Full transcript of “Synology vs UGREEN NAS – Which Storage Solution Is Better?”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 There have been plenty of NAS devices released over the past few years, but UG has seemed to make a name for themselves unlike many others and have positioned themselves as a serious NAS manufacturer. And to an extent, it's easy to see why. The hardware they offer at their price point is great, but the challenge has always been the software. When I first reviewed the DXP 4800 Plus, I ran into some real issues and I was very vocal about them in that review, but I've continued to use and update that device, tracking how both UG and UG OS have evolved over time. So, when UG reached out about sponsoring this video, I saw it as a great opportunity to take a fresh look at the NASC lineup and see
0:45 where UG OS stands in 2025 compared to Synology. While this is a sponsored video, UG Green has no say in the content and as always, all thoughts are entirely my own as you will see. The first thing to look at is hardware and hard drive compatibility. UG has put together a powerful NAS device. And from a hardware perspective, it's kind of hard to beat UG from a price to performance perspective. I don't want to get into hardware specifics because it's just numbers and specs on paper, but from basic users to power users, the hardware head-to-head that UGrain offers is better than anything Synology does. Then we get to hard drives. And from a hard drive compatibility perspective, the Ugra Nassing series supports a
1:32 significantly broader range of drives than the new Synology devices and has true third-party hard drive support. So, if you own your own hard drives or even want to buy new hard drives, you'll have better system performance from the hardware and better hard drive compatibility with UGraine. The next thing to look at is arguably the most important section of any NAS device, and it's around storage pools and file systems. Ugrin and Synology both support all standard RAID formats for their storage pools and BTRFS and ext4 for their volumes, which means that in general they'll perform about the same and have the same file system features. Though there are some minor differences that we'll talk about later in specific how UG and Sonology handle snapshots with BTRFS. Sonology does offer Synology
2:19 hybrid grade which allows you to use mixed size hard drives and actually utilize some of the additional storage space. In terms of how important this is, it's kind of user specific because it really depends on the type of hard drives you have and if SHR can utilize them because it's not a guarantee that you'll get more storage space, but it's a nice option to have regardless. Is it a deal breaker? Not necessarily, but there are some users that need it. Bottom line is they both support generally the same rate arrays and volume settings with UG missing an SHR alternative and a slightly different BTRFS experience which we'll discuss later. Next is going to be a full operating system comparison. And it's important to understand that while UG has made a lot of progress in this area since release, it's still a relatively
3:06 new operating system and Synology's DSM has been the gold standard for many years. But how exactly do they compare? When you're navigating the operating system, UG Green OS is faster in every way. Just clicking around and accessing different features. It's fluid and fast, and the operating system appears to be coded in a way that maximizes performance. Next is using the operating system. And due to how similar UGR OS is to Synology's DSM, it's not drastically different. And if you're familiar at all with Synology DSM, you'll generally be able to find everything that you need in Ukraine OS. From a core operating system perspective, it has almost all the features that you'd expect, supports a UPS device, which is important. And while it is missing a few things here or
3:52 there, we'll talk more about that later, but in general, it either has the same stuff or does the same stuff, but does it slightly different? On a personal level, I'm not in love with the fact that they're so similar, but I do admit that there's not really a learning curve due to how similar they are if you've used Synology DSM. This means that as a Synology user, buying a UG Green S to an extent will make you feel at home. Next up is software and backups. And this is where things get a little complicated because not everyone will use everything. So, you need to really pick and choose what you're using and determine if it is or isn't supported on the Ukraine NAS. Synology DSM has a massive firstparty ecosystem, but depending on exactly what you use, you might be able to find the same option on
4:38 UGG OS or at least an alternative. UG OS has a firstparty photos, music, cloud drive, and sync and backup application. For me, those are the most important applications for my personal usage. And you can manage and use them all on the UG NAS their Windows or Mac OS application or with the UG NAS mobile application. And in fact, the mobile application in specific is great, which I really didn't expect. For photos, it allows you to upload personal photos, supports automated photo backups from the mobile application, and in my usage has worked well. There's also an AI custom learning section which allows you to train new models so that you can easily search through your photos. and they have a bunch of different options which is pretty cool. This is a direct
