What is HexOS? A Truly User-Friendly TrueNAS Scale NAS Based Option?

HexOS – Trying to Make NAS and BYO NAS More User-Friendly

Most people under the age of 60 have a decent level of computer experience – that’s pretty much a stone-cold fact, thanks to the growing dependence of society on digital devices. Break that down a little further and chances are that most people under the age of 50 use a fairly powerful piece of computer equipment daily, and further still you will probably find that plenty of people in their 40s and younger are ‘the IT guy’ in their family or social circle. Yet, when it comes to that most niche’st of the Niche areas of technology ‘Data Storage and Networking’, the average user’s level of experience and know-how massively declines! I have said before on the YouTube channel before, but if people that like ”I.T’ are the ones who got bullied at school – the ones who like ‘networking and storage’ were the ones the bullied BULLIED! Sure, you know how to set up an Amazon FireTV, plug in a printer and even install windows – but can you open up ports on a router, configure a firewall, or arrange the right cache and redundancy on your server???

It’s a really complex area of the tech industry and although so, SO many other areas of the tech software (and hardware) experience have been blissfully simplified and streamlined, network attached storage (NAS) is an area that is still yet to see the same level of ‘idiot proofing’. To date, the NAS software industry has a lot of ‘potential’ NAS OS’ to choose from in your server, but the bulk of them are either hardware-locked (Synology DSM, QNAP QTS/QuTS, etc), have a steep learning curve (TrueNAS) or straddle somewhere between easier than the latter, but still harder than the former (UnRAID, CasaOS, OMV). Now THIS is where HexOS comes in – created by two former UnRAID/Lime Technology staffers (Jonathan Panozzo and Eric Schultz, under the new company Eshtek Inc.), this has been a NAS software that has been discussed over on LTT and Reddit for the better part of a year, and we have bee following here on our video and megathread on NASCompares HERE.

In brief, it is reported to be a truly user-friendly and beginner-friendly alternative to the existing range of NAS software OS and appliances currently offered to NAS users who want to repurpose old unused tech as a server, or want to build their own from the ground up. With a beta version proposed for later in 2024 and details about the software being gradually dropped, let’s discuss what HexOS is, why the buzz, what we know, what we don’t and (hopefully) help you decide whether it’s worth holding out for this software for your long term simplified storage needs.

Why is there such a buzz about HexOS?

Although the desire for a very user-friendly alternative to the existing range of NAS software in the market has always been very high (and we will dig into that more later on), it has be be highlighted that they are NOT the first company to try and challenge the current range of NAS appliances on the market. There are already largely open source offerings from brands such as IceWhale with their CasaOS/ZimaOS software, then you have OpenMediaVault which scales things up somewhat, then you have the current industry-recommended but paid ‘easy mode’ UnRAID. In short – it could be argued that HexOS is not the first to try this? So why the buzz? Well, many would point at the sizable investment of $250,000 made by a huge industry personality Linus, of LinusTechTips. In isolation, not an enormous figure in the running costs and salaries of multiple Devs on an annual paycheck, and almost certainly multiple equity/loan sums have been made by investors outside of this, but nonetheless this made waves. Linus’ has been one of many voices in the creative sphere that has commented on the high learning curve that is baked into the bulk of existing NAS software offerings right now – leading to (at best) inconvenient ongoing support of novice users over time, and (at worst) users setting their primary storage backup system in a poor way that is inefficient, riddled in attack vectors and is unfit for purpose. It is worth making clear that this is NOT a LTT/Linus-owned or developed NAS software platform, he is serving as an angel investor (and almost certainly in an additional advisory capacity). From there things have slowly snowballs, as small pieces of information about the software, rumours about the state of the development, the shape it will take and the building blocks fo the platform have emerged. Alot of software (not just NAS software of course) will launch and then have to fight the constant balance of stability vs customization vs security vs support – and more often than not, these can be what kills a platform in the first 18 months. Factor in that this is a platform that is intended to be feature-rich (1 click apps, ZFS base, VMs and Container ready, performance targetted. etc) AND user-friendly, this is a big, big wall to climb! So, let’s discuss what we know about HexOS so far.

What do we know about HexOS So Far?

HexOS was informally (kind of) revealed on the LTT WAN Show on June 15th 2024 and alongside production screenshots (unconfirmed to what level these were in-development software screenshots or created-vector images), they discussed some features, structure and project goals – whilst also making it clear that details surrounding funding, support and more are still very much ‘in progress’ and ‘TBC’. Below is everything we leant from that video, combined with everything we know about the software from details uncovered in development over the year:

  • HexOS will be running on/on-top of TrueNAS Scale (the Linux version of TrueNAS), labelled ‘Powered by TrueNAS Scale’, Still awaiting confirmation as to whether this is a simplified TrueNAS splinter/branch or something more involved
  • The Software is designed to be focused on being as user-friendly as possible and designed for x86 systems, not locked to hardware
  • Despite user-friendly focus, promises performance and stability
  • Includes storage recommendations, which can be actioned or ignored
  • Applications are 1-click installs, awaiting confirmation is these are pre-made containerized)
  • Remote Access to your home server, i.e “Remote Access from Anywhere” in the primary reveal
  • A Beta of the HexOS NAS software targetted for Q3 2024 (July-Sept)
  • Will feature Container and Virtual Machine Support (judging from the initial images) and mentions “Wizard Driven virtual desktops – details TBC)
  • Discussion of 3rd party cloud synchronization, but primarily designed for local access

That’s really it. As mentioned, on an earlier video back in April 2023, we summarized all the information that had been floating around about this software, which included in the references made on the WAN show, forum posts and references to Jon and Eric from the UnRAID community. You can watch that video HERE.

What we DO NOT Know about HexOS Right Now?

