ZimaOS – Interview with Lauren Pan, Founder of IceWhale

Last updated on 13 Nov 2025 📧 Subscribe

Who Are IceWhale, Is ZimaOS a Legitimate NAS Software Player, and Are They Ready? An Interview with Lauren Pan, IceWhale CEO

Contents hide
1 Who Are IceWhale, Is ZimaOS a Legitimate NAS Software Player, and Are They Ready? An Interview with Lauren Pan, IceWhale CEO
1.1 When you began building the operating system back in 2021 with a very small founding team, what were those early days like and what were you aiming to create?
1.2 How big is the IceWhale team today?
1.3 Why create ZimaOS when CasaOS already existed?
1.4 What is IceWhale doing to handle vulnerabilities responsibly?
1.5 Would you consider a security bounty program?
1.6 A lot of people were surprised that ZimaOS is only 29 dollars for a lifetime license. How did you arrive at that price?
1.7 Crowdfunding from companies like UGREEN has shown how quickly the market can shift when a new player enters the market. Do you think that changed industry expectations towards Chinese products?
1.8 Would you consider adding surveillance features to ZimaOS?
1.9 Some New and Entry level users find the USB installation process or migration away from an existing NAS to ZimaOS the only difficult steps. How do you plan to address that? Would you consider pre-bootloader-ready USB sticks for retail? Or specific Synology-to-ZimaOS migration tool?
1.10 Will CasaOS be retired any time soon?
1.11 Will there be a new ZimaCube?
1.12 Where do you want IceWhale and ZimaOS to be in five years?
1.13 What moment made you most proud in the IceWhale journey?
2 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?
2.1 Related
2.2 Discover more from NAS Compares

IceWhale is one of the youngest companies in the self-hosting space, yet its operating system, ZimaOS, has rapidly become one of the most discussed alternatives to established NAS platforms. Built on an immutable Linux foundation with a strong emphasis on user experience, ZimaOS aims to combine the approachability of turnkey systems with the flexibility of DIY hardware. Behind that vision is Lauren Pan, the founder and CEO of IceWhale, whose team previously created CasaOS and later shifted focus to a more scalable and controlled platform in ZimaOS. Now that the brand has begun it’s roll out of it’s $29 lifetime license, it has now become apparent that this plucky start up needs to be taken alot more seriously, as well as be weighed critically in the same way other long-established NAS software platforms are.

So, during a recent visit to Shenzhen, I sat down with Lauren for an extended conversation about the origins of ZimaOS, the challenges of building a modern NAS operating system, the company’s rapid growth, and how the wider NAS industry is being reshaped by new players, security expectations, and AI-driven workloads. This interview captures his perspective on product design, community involvement, security, the evolution of the market, and IceWhale’s long-term ambition to bring personal servers into everyday households.

When you began building the operating system back in 2021 with a very small founding team, what were those early days like and what were you aiming to create?

In 2021 the early team was only four members. I found our final CTO at that time, and we started to build the official design. At the beginning we were passionate and wanted to build a comprehensive, robust and customizable operating system for home lab users and tech-savvy people. But after three months, when we reviewed our progress, it was terrible. Even in the early stages you could tell there was something there because it was so light. That lightness was the biggest appeal for many people.  If you didn’t know what you were doing it was a great gateway into experimentation and learning. For people who did know what they were doing, the lightweight design made it flexible. In the first three months we honestly didn’t know exactly what we were building. We pivoted fast. We spent about a month researching Reddit, watching community videos including yours, and we realised people needed a lightweight, easy-to-use command line to set up a home server. That’s where the idea for CasaOS came from.

Fast-growing and successful products come from very sharp product insight. After that insight, the next phase is delivering high quality and building a good reputation through community feedback. This is core to our product methodology.
When we target a feature or user value, we don’t immediately invest heavy development resources. Instead, we speak with community members, moderators, and creators like you. We learn, and listen to how you see things, and watch user experience live on screen.

How big is the IceWhale team today?