5:24 competitor to Synology Photos and overall they're very similar. Their music application was kind of a surprise to me because it's fast and it works well on all of the Ukraine apps including their mobile application. So for those who have a music collection, it's been a solid application and I actually like it more than Sony's audio station. Their cloud drive application allows you to sync data to and from a cloud location. And while it works very well, it only supports Microsoft One Drive and Google Drive. For a lot of people, that won't be a problem. But Dropbox support at a minimum would be a nice addition. And this is an area where Synology supports drastically more cloud storage locations. The sync and backup tool actually works very well for device syncing and allows you to sync a folder
6:10 on a local device with a folder on the Ukraine NAS. Anyone that knows me knows how much I value this type of setup. Though I do wish it had on demand sync like Synology Drive, which will hopefully be added one day. From a backup perspective, you can use Arsync or WebDAV. So, you're basically getting a copy of the file on two separate devices and not any sort of archive with versions like with Synology's HyperBackup. This isn't the end of the world, though versions would be nice, but you should have some sort of snapshot or version history on the backup location for data protection. With HyperBackup, you don't really have to worry about that. We'll talk more about backups when we discuss some areas of improvement, but those are some of the most important applications, and in general, they work pretty well. One of
6:56 the big areas that works very well is actually their virtual machine application. With most other NAS devices, I normally write this off unless it's an application that requires extremely minimal resources because most competing brands don't really have the hardware to justify virtualization. With most of the UG green async series, it's a viable option. And the virtual machines that I had ran very, very well. And this is one of the few, if only pre-built NAS devices where I'd have no problem running a virtual machine full-time because I'd get the performance necessary to justify it. There are a bunch of other applications as well, and you can install apps like JellyFin and Home Assistant, and the Docker application works very well, too. So, you really have an entire collection
7:42 of applications that you can run. And I'll leave a link to a video I did on a few of my favorite Docker containers in the description below. The final thing I want to quickly talk through is remote access. There's currently no VPN application, but that doesn't bother me because there is Docker and the operating system has an updated kernel. So, you can configure WireGuard in a few minutes and it'll be way easier than the OpenVPN setup on a Synology Nest. Unfortunately, on Synology devices, the kernel is too old to support WireGuard. So, while the lack of a VPN application can be frustrating to those who rely on it, I was able to get WireGuard set up in about 5 minutes using the WGE Docker container, which I'll leave a link to in the description. If you don't want to set up WireGuard, you can always use
8:27 Tailscale with Docker as well. The one area this setup may fall short is if you're a Synology user that uses OpenVPN with dedicated user accounts on the NAS so that you only have to manage accounts once. While I prefer WireGuard, using WireGuard in Docker means you'd have to manage two sets of credentials for each user. One for WireGuard and one for the NAS. There's also the UG green link service which is very similar to Sony's quick connect with two main things to compare performance and security. Overall, the performance is better. I was averaging around 4 megabytes per second of download and upload speeds, which is anywhere from two to four times faster than the speeds I get with Synology Quick Connect. I know the speeds are slow, but relay services are
9:13 generally slow and this is pretty good performance with that taken into consideration and at minimum it is usable. For security, only time will tell. From what I can tell, there haven't been any security issues with the Ukraine link service, but it's relatively new and security has to be measured over time. So, so far so good, but we'll have to assess this as time goes on. Now, I hinted at this earlier, but I need to get back to the Ugraine mobile application for a second. The UG mobile application is the best pre-built NAS mobile application that I have personally used. And if you own a UG green ass, it's a requirement because this is where you'll get your system notifications in the event that something goes wrong. Now, normally I shy away from mobile applications
9:58 because I've always managed my NAS devices through a web browser, but this is a legitimately good mobile application that allows you to manage your NAS, receive notifications, view your data, search your data, listen to your music, and even back up your mobile photos automatically. I'm so used to individual applications for each service that initially thought it was just an application to manage the NAS, but it's an all-in-one application that is fast, works well, allows me to view my data quickly, and quite frankly hasn't given me any problems. I mention this not only because it's good, but because we're living in a world where everything is shifting to mobile, and having a good mobile application is a legitimate selling point. Overall, I genuinely like
