Looking For A Capable Nas? Here's One I Recommend (but It's Not For Beginners)

1 day ago

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

The Xyber Hydra NAS is connected waste for $219 connected nan charismatic site.
You tin get immoderate beautiful awesome transportation speeds and monolithic retention pinch this NAS.
To make it work, you'll request to dedicate immoderate clip to installing and configuring software.

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When I received nan Xyber Hydra NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, I assumed it was a reasonably emblematic plug-and-play situation. After unboxing, I should theoretically beryllium capable to plug nan instrumentality in, log in, tally done a speedy setup, and upwind up pinch a bully retention solution for my network.

Unfortunately, that was not nan case.

If you spell to nan X-Plus shop and look astatine nan Hydra, you'll get plentifulness of explanation for nan hardware, but adjacent to thing for nan software. Sure, nan page indicates it dual-boots Windows and Linux, but there's zero mention of nan package it employs to make it an existent NAS device.

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You get 4 SSD bays, plentifulness of USB ports, 2 HDMI ports, 2 2.5G Ethernet ports, Wi-Ffi and Bluetooth -- each of which travel together to make for a very bully home-based NAS device.

But, again, what astir nan software? A NAS is only arsenic bully arsenic nan package it includes, right? After all, you don't want to bargain nan device, only to upwind up having to instal nan basal package to make it a NAS.

Yet, that's precisely what nan Xyber Hydra NAS is: a mini integrative container pinch capable powerfulness and hardware to beryllium utilized arsenic a NAS, but nary package to service nan purpose.

The backmost broadside of nan Xyber Hydra NAS.

My experience

After connecting nan instrumentality to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, I fto it footwear into Ubuntu Linux to spot what was what. The distribution is Ubuntu, and, oddly enough, it booted straight to nan login surface pinch nan personification "xyber-co" and nary password.

My first spot of business was to create a caller relationship pinch an existent password. Once I did that, I logged retired of nan pre-configured relationship and logged backmost successful pinch nan caller account.

Much better.

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The adjacent point I did was unfastened nan Application Overview to spot what package was available. To my surprise, location was thing moreover remotely related to network-attached storage. I past thought possibly it was group up pinch a web-based UI. I opened nan terminal window, recovered nan strategy IP reside (with nan bid ip a), and past pointed a browser to that address.

Nothing.

I past checked nan documentation, which was nary thief astatine all. It was past that I concluded that nan Xyber Hydra NAS gives you nan hardware and nan operating system, and nan remainder is up to you.

You besides person to proviso your ain SSDs, because nan only retention it contains is for nan operating system. You tin adhd 4 SSDs up to 4TB each for a full of 16TB. At slightest that's impressive.

Well, I conjecture it's clip to group up immoderate NAS software. Given this is Linux, nan champion action is Samba. Unfortunately, you'll request to understand Samba to get this to activity properly. The different action is to instal Cockpit (a web-based admin UI) and past adhd an hold for illustration cockpit-file-sharing.

However, erstwhile I went to instal nan basal software, I came up against my adjacent roadblock: nan type of Ubuntu (24.10) that nan instrumentality shipped pinch is nary longer supported, truthful I had to tally nan sudo do-release-upgrade bid to upgrade to a supported merchandise of nan OS.

This is getting frustrating.

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After nan OS upgrade, I was past capable to instal Cockpit and nan hold to (hopefully) make utilizing this NAS a spot easier. Sure, I could person done each of this pinch nan bid statement and Samba, but I wanted to spot really good it could beryllium managed pinch a GUI.

Of course, I shouldn't person to do this pinch a instrumentality that is promoted arsenic a NAS. This should beryllium a plug-and-play business that immoderate personification could handle. With each of nan upgrades retired of nan way, I was capable to get Cockpit and nan basal extensions installed and, violá, I had an existent NAS.

At this point, things started looking beautiful good. The Hydra was now accessible (via record managers aliases utilizing nan scp command) from immoderate instrumentality connected my network.

Huzzah.

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But here's nan thing: I cognize Linux very well, truthful getting everything up and moving was a no-brainer for me. If you don't cognize Linux, you'll struggle to make this instrumentality activity for you successful immoderate different capacity than a low-end desktop PC.

As a NAS (once you get nan package up and running), it performs really well. In fact, I compared sharing a 300 MB record to my System76 Thelio desktop and nan Hydra NAS, and nan NAS really outperformed my desktop. Given really powerful my desktop instrumentality is, that's an awesome feat for specified a mini PC. Although it took immoderate activity (honestly, only astir 10 minutes), nan Xyber Hydra NAS coiled up being an awesome small device. Slap 4 4TB SSDs into nan machine, and you person a NAS that could service your location web well.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Xyber Hydra NAS regularly sells for $249 connected nan charismatic site, but correct now it's connected waste for $219. Just statement that it does not see nan other SSDs. Depending connected really overmuch retention you want for your NAS, that could costs you anyplace from $150 to $1,000 (depending connected wherever you bargain them).

If you inquire me, nan Hydra tin make for an awesome NAS instrumentality for a location network. The large caveat is that it will return immoderate other effort to get it up and moving correctly. If you're okay pinch that, having up to 4TB of retention connected specified a mini instrumentality makes this a victor successful my book.

Xyber Hydra NAS tech specs

Processor: Intel Twin Lake N150 (4 cores, 4 threads, 3.6GHz burst) aliases optional N250/N350/N355
Memory: 16GB DDR5 (4800MHz, soldered)
eMMC Storage: 64GB (for nan OS)
NVMe Slots: 4x M.2 2280 slots (PCIe 3.0 x2 per slot)
Ethernet: 2x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports
USB Ports: 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports
Video Output: 2x HDMI 2.0 (4K @ 60Hz)
Power: USB-C Power Delivery (requires 65W adapter)
Connectivity: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 antenna
Cooling: Metal guidelines pinch thermal pads for M.2 drives