Realistically, we know very little about HexOS and that is kind of unusual for software that is reported to arrive as a Beta within the next 3.5 months. No doubt, we will be seeing deep dives into this software on the official LTT/LMG-partnered outlets soon enough. But right now, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. With numerous understandable sceptical users online thinking of this software as ‘Diet TrueNAS’ or TrueNAS Scale Zero’, but then again – would that be such a bad thing if it was? TrueNAS has been somewhat forced in recent years to make itself easier to work with (both from an end user and development stance), which was one of the core reasons for TrueNAS Scale’s development! But HexOS is not the only NAS Software in the market that is making promises of a simplified user experience for you and your data – so what about the things we still want to know? Here are just a few:

  • No formal discussion yet regarding security and encryption, remote access services being 1st party/3rd party (Tailscale, etc)
  • Hardware Specifications (minimum or recommended). To fully use the feature set of TrueNAS, 8-16GB tends to be the entry (as that becomes the ‘dedup’ and L cache minimum with powerful systems
  • Storage immutability? WORM Support etc
  • No confirmation at this time if HexOS runs on a dedicated OS-SSD internally, within the storage array (i.e as found on Synology DSM and QNAP QTS/QuTS, via an eMMC bootloader), or whether it will be injected into memory, as observed in UnRAID
  • No details regarding the price and support model. Current h-w free NAS OS in the market tend to be either completely free (but with paid/community support) like TrueNAS, monthly/annual/lifetime subscription (but with a 30 day trial) like UnRAID, or completely free with some components behind a paywall.
  • Much like above, support is yet to be confirmed – no word on whether HexOS will ‘Staff Up’ at launch or rely heavily on community support.

  • The extent to how much of the ZFS feature set will be rolled into the backend/foreground control of HexOS (snapshots, intelligent cache, jail separation on the apps, etc)
  • No confirmation on how permission/Access Control will be managed, especially during 3rd party App installation (Plex, Home automation control, surveillance, etc) – this is a massive hurdle for many NAS software to balance storage access and ideal restrictions in a user-friendly fashion
  • No word on whether it will use fixed-folder indexing (i.e generally simplified and more resource-economical NAS software tends to fix the directories of particular media to optimize performance, photos in a /photo directory, etc) and how this will be actioned when installing further applications and easy use UAC

And these are just scratching the surface!

What Are the Challenges that HexOS for NAS will face?

Trying to manage the balancing act of providing a fully featured private server software that can run on any custom x86 hardware configuration, making it highly secure AND keeping it easy to use.. well… MANY have tried. There have been varying levels of success before now. Such as:

Synology DSM and QNAP QuTS/QTS – Highly featured, Client tool rich and easy GUI NAS Software platforms. However, BOTH (along with Terramaster TOS and Asustor ADM) are locked to the hardware from their respective brands are not available for individual purchase.

UnRAID – Still by a good margin, the most user-friendly and capable NAS software in the market – but still has hurdles for the newbie and less tech-interested (storage manager – party disk selection, cache disk in/out of a UnRAID pool or newly supported ZFS pool)

Laticeworks / Amber Cloud – very user-friendly, structured to be comparable to 3rd party cloud ease-of-us, but as a network drive (with remote access). It has continued to see regular updates since it’s first reveal back in 2020, and even incorporates router management too. However, much like Synology/QNAP etc, is hardware locked

ZimaOS / Casa OS – Simple, TECHNICALLY not hardware locked, but not feature-rich yet (they only JUST added RAID in Jan) and the bulk of the features are via 3rd party containerized apps

WD NAS OS – The dumpster fire that is WD NAS OS – Started very well in the late 2000’s and 2010, starting easy with cloud setup, but ended up reaching a point in its UI that was too complex for the movies and too limited for the networking veterans – the GUI by WD OS 6 was tough to read and unintuitive as all hell! Indeed, that simplicity and automated cloud-relay access authentication by default (with SMB and ‘local’ accessible off by default) ended up being the reason that literally thousands of users could not access their systems when Western Digital corporate-level systems were compromised and isolation actions were needed (see video below):

The above are just a few examples. Add Open Media Vault (OMV), Proxmox if you want to focus on VMs, and more – and slowly you see that there is not actually a complete ‘novice level’ NAS software in the market. Now, the CLOSEST I have seen in 2024 is Synology and their BeeStation/BSM series, which takes ALOT of the fundamentals of DSM (BTRFS support, File/Folder browser access, multi-tier backups, SMB protocol, snapshots, very user-friendly client applications, etc) and then repackages them into a genuinely 5-click single screen NAS setup – with everything presented in a remarkably user-friendly fashion (see video below of Synology DSM vs Synology BSM). The issue? Well aside from it STILL being hardware locked, it lacks ALL of the premium prosumer/business tools for containers, VMs, OS level backups, powerful multimedia streaming playback, etc)

Likewise, there is the newly revealed Synology Active Protect platform – with its huge emphasis on Business backups, immutability, cloud VM-to-bare-metal deployment failover, significant versioning protocols, multisite deduplication and 10-minute deployment! But again, hardware locked, but also after 1 year, has subscription model costs to factor in. Learn more below:

Ultimately, it is still very much ‘early days’ for this NAS software and although it looks like the structure is sorted and presumably the logic in the backend has been laid out, as I cannot imagine a $250,000 investment being made on a blueprint on a napkin, nor can I imagine TrueNAS (the organization) allowing their OS being commercially forked in this fashion without heavy proof of concept and execution. There is also the question of how two ex UnRAID / Lime Technology team members end up splintering off into a TrueNAS-powered NAS OS that likely draws comparison at best and competition at worse with their former employers. I think we can all agree that the NAS industry is long overdue and open for the truly and completely tech-knowledge-free solution that has existed in DAS (Direct Attached Storage) for decades and is profited by on cloud platforms such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, how much of this promised utopia of simplicity can be maintained and how other players in the market respond to this. Whether we are looking at “TrueNAS Lite” and it fills that void, or it ends up initiating the existing NAS OS status quo to spare a thought for the ‘hassle-free’ UX, it is going to be fun to watch play out!

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      250 thoughts on “What is HexOS? A Truly User-Friendly TrueNAS Scale NAS Based Option?