10:43 the mobile application and UG completely changed my opinion on what a NAS mobile application can be because I went into it thinking it was a gimmick, but found myself opening it multiple times a day before finally acknowledging that I was doing it because I liked it. This leads us to the final point on Ukraine applications, which is that BTRFS snapshots have literally just been added as I was in the middle of recording this video. From the look of it, it appears to work well, but I've only been able to test it and use it for a few days, so time will tell how reliable they are. There's also a versions application that's existed where you can ensure that each file has versions, but it's not on a global level, meaning you can't restore an entire shared folder back one version. That will be the snapshot
11:30 application, but you can do it per file. I'm very happy that this was added as it's necessary for any NAS device. But there's also one area where UG green gets set apart from Synology and it's in a good way. When you buy a Synology NAS, you buy a NAS device that runs Synology DSM and you cannot change it. With the UG NAS, there is support for thirdparty NAS operating systems. So, if absolutely everything I just said about UG Green OS are items that you dislike, you can run True NAS or Unrade on this, which provides great hardware with low power consumption at a good price, and you'll be running the NAS operating system of your choosing. This one factor totally shifts the landscape because there is a
12:15 subset of users that will never install a third party OS on a pre-built NAS and that's fine. But there is a subset of power users who will and those power users are the ones who will be upset at some of the items missing in Ukraine OS. This is important to highlight because from a hardware perspective this isn't even a debate. The UG NAS wins hands down. So if you're willing to take thirdparty operating systems into the equation that totally shifts this debate and a UG NAS with truness or unrade is going to be very enticing to a lot of you. With that said I understand that not everyone will want to do this. So let's look at some areas of improvement with UG green OS how important they are and if you should or shouldn't buy one. First is backups. While you can use
13:02 Arsync and WebDAV, it would be nice if they allowed for some sort of a cloud location as a destination. I don't think it needs to support all cloud locations, but even supporting just one like Back Blaze B2 will provide a lot of options for users. It would also be nice if you were able to encrypt those backups as I always try and encrypt my off-site backups if possible. Now, if you want to start comparing advanced features, there are some items missing and ice scuzzy support is one of them. But quite frankly, I'm not sure how many home users will actually use it. So, it doesn't really bother me from a recommendation perspective. But if you know that you're an advanced user, you should compare their options before purchasing either. So, the final thing I want to provide is my personal insight on if I would or would not buy a UG NAS
13:49 device with the understanding that these two NAS devices were sent to me for free for review. When the Ugrain NS was released, it was very difficult for me to recommend it because as I was testing it, I ran into a lot of problems. I recommended it from a hardware perspective, but not necessarily from a software perspective. Today, almost 16 months later, I can recommend the UGS for those that are interested, and I'll tell you why. It's not drastically different than when I reviewed it. There have been a few applications that have been released, but overall it's generally the same, which means that all of their development time was spent improving what exists rather than building new features. And that is very important to me. Those improvements are
14:36 what allowed me to be comfortable suggesting this NAS device because the problems that I did run into have been fixed. Now, operating systems are finicky, and I don't want to act like you'll never run into any problems because it wouldn't be fair to say that. But the problems that I did have, which were dealreakers to me, are gone. I genuinely like their photos and music application. The mobile application is great and is something that I wish other NAS manufacturers had now that I've used it extensively. I'd love to see cloud destinations for their backup tool. So, I don't want to act like you're giving up nothing by switching from Synology to Ukraine, but if you utilize Docker and can wait for some of those features to be released, it's a solid NAS device for home users. Is it Synology DSM? No. And quite frankly, it will take years to get
15:22 there. But for the average user that wants a place to store their files and data, it's a pretty good option in 2025. But I want to hear what you think in the comments. Did you switch to Ukraine? Are you sticking with Synology? I hope this video helped you out. if you were comparing Synology and Ugraine. But other than that, if you made it this far, thank you very much for watching.