Right now we have 35 members. Recently, because ZimaOS has been growing so fast, the operational pressure is high. Our downloads and user base are increasing quickly. So in the coming months we plan to expand the team to around 50 people. The purpose is to continue delivering high-quality support to the community. Our download numbers and user base are growing very fast, and that creates a lot of operational pressure. That is why we are expanding the team significantly. Supporting the community with high-quality responses is one of our top priorities, and growth in the next few months is focused on providing that support.

Why create ZimaOS when CasaOS already existed?

There are two main reasons. First, product direction. CasaOS is very open and we maintained it for more than two years with no license and free global access. However, as the process continued, we gradually realized that relying solely on the existing system architecture could no longer fully meet future requirements in terms of performance, scalability, and stability.. After deep internal discussion, we decided to build the OS from scratch rather than using Debian or mergerFS. This way, we can fully control quality and stability at the infrastructure layer. In 2023 we studied Home Assistant, Raspbian, and best practices in Linux. We built ZimaOS from the buildroot foundation, choosing our own kernel packages and implementing an immutable design. Users cannot modify system files because we focus on stability for daily use. But since many users still want to tinker, we layered Docker Compose on top.

Second, business sustainability. CasaOS used Apache 2.0 licensing because at that time no Chinese company was building a home server OS. We benefited hugely from open-source, so we needed to give back. But some companies began using CasaOS to build their own commercial products. To create a sustainable business cycle we needed a platform we could fully control, and that became ZimaOS.

What is IceWhale doing to handle vulnerabilities responsibly?

We rely on GitHub and created a CVE reporting program. We announced it to the community, and anyone can report security issues. Internally, our development team handles these reports through a structured process. Every Monday we review all community feedback, including security issues, reliability problems, and feature requests. In the last two weeks, especially after your video, installations increased rapidly and so did feedback.

Would you consider a security bounty program?

We are considering it. We need to strengthen our internal capabilities first. Bounty programs can attract both ethical hackers and opportunistic users, but they also help prevent widespread damage. Also, we are still very early into our funding sustainability to commit to something this large.

A lot of people were surprised that ZimaOS is only 29 dollars for a lifetime license. How did you arrive at that price?

The pricing comes from the founding team’s expectations about the market. The NAS industry is still mostly limited to tech-savvy users, but we see a different future. We believe that in the next ten years everyone will have a personal or home server for daily use, home automation, and personal agents. If you evaluate the current NAS market at around one million users, then pricing at 300 dollars, like some competitors, makes sense because their investment is huge. But if you believe the market will grow far beyond that small base, then pricing it at 29 dollars makes much more sense. We think the market will not remain limited to only a few million users.

Crowdfunding from companies like UGREEN has shown how quickly the market can shift when a new player enters the market. Do you think that changed industry expectations towards Chinese products?

UGREEN is a great example. Before their launch I spoke with people at several major brands and many were not worried. They thought UGREEN had no experience and would go nowhere. Then they raised 6.5 million dollars and sold 12,000 units. That was a lot of market share disappearing very quickly. This has really opened the door to a shake-up of private server ownership. In videos, you’ve often talk about control, flexibility, and personal ownership of data. This is core to the philosophical foundation for ZimaOS. When people want to host something themselves, they need full control. I don’t want users to be limited by a specific brand. They should decide how to manage their data, how to customise their apps and services, and how to extend computing power with GPU or 10 GbE. That purpose is at the core of ZimaOS.

We learned from the community that people need flexibility. At the same time, learning technical skills is still hard, so we also provide complete products like ZimaBoard and ZimaCube. This means users can get started quickly if they want an out the box solution. The industry is changing. Traditional NAS brands may move into higher tiers and ignore the bottom tier. New players will reshape the value and mid-range segments. The market will expand, but many brands are not ready for rapid shifts like AI integration.

Would you consider adding surveillance features to ZimaOS?

Not yet. The surveillance market is very large and specialised. Right now we are focused on building a reliable core operating system.

Some New and Entry level users find the USB installation process or migration away from an existing NAS to ZimaOS the only difficult steps. How do you plan to address that? Would you consider pre-bootloader-ready USB sticks for retail? Or specific Synology-to-ZimaOS migration tool?