      1. Thank you. A very good introduction to BSM. But I’m still looking for an answer, which Synology Support didn’t answer well. Has the BeeStation with BSM also integrated a media server with which I can stream photos and Videos to my Smart TV via DLNA. Thank you for your reply.
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      2. Thank you so much, I learnt so much from your videos of comparisons of DSM’s and aslo BSM! For now I’ll buy a BeeStation and/or maybe a 2TB lifetime pCloud. I am completely new to NAS stuff, I just knew it existed from my dad. My dad has NAS of his own for at least 14 years now, so I can ask him, he has WD MyCloudHome 2-bays from I could see. I just wanted to learn on my own hehe. I’ve used 3+ days now of research of Synology NAS, Synology BeeStation and pCloud 2TB lifetime plus other alternatives…

        Anyway, I’ll probably upgrade to DS723+ or DS923+ (with at least 2x8TBs or 4x4TBs or maybe just max it out on mirror raids) at some point, but right now I just need to use a cloud to organize my files – Document (School, Work, Private), Photos, Music and Videos whilst backing them up + accessible anywhere and of course them still saved on multiple physical external harddrives (2x5TBs and 2x2TBs) that I manually update when I have time for it. Now I’ll watch your how to upgrade BeeStation storage, I’ll do this warranty expires on my BeeStation, could be fun
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      3. The concept of deploying apps sounds like what Yacht do. Basically give a pre-defined set of diretory(s) and those directory is going to be used in various docker containers making it like, choose a app, click deploy, done…
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      4. Bee Station design looks sooooo much better than Synology Drive…
        And Drive is even missing some features…
        i really hope they add that and give at least the option to change the design
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      5. I’m with @moto-rambler and if he’s put his money on it, I guarantee that this is a subscription model.

        Linus’s mask has been removed. He’s a narcissist and all about $$
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      6. I think this could have been a desirable product to me a year ago, but in that time I’ve learned that a free challenge is more enjoyable to me than a paid ride down easy street. Truenas for me.
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      7. Fingers crossed I guess… Like most things in the world of Linux TrueNAS. FreeNAS, OMV, Unraid are a lot like putting lipstick on a pig and claiming it’s beautiful. Yes you could get intimate with a pig in makeup, but most would call that “Unnatural behaviour”.
        My NAS (running in a VM) is an x86 copy of DietPi as the lightest functional Linux distro I could find, with CasaOS on top – great? No… but most importantly relatively free of the sub-surface ugliness and an idiotic lack of sensible defaults that is ‘normal’ Linux.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      8. This is pretty much made for me, like I know a bit about NAS software and all of that but I care more about the hardware. So having something easy to set up would be great for me.
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      9. This is something i would love myself. As is finding myself learning linux after moving away from windows, it’s a huge change and takes A LOT of time commitment to learn with such a step learning curve. As is this, if i could have a more user friendly version to springboard myself into how it works, and apply the application, I can tinker with a working product, rather than tinker for days if not weeks on a product that isn’t fully working, or breaks. Especially more so i’ve held off any backup software as when i want to back everything up, i want it done right the first time. I only have one set of hardware.
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      10. There’s a huge question of WHO are they going to get to beta test this? If they’re targeting novices, are they going to be able to trust them to NOT store the only copies of their files on a beta version of an OS? And why would experienced users want to bother beta testing something that isn’t for them?

        Especially with the reach of LTT, I can imagine a scenario where a lot of people put too much trust in a beta product and a LOT of data gets lost forever. Scary stuff.
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      11. Wonder how long it will be updated. I mean how long term they are thinking about supporting this software. With other option they are on the market for some time now.
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      12. The UNVR and UNVR Pro (Ubiquiti) will suggest a RAID config based on the drives you’ve installed. They ‘simplify’ it well but also provide the technical terms in the ‘finer print’ to appease both armatures and pros alike
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      13. I understand about the importance of complexity especially with the NAS
        My biggest disappointment with my Synology is it’s inability to differentiate between EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT permissions.
        With a standard FTP server app (such as windows FTP server or Filezilla FTP server)
        I can create on over arching folder schema and just give certain users access to specific subfolders
        without having to give everyone access and then create a boat load of denial permissions .
        Example:
        Users: joe, schmo, curly, mo to give joe access to Users/joe I have to give everyone access to the entire path and deny schmo, curly, & mo to joe’s folder
        Instead of just giving everyone access to the users folder and ONLY giving joe access to his folder.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      14. I understand about the importance of complexity especially with the NAS
        My biggest disappointment with my Synology is it’s inability to differentiate between EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT permissions.
        With a standard FTP server app (such as windows FTP server or Filezilla FTP server)
        I can create on over arching folder schema and just give certain users access to specific subfolders
        without having to give everyone access and then create a boat load of denial permissions .
        Example:
        Users: joe, schmo, curly, mo to give joe access to Users/joe I have to give everyone access to the entire path and deny schmo, curly, & mo to joe’s folder
        Instead of just giving everyone access to the users folder and ONLY giving joe access to his folder.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      15. I understand about the importance of complexity especially with the NAS
        My biggest disappointment with my Synology is it’s inability to differentiate between EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT permissions.
        With a standard FTP server app (such as windows FTP server or Filezilla FTP server)
        I can create on over arching folder schema and just give certain users access to specific subfolders
        without having to give everyone access and then create a boat load of denial permissions .
        Example:
        Users: joe, schmo, curly, mo to give joe access to Users/joe I have to give everyone access to the entire path and deny schmo, curly, & mo to joe’s folder
        Instead of just giving everyone access to the users folder and ONLY giving joe access to his folder.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      16. This looks awesome ! I am not a savvy Linux user but I want to use a nas os on a rig I’m building and I’ve looked at a few options so far and many of them simply look intimidating. This is the first one that looks easy as a non Linux enjoyer. I know people who are in this space already are hardcore Linux lovers but I’ve tried hundreds of times to give Linux a shot and I never really fully enjoy it and find it a bit out of my realm. I like a clean and super simple gui. If you make me use a cli I just end up dipping out. I’m very very dyslexic and have a hard time spelling and also remembering commands and simple codes so I suck so bad it’s not even funny with just remembering and typing in simple commands.
        Is there any other options for a nas os that will be simple ? I’ll be running 2 14tb sata drives and 2 2tb nvme drives. CPU I’ll be running is a 12400f, 16gb ddr5, z690 chipset with 2.5gb lan. Main goal is network storage and backup for both me and my wife and have a way to maybe learn about some apps and if any of them can help us in anyways. All this is super overwhelming lol.
        I thought about buying a synology nas but the model I want with nvme support is out of my price range and I’ve been told all other brands are too risky and get hacked all the time.
        Any advice would be very much appreciated. I have watched 2 dozen or more of your videos so far trying to learn about the features and what your thoughts are on different nas units. Thanks for all you do ❤
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      17. I would love to have this as I like to tinker on things and learn the ins and outs of more complex concepts but I haven’t found a NAS or NAS OS that, as Apple puts it (I believe), “Just works!” so I need something that I can basically just set and forget and should any problems happen I can take 20 minutes to an hour or less to set up instead of a complex potentially many day process to get things working again.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      18. A simple backup os would be a killer for a lot of people. If you are mad and double down on truenas, this OS is not for you. OMV and TruenasCore are the only “easy” diy solutions, and even this have a learning curve. Let’s agree to disagree and be happy there is competition.
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      19. as a noob the most crucial thing for me is the mobile apps. It is one thing to set up the Synology NAS, install Plex, download station, photo station, etc etc, but the mobile apps allowing you to do so much from your mobile are great. I’ve often been thinking that I should just build my own, but then so many of them don’t have the mobile apps you get from Synology. Or maybe they do and I just have no idea.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      20. That UI is equally as bad as TrueNAS. How hard is it to just look at Synology, UmbrelOS, etc. Even Terra-Master nailed it.

