAS will not be exposed to remote internet access, and a UGREEN cloud mirror will not count as the offsite backup. These are stated design choices, not verified safeguards at this stage.
Two Tests Before Rollout
Meyer says the next step is to connect and configure the NAS, then run the Time Machine and snapshot-access tests. If either fails, the author says the unit will be returned. If it passes, the planned rollout will use separate Mac accounts and quotas, daily snapshots, and an encrypted offsite copy, while keeping disk-heavy activity to overnight hours.
The operation’s existing backup process remains active until that work is complete. Meyer has said he will report back with results once the NAS is running; no deployment date or test outcome has been provided.
Key Questions
Why did Meyer buy a six-bay NAS?
Meyer says the six drive bays provide room to add storage later without replacing drives. The planned starting setup uses four 16 TB disks in RAID 6, with two bays left open.
Is the NAS already backing up the operation’s computers?
No. As of November 1, 2026, the NAS had been delivered but was not on the network or configured. Time Machine disks and an iCloud database-dump copy remain in use.
What happened with the iCloud backups?
Meyer says two machines uploaded database dumps with the same filename to one folder. The resulting conflict copies accumulated; the author counted 29 copies, and the server was left with 2% free space.
What storage setup is planned?
The plan is to use four 16 TB drives in RAID 6 for backups and a separate NVMe SSD pool for containers and test databases. Meyer estimates about 32 TB usable capacity from the four-drive array.
What still needs to be verified?
Meyer says the NAS must pass tests for Time Machine access using a non-admin account and for snapshots that those accounts cannot access or delete. The full backup and offsite-copy setup has not yet been tested.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