        It’s one thing if it’s an unfunded project – but if they are a funded company with the goal of making a good UI, they failed.
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      21. Thanks so much for this video. I’m looking at buying a new NAS to replace my 10+ years old Microserver Gen8 running DSM through Xpenology that has been dead reliable that entire time, but I was holding out until more information became available about this OS so thanks for this initial look at it.
        I get what they’re trying to do with HexOS and I think a younger version of me would’ve been all over this, but I think given my experience with DSM and my need for something hands-off, I’ll probably stick with what I know. Great that there’s more competition in this field though. Especially with these Ugreen devices for example coming on the market recently, where long term reliability and support is still an unknown.
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      22. I think the Hex OS needs to be preconfigured and provide detailed settings, give options to fix, have secure and ready to go settings, with guide in menues for advanced folder permisions, and users, configure custom secure remote access priveleges, and focus on reliability. Truenas is awkward with connecting shares with users and permisions, and lacks native secure remote access and auto backups. I mean something like Synology OS for custom hardware is an unleashed NAS software i imagine users like me would appriciate.
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      23. Can you make a quick video with NAS suggestions for newcomers? I am looking at starting a home system for file storage and some Plex, and I am wondering if it’s a good time to go to Synology, or if I should wait a little longer to see what Ugreen does.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      24. I am saving to deploy something big, EOY, I’m planning a hybrid thing not just SSD and HDD pools. Before I might have considered it, but I have worked it all out on trunas, been pretty happy on a smaller scale Lab. Also this is new software, built on ture nas I guess, I’m sure this will be pretty solid or whatever, but let someone else canary it.
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      25. Problem is, Linus and his team are all sacks of s. How quickly people forget. I can’t imagine any scenario where they deserve our support. Novice users can use whatever’s built into their retail NAS, and advanced users can just use TrueNAS, UnRAID, Proxmox, etc. After watching their fake (monetized) apology video tour, I swore them off forever. Plus all the stuff coming to light about his commentary on ‘science’ just is not appropriate for a tech review channel.
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      26. Oh man the Plex install was what really got me when I was trying to setup my own Debian based home server. As a Windows person, im trying to move everything away from Server 2019 and the damn file permissions on Linux are NUTS… Thanks for answering my question though since its been burning a hole in my brain for months. I figured it was a file permissions issue but, again, using Debian, its not that simple either. Im going with ProxMox and TrueNAS Scale for my main OS running the machines since they seem to be the best for what I need to do. It was “fun” trying to config my own setup but also a hair pulling experience. Cheers!
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      27. People keep talking about ZimaOS as it’s something special but it’s just CasaOS with a new name and CasaOS started life back in sep 26 2021 progress on ZimaOS is slow.
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      28. I’m just not convinced that there are a lot of people outside who are willing and capable to build their own NAS but than use a very restricted OS because they are not techsavy enough.
        In my view they just buy a synology or qnap
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      29. Honestly I’ve switched to omv after years of setting stuff up. I just needed something stupid simple… Im actually also installing cosmos cloud on top of it. I have to assume this is very similar to that. I just don’t see the benefit for me atm.
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      30. It’s the same as Symantec Beestation – making NAS for the masses. Any average user who wants a simple NAS system with all of the Geeky settings hidden from sight is completely put off by channels like this !!! Listen to how you are trying to complicate and find potential issues in everything Hex is clearly trying to simplify and it hasn’t even been released yet ! Synology and others have deliberately made NAS systems a geek fest so it serves them right that they have left a gaping hole in the market for other disruptors to take advantage of.
        By the way there is one negative – I can’t stand Linus.
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      31. You could simplify truenas with use-cases and some user-friendly autodetection.
        e.g. “Is this for streaming movies for home?” vs “Is this for editing video?” That makes a difference between selecting HDD and SSD drives. Backup hosts… “How much data is being backed up?” and “how fast is the network?” might change your drive layout from performance to capacity focused. It could make suggestions, “you’ll need 3 drives of size X to migrate the data on your current array.”

        For VMs, “I automatically enabled PCI pass-through in the kernel” would be nice. Then, “I did some driver detection on your PCIE devices… would you like this graphics card/NIC/blueray writer passed through to the VM?”. Maybe some network scanning… “I found a TV but no media server, would you like one?” “I found some ubiquiti network kit, would you like me to install the manager and walk you through the install?”

        Or to address some of truenas scale’s deficiencies… “click here to select a user which will always be used to run this kubernetes application, even if it updates.”
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      32. Interesting. I’m gonna check this out. I’m a big fan of Unraid. My adoption hinges on docker and VM support. IMO a major strength of Unraid is its implementation of virtualization
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      33. Some aspects of truenas are abominably awful. Potentially this may be a fantastic option. Especially if it works like gl.inet’s GUI works on top of openwrt in the router world (with the option of going into the full openwrt GUI for advanced features).
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      34. I would rather have Windows 11 as a daily driver than have anything to do with LTT or the hot pile of garbage that is the user interface and permissions/user setup of Truenas.
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      35. what kind of person will have the knowledge to build a hardware NAS but be so stupid to need a 0 level OS??? yes there are people that cant put gas in their car, but they didnt build the car to start with.
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      36. It’s funny how a UI can suddenly be a whole new OS? We don’t talk about Gnome OS or KDE OS when we are talking about which DE we are running. Call it HexUI or something.
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      37. As with many things I always have to ask, “Who is this even for?”

        Seriously. If we’re talking about an “accessible” and “simplified” NAS and then throwing a UI on top of something like TrueNAS, then throwing in features like VMs and containerized Apps into the mix then you’ve already lost your target audience in favor of the competition. It’s already trying trying to do too many things at once, outside of basic NAS functionality.

        Then you have in the screenshots and specs of this utterly ridiculous example environment in their marketing. An AMD R7 7700X with 32GB of RAM and a friggin’ RTX 4070 ti 12GB and 10GBe NIC? WTAF?!? Exactly what “enthusiast” is running this kind of setup on a dedicated box and then looking for streamlined “simplicity” and “accessibility” in their NAS environment? If you’ve committed to that kind of setup, you’re already committed to and looking for the kind of complexity, scalability, and feature rich environment of actual TrueNAS Scale or UnRAID.

        Also for that kind of money, you’re waaaay into upper tier Synology territory. The price of Ryzen and RTX alone would already bag you a 12 Bay Synology DX1215II. Trow in a chassis, mobo, the 32GB RAM and NIC and you’re most of the way into some serious storage territory too.

        Again. Who is this for? Someone with the money and tech knowledge to build a dedicated custom gaming level rig, yet can’t figure out UnRAID, TrueNAS, OMV, Ubuntu Server, or a host of other similar new and old solutions (already saturating the market) over a weekend? I’m just not seeing it.

        Look, I love the idea of competition, innovation, and choice, but this seems more like solution in search of an audience, rather a solution to an actual problem or gap in the market.
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      38. Lol! Hadn’t heard W4nkers Facebook before, but it’s nice to hear I’m not alone in not liking it. ????

        In my opinion it really looks like photoshopped images since the image where the ethernet jacks was shown said 10Gbit on one and 2,5Gbit on the other, but it still said 8.5 Mbit/s on both. Correct me if I’m wrong.
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      39. As former truenas and currently Unraid user I can only say that I am not looking any further for other nas os. Unraid simply has it all with easy to set up manner
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      40. As result of this association with LTT, I have created and sent a circular to all of our associates to not purchase this product and that we will not be doing business with anyone that does not choose to comply.
        I will NOT allow LTT in my companies nor associates. Ever. LTT is a terrible company for which one of high moral stance must take a stand.
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      41. I realize funding is important and needed here, but doesn’t this being LTT-backed erode perception of a quality OS (based on LTT history)? Is this just a skin, kinda like buying a screwdriver and slapping your logo on it. I’d be very cautious about trusting critical data here until long term support is proven. Maybe viable in 2029 or so.
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      42. Honestly not a bad idea for those who want what TrueNas offers but don’t need the whole kit. I’ll stick with Truenas personally but I can see this as a viable option instead of unraid for some depending on price.
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      43. I think the hardest part of truejas scale is just the steep beginning lvl learning curve, it plateau very quickly the that first spike is really scary. Also people really aren’t a fan of only being able to expand pool in chunks. At my work it baffled people that u couldn’t just add a drive so I had to explain to them how raid worked
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      44. I think the hardest part of truejas scale is just the steep beginning lvl learning curve, it plateau very quickly the that first spike is really scary. Also people really aren’t a fan of only being able to expand pool in chunks. At my work it baffled people what. Could just add a drive
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      45. Anything backed by ltt automatically makes me pause and reconsider if it’s really a good product. Since it’s been shown that ltt’s attention to detail is lacking due to deadlines that are way too short, and it would seem to leak into all their investments.
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      46. So it’s a custom GUI that hides all the advanced features and stuff that a novice user wouldn’t normally need to use and adds in some scripting and wizards to make setup easy? I dig the idea. Especially setting up the remote backup stuff. Rolling your own remote backup setup isn’t the hardest thing in the world but definitely outside the normal reach of a large percentage of the normal PC user space so automating that process could be a very popular option!
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      47. I used to like Truenas Scale until they removed docker. Unless you run it in a vm, which defeats the purpose. k3s is huge hassle for little gains for home lab. I hope HexOS doesn’t go down that path, but I have a feeling they will have to unless they are continuing development completely separate. I do like their goal though. Most OS’s are gibberish to people and don’t need to be.
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      48. I have had many challenging experiences with ZFS (SSD) (instability/corruption/performance lower than expected). It would be beneficial to support MDADM with BTRFS on top.
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      49. Not enough info. Also never be the beta. I will wait. Also how much will it cost? True nas is not free and licening it sounds pretty expensive. Do i have to pay for truenas then hex skin? I hope its not a subscription.
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      50. Looks like it’s just an overlay for TrueNAS that just sets specific switches for TrueNAS automatically. Basically preset templates. Until it’s on my test server, that’s all I can make of it.
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      51. Linus talked about that Backups are too hard for novice users and he wants to build a system where you can easily make backups to frieds/family outside of your network and having that secured so your friends cannot access your backups (and of course they can backup to your nas).

        That would be the killer feature for me .. backups, especially external, are quite hard to plan and most don’t talk about that.
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      52. Looks promising! Would be very welcome in this arena, I do believe.
        A user-friendly “shell” that would benefit DIY and home-users would significantly help those adapting and “rolling their own”, building their homelabs.
        Watchout Synology, here they come! (evil grin)
        I myself would be interested (somewhat) repurposing my older (QNAP) hardware, if that is a possibility in their arena…
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      53. We have several 12-bay racks units for O365 backups. Synology gimps themselves with “enterprise” business decisions soft-locking units to their disks which in enterprise terms is a common practise. However even filling up half a 12-bay with high capacity HDDs you hit a brick wall by not having bigger NVME drives for metadata and caching. These drives are at best prosumer quality with sub-par write endurance for the price. We had to swap the SSDs to higher capacity Samsung drives with real enterprise performance and use the db unlock script to get rid of the alarms.

        The DP segment makes sense but the hardware has to catch up to be a credible option.
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      54. I’m sure Synology is aware of people waiting for updates of the 15xx, 16xx and 18xx models. Why not give them any insight about their plans or even a heads up on when new models can be exepected without further details. I can only think of one reason, but I really hope I’m wrong.
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      55. Who cares about enterprise level stuff …. they are ignoring their core products and user base at a time when competition is getting fiercer. The only they have going for themselves is DSM ….
        All this for nothing because they won’t be able to effectively compete in the enterprise space because that business is all about relationships with customers and on a enterprise level …well they don’t have any.
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      56. Good thing you started working with so many other brands. The 4 comments so far pretty much sums it up how many people care about enterprise stuff on YouTube. At least another 10-15 years before enterprise decision makers are coming to YouTube for research. Mostly boomers in those positions right now and they aren’t watching YouTube to buy equipment for their large business.
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      57. Might be an interest for some business users, but in my experiences, such customer might want more flexibility and customisation then this solution can perhaps offer.
        And, again in my experiences, such customer do know their stuff, they don’t need Synology to take away or circumvent those expertises.
        I do expect a few challenges; What when one of those platforms changes, major changes are made, this product likely will need an update/chance? (too)
        What about malware, where the initial backup is clean and you are backing-up an infected source? Any measures taken to check upon the source not being infected?
        Protection is not (only) backing-up IMHO.
        I get the impression they have put on a business-sauce onto an existing solution. And which perhaps might appeal to some customers.
        Making products (and services) that only serve niche customers is nowadays a risky choice. I think.
        Let’s see if this still exists in 3 ~ 4 years time.
        I wonder what Synology is thinking about, what their aim is.
        To simplify things?
        To me it looks like that Synology is aiming for enterprise (full swing), and hopefully such pants are not too big for them. (and keep the braces handy, just in case)
        I look forward to more in-depth information. But with my 20+ years and PT’s of data, the amount of backups I have lost can be counted on a few fingers of a hand…
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      58. Synology appears to be forsaking the bread and butter users, the masses that made Synology what they are. In stead, they are courting the Enterprise market now, seeking the massive profits that come with that market sector.

        Synology need to be careful here. The optics of losing interest in the home/prosumer/SMB market will come back to bite them if users feel abandoned and ignored.
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      59. Data Protection!

        Muahahahahaha hahahahahahaha! We’ll see how long until that “data protection” security is broken and / or circumvented.

        Just another thing to sell to businesses.
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      60. *Update* – Since I recorded and edited this video (both times!) a little more information has arisen about ActiveProtect and the DP series (regarding ActiveBackup, Pricing, and Scope). There will be a follow-up video on this one next week and it will be a very special video! In the meantime, you can watch the full summary video on the Synology 2024 event I made yesterday here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC_gtEGRDJY
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      61. Looks like a win-win product for both less tech-savvy users and their “don’t you work with computers?” relatives that otherwise would be called regularly with tech support issues.
        Why Synology in 2024 still releases non-universal macOS software is beyond me. Especially since all of their desktop software offerings are not OS-“native” applications, but instead use software frameworks like Electron (BeeStation desktop app, at least the App Extension and the helper apps are ARM-native) or Qt (HyperBackup Explorer).
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      62. back in the day i tried setting up hyper backup from one synology to another but it was super broken due to both the source and destination shares being encrypted, have they sorted that out? have you tried backing up form one synology to another when both are encrypted? and i am referring to share folder encryption not volume
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      63. I hope they take some of the changes to the UI in BSM and put it in DSM 8. DSM looks a bit old by today’s standards of macOS and Windows 11 UIs. Be nice if they had a version of Video Station for BSM, people creating their own clouds with streaming services getting expensive is a growing market, but I guess you would just get a DSM system for that.
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      64. on kickstarter quad core option it say “This reward does not include disks or the quad M.2 SSD adapter.” and i cant find the optional add on about that quad M2 ssd adapter . does it mean only 10 core pro version have the quad nvme showed in the video ?

        thank you
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      65. I think you are heading down a deadend with your emphasize on the zimaOS and holding off on testing until the zimaOS is further along. NAS software is complex. It takes time, money, and expertise to develop. It is going to be impossible to spread the cost of developing a case, two motherboards, a backplane, two m.2 daughtercards and a reasonable set of software across the approximately 1000 units they have sold so far. If they had sold 10,000 units, the situation would be very different.

        Anyone with experience with software and hardware development will come to the conclusion that they will run out of time and money after implementing 25-50% of their ‘goals as communicated by marketing.’ No time or money will be left for the complex parts of polishing, debugging, and optimization.

        9 out of 10 people who use the hardware are going to end up using an existing NAS software package. Icewhale could have significantly multiplied their sales numbers if they had set reasonable goals by focusing on plug-and-play compatibility with TrueNAS scale, unraid, and possibly OMV.

        Spending $120 for a zimaboard or zimablade is a whim for many people. Spending $500-$1000 on a NAS, plus another $1000 on drives, is an investment that requires research.
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      66. Would definitely want to swap out those rear fans, but I’m not sure what with. You were going to investigate options for that. My home office isn’t quiet though, especially with my aging Drobo running (hoping to retire that soon), so I’d probably be OK. PS – Plenty of EB slots still available for both versions.
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      67. I can’t quite get my head around why they wouldn’t get RAID implemented early. Surely they want people testing it and giving their feedback early. I certainly wouldn’t want to be an early adopter of a RAID implementation.
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      68. You fuffled your words on the “Other ways to manage storage” bit 🙂 🙂 I mean who was expecting the link to lead to OpenMediaVault page , certainly noy me and I doubt you ? !! LOL
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      69. The hardware looks very promising, the software is not that impressive. Yet.
        I agree, RAID should be their top-priority but I gather they would already know that and would be working on that soonest.
        Their hardware-changes (extra PCI slot, improved drive-cable etc) into a new MB, that are some solid moves.
        From all the DIY’s, this is one of the most promising ones to me so far…
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      70. As a backer, I’m so excited to see the base model has a second pci slot now.

        I’d still like to see some changes to the case to allow for full sized (horizontal) pci card. I’d also like to see cable retention for the power cable so it doesn’t get unplugged so easily.
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      71. Is there open software that compares to synology dsm? Really their hardware and prices seem really out of parity these days… they are slow rolling hardware updates a lot it seems. Also Synology’s ios apps are good, so would have to replace them too.
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      72. I don’t know if this option needs to be “Truly” powerful. If the NAS allowed SMB, some form of parity, and an easy and secure way to connect to other NAS boxes that would be more than enough for the target customer and for those of us who want major power its still a great idea to run it as a VM or setup a dedicated secondary box running this just for critical data. This would be huge for those who want to self host Nextcloud and Bitwarden because it removes that fear of loosing really critical stuff due to a house fire.
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      73. Glad that my pc has been set to communicate with wd ex2 (not extra) by LAN. All handphones can access ex2 by “network neighbourhood” app. Ex2 is a dea.d.c.hild by wd definition, but yesterday I put in a new toshiba n300 8tb hdd. Still work fine as a in house nas. Next year, hoping to change to ugreen nas machine 2024 model.
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      74. already do the steps to Enable Local Access on your My Cloud Home, the local my cloud host name is created, but I still can’t access using the username and password I was created.. HOW??? PLEASE HELP
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      75. I am almost 8 months i can’t access my Wd my cloud and i contacted them they sent me 3 more drives and even them non of them work. Now i believe i hacked too and all my data gone
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      76. so, it is not worth going with the MY Cloud Home (6TB for £149.99) ? should I get ds220+ instead (£258 refurb +cost of the disk) ?

        I would like to use it like a google drive for photos to send to clients + using for plex 4K and atmos -> Nvidia shield.
        thanks
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      77. I believe that WD is simply obliged to return the money to everyone for their products of such low quality and pay moral compensation. They make users suffer with their device if something happens to it. It is impossible to return access to the device to a simple user. You must have great knowledge. This is a big headache for the average user. I’m furious with WD. In my PC, I threw out all the HDD of this company. Never trust WD. Her devices are Prada Devil in beautiful packaging. I’ve already lost all my data twice and a lot of money. And data recovery cost 4 times more than the cost of the device itself.
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      78. Sorry but I’m not trusting my data to something basically built in someone’s shed. Happy to sit on the higher price / low risk side of the spectrum.
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      79. Hope this happens but its going to take way more than 250K.

        TrueNAS was nice but unnecessarily complicated. Unraid is just plain jankie, found myself crossing my fingers and hoping it rebooted successfully was too much so I bit the bullet and gave into Synology
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      80. I liked unraid for its flexability to use any kind of hardware it docker and vm software. But I like dsm for its desktop backup software, back to Google cloud, its Web based desktop usability, and remote access.
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      81. To be honest this sounds like a joke to me. Really? A complete OS system? By two or so employees? With only 250.000? Dude I’m a web developer and a simple website can take up to 6 months to develop. An OS is maybe 1000x more complicated to do so. Maybe they should invest on the hardware, something like storaxa, they can definitely do it and with less headaches for them
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      82. I’d like to be able to install this on my Storaxa NAS box – if the Storaxa project is successful and assuming the success of Linus’ investment.

        I”ve always liked DSM, but I’m not a fan of Synology NAS hardware, (certainly not at their pricepoints) and I have longed for a similarly usable NAS OS for the DIY market.
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      83. Personally I do t think that middle ground is possible while the desire is to provide the fully suite of services. DNS, DHCP, LDAP, mail servers, Web servers etc etc service do need a level of knowledge as to implementing it correctly.

        That said, if “middle ground” means not offering such services then there are a lot of possibilities. That is, if the only target is to give a clean solution built around DIY hardware that offers file sharing, plex and say offside backup/replication (and the like) then yeah… I hope they succeed.

        But the moment you’re opening up your “devices” as something that is addressable from the wider internet the administer of that device *MUST* have a level of base k owledge beyond the “average” to be able to protect it.

        Easy as DSM’s firewall is, exactly how many know how to effectively leverage and manage it??
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      84. No way 250k, or even a million will be sufficient to develop a robust backend that makes front end friendly. Surely there’s other investors involved for this to be realistic. My estimates are 2mil for an alpha, another 2 mil to get beta out, maybe 3 mil toward polished version. The skills required are six-figure positions for atleast 5 seasoned developers. Those expenses don’t include possible licensing of network related IP
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      85. LTT shared a video about their networking/server setup, they want 10Gbe everywhere with handful of 100Gbe joints,
        they are moving onto Proxmox with most of the stuff, and using TrueNAS for storage,
        seeing specs of upcoming ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE I guess it’s fairly clear what can we expect from close future “server” hardware, and something like 28 PCIe x4 NVMEs in one box can be one of them, so the software will have to be VERY scaleable in that regard
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      86. I’ll stick with Synology. I am paying for the peace of mind and the software features. I am glad they have Ryzen processors, 923+ is high on my list to replace the two two bay Synology NAS’s I have now. They will be the “cold storage” backups to the new NAS. Love what you do!
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      87. I understand that many in here like me got WD Home cloud for back up and to established a centralized storage system for our files. I also understand many chose this storage option instead of paying for cloud services.

        However, the reality of back up and files safety remains in the ability to secure and back up your data in different locations in case something like this happens, or your place cath in fire or is burglarized.

        That’s why I was using WD Clound in conjunction with a cloud service. Therefore when this happened I had a back of my WD files in my cloud service provider and was able to continue my work.

        WD did reacted correctly by shutting down as soon as they find out to reduce the data that could be possibly stolen.

        Many big corporations have gone through situations like this it’s the risk of today’s high speed and electronic communications advances.

        I am confident WD will implement new safety measures to prevent or reduce the chances of this happening again.

        NAS is a good storage option but it also subject to malfunction, damage or physical stole Always have that plan B.

        However, this is also a learning experience for us to implement back up plans in the event this happens again.
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      88. I’ve always been leery of data breaches of these big companies so I utilize the ability of my DS920+ to encrypt my backup to the cloud. I can sleep easy at night knowing even if someone did steal my files they can’t do anything with them.
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      89. Another failure of Western Digital. Can’t trust them with anything, wd is trying to scam and mislead their customers in anyway possible. Happy I stopped buying their products some time ago.
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      90. Many years ago I owned a WD My Book EX3 with MyCloud and they had a major disruption way back then, and I jumped ship fast! WD is terrible at managing these issues and communicating. Really, quite terrible that this is still happening.
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      91. I don’t see why they would pay the hackers. They’ll either share the data anyways or come back asking for more money in a week or two. The data’s out there and nothing they can do will change that fact.
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      92. What happened with WD could have happened to any other company. It’s good they did a complete system shut down as soon as they learned about the breach.

        In past such Incidents have happened with other companies as well, In 2014, Apple’s Cloud service iCloud was hacked, LinkedIn was hacked a couple of times and even Facebook. Not only this NASA and FBI servers have been hacked as well in the past.

        Compared to those Incidents this incident is nothing. In tech and internet world there would always be such vulnerabilities, that no tech company can guarantee protection against.

        I see that many viewers wrote that they’ll shift to another brand but unfortunately even they cannot guarantee protection against such Incidents.
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      93. I got a 4TB Western Digital My Cloud Home as my first NAS several weeks ago. I quickly learned two things from it:
        1) Having a NAS is amazing. I never want to be without one again.
        2) I bought a crappy NAS.
        Then the hack/outage came along and point #2 became even more true.

        I ordered a Synology DS220j and man… I wish I had done that in the first place. I think I’m just gonna shuck the My Cloud Home and toss its HD into the Synology 😀
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      94. I’ve had a MyCloud EX4100 for over 10 years now, so I had it set up nicely, with LAN access… not that useful when this happened while I was away from home! Like everyone else, I wondered what the hell happened and cursed at WD . Over the years, they have been making decision I did not personally like the media previews on OS5 that got my NAS rattling like mad for 4 months straight! I had started watching loads of videos on your channel in the search of my next NAS. This was the deciding factor. Just bought a TVS-h874. Hopefully I’m set for the next 10 years. So, with a much lighter bank account and a big smile, I’d like to say thanks for all the advice! Your videos (and website) are brilliant Keep up the good work :^)
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      95. VERMIN is the right word. At least they know what they are. Self-awareness is already a good indication of some intelligence.
        The first rule of engagement with terrorist/criminals is: NO NEGOTIATION!
        I have a WD EX4100 NAS and I love it. When they moved to My CloudOS 5 and they demanded UPnP to be active for the NAS to be accessible online… that’s the moment I switched off the CLOUD connectivuty.
        UPnP is very easy to use but a disaster waiting to happen… and it just happened… mixed with some other bad connectivity issues… UPnP demand was just an indicator (to me) of the big screw up they were getting themselves into.
        People need to understand that EVERYTHING that’s accessible online by you… can also be accessed by anyone else willing to spend the time and money to access it as well. NOTHING IS SAFE online!!!
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      96. Purchased a drive on the 1st. Still haven’t gotten any information other than an email on the 4th. Fortunately I used a rarely used cc, so not too worried if it gets compromised.
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      97. Um, if the hackers have WD’s code signing keys as you mention, doesn’t that mean they can potentially install malware in any of WD’s devices? Sounds like people will need a LOT more clarity on that point.
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      98. I was affected by this data breach and was affected by the previous zero day issue with the older MyCloud NAS. At this point I have lost faith with WD.

        The fact of their lack of communication with their customers and creating a NAS that requires online server authentication, really has put a sour taste in my mouth.

        After receiving no information from WD, I decided to buy a Synology DS218play. May not be the DS220+, but it works, and does not need a Western Digital server to allow me to access my files.
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      99. I assumed my WD device was bricked and I’m awaiting a DS220+ as a step up replacement. Having listened to this I plugged it back in and it’s working again. Why didn’t they contact us? Now I’ve got to decide whether to keep the DS220 or return to the old WD which was fine for my needs, just.
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      100. It was very sad that they did not immediately email their clients to notify us of the breach. My drive was set up on a LAN and was somewhat isolated. I was double confused at the onset since when I lost connectivity to the WD server, we also experienced a severe electrical storm that took out my NAS. While trying to access my drive through the LAN and then through their web service that had finally been taken down the same day, I was completely at sea as to what was happening. I finally received an email yesterday that services had been restored. That is inexcusably poor customer service and protection.
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      101. If I understand these WD NAS’s correctly, I’m stunned that the default setup to reach the NAS that’s sitting on a shelf besides me is via a relay at the WD facilities. In what world does that make sense ?
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      102. Love your videos and always have a laugh when you mention the seagulls. But you know a simple noise cancelling microphone can solve that problem. My tip for the day.
        As for WD. I’ll stick with my Synology. Just bought a DS923+ to take over from my trusty DS415play after watching your videos. I do use it as a streaming server but I figured I don’t need transcoding. I tend to use the Handbrake application occasionally to reduce file size and increase playability if needed, but watch most of my videos on a dedicated, LAN connected media PC connected to my TV.
        Keep up the awesome work!
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      103. I was not impacted but this it the exact reason why I will never buy ANY cloud-only equipment. No matter whether that is a simple ring doorbell or a backup system.
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      104. Like many others, I was infuriated by WD locking me out of my data without warning or explanation. I see that many other people were also driven to find new NAS solution and to your channel. I am now a happy new owner of Asustor Lockestor which I bought after watching many of your videos.
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      105. I was impacted by this WD incident. I was not happy with the lack of communication by them that I started looking for alternatives, which led me to your channel. After watching some of your video’s I bought my own TerraMaster NAS system. I had all my files backed up on 2 other devices so I was able to completely setup my new NAS. Thanks to your videos I felt comfortable in being able to setup the NAS. I hesitated before on getting a NAS but now I’m glad I did. Thank you for help.
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      106. After a long week with no indication of the prospect of any solution being offered, I decided to rip the disk out of the device. The data was safe and the disk has now been re-purposed. Ironically, six hours after I did this WD systems went back on-line, but I don’t really care.
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      107. It’s not exactly transparency with your customers when the details only come to light from the hackers contacting a media outlet. I wonder just how long WD was prepared to keep their customers in the dark or if they actually contacted the various national regulators of such a significant breach?
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      108. I’ve been stressed, for over 10 days, haven’t heard anything from WD, only got in touch with my “nas” yesterday. I have now bought a Synology DS220j. I know it’s a cheap version, but that’s what I can afford to pay.
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      109. I was impacted. I was lucky, I’d setup LAN access months before the hack so could still access my data.

        It did cause me a rethink my life choices and I now have a Synology DS220j and enjoying climbing the learning curve, which has been greatly facilitated by your channel.

        Cheers Dude
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      110. It does take a while to investigate an exploit and then develop, test and issue a patch. Shutting a service until they knew what was going on was the right call. A lot of work will have gone into WD getting this exploit fixed. It’s a lot better than Google or OKTA who deliberately hid breaches and left customers exposed for months.
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