I agree. Installation is still the biggest barrier for beginners. We are considering better solutions, including pre-prepared media, streamlined installation tools, and future hardware that removes the need for external installation completely. Making that first step easier is important. The idea of a installation-ready official USB with the license ready loaded makes alot of sense, and definitely something we can consider and explore, thank you. With branded migration tools, that is another very good idea. Migration is one of the biggest concerns for users switching from turnkey NAS systems. A dedicated migration tool could completely open the door for them. We should do that.

Will CasaOS be retired any time soon?

No. We consider CasaOS our LTS version. We will continue fixing bugs and maintaining it. There is no CasaOS 2.0 planned at the moment. Its main advantage is ARM compatibility, which few other NAS operating systems support.

Will there be a new ZimaCube?

Yes. In the next three months we will upgrade ZimaCube to the M2 version and announce it soon. It’s an improvement, not ZimaCube 2.0, more like a plus model. It will replace the existing version entirely. The positioning of ZimaCube was right, but I don’t think we made the first generation good enough to compete with new market entrees. So we focused heavily on improving the details while keeping the price. However, ZimaCube priced between 600 and 1200 dollars is still too expensive for the broader market and entry level, so we are investigating internally a product called “Zima Mini” to target the two-bay and four-bay market. More on that in 2026.

Where do you want IceWhale and ZimaOS to be in five years?

Our vision is to serve more than 400 million households and bring a personal or home server to every family. In five years we want IceWhale to be positioned clearly as an operating system company rather than a hardware company. That has become very clear in the last two years.

What moment made you most proud in the IceWhale journey?

There was a moment two years ago, when CasaOS reached around ten thousand community members. In China many people don’t care much about privacy or self-hosting, so when I told local investors that I wanted to build a NAS and open-source OS, they didn’t understand why. They thought we didn’t need it. But when the GitHub project took off, when the Discord community grew, and when users started creating mods without ever speaking to us, I realised they understood exactly what we were building. They understood the vision even though I never explained it publicly. That moment validated everything. It reminded me why I founded the company.

📧 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER 🔔


    🔒 Join Inner Circle

    Get an alert every time something gets added to this specific article!


    Want to follow specific category? 📧 Subscribe

    This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

    Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

    Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry.

      By clicking SEND you accept this Privacy Policy
      Question will be added on Q&A forum. You will receive an email from us when someone replies to it.
      🔒Private Fast Track Message (1-24Hours)

      TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions
      If you like this service, please consider supporting us. We use affiliate links on the blog allowing NAScompares information and advice service to be free of charge to you.Anything you purchase on the day you click on our links will generate a small commission which isused to run the website. Here is a link for Amazon and B&H.You can also get me a ☕ Ko-fi or old school Paypal. Thanks!To find out more about how to support this advice service check HEREIf you need to fix or configure a NAS, check Fiver Have you thought about helping others with your knowledge? Find Instructions Here  
       
      Or support us by using our affiliate links on Amazon UK and Amazon US
          
       
      Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

      ☕ WE LOVE COFFEE ☕
       
      locked content ko-fi subscribe

      Discover more from NAS Compares

      Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.


      DISCUSS with others your opinion about this subject.
      ASK questions to NAS community
      SHARE more details what you have found on this subject
      CONTRIBUTE with your own article or review. Click HERE
      IMPROVE this niche ecosystem, let us know what to change/fix on this site
      EARN KO-FI Share your knowledge with others and get paid for it! Click HERE

      206 thoughts on “ZimaOS – Interview with Lauren Pan, Founder of IceWhale”

      1. Devs needs our support, and I will gladly pay for it. Currently I am using CASAOS on Ubuntu server but will give Zima a try as soon as I can get CUPS working on it. I am migrating to it.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      2. I paid the $99 for HexOS to mess around with, but this is a much better approach to how the beta stuff goes. I’m not trashing HexOS, but ZimaOS is just doing it better. I hope HexOS takes off, I really like HexOS too, but the possibility that the company can go belly under and I don’t have local UX is just sounds a little sketch.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      4. Probably shouldnt put this out there but why not. You can still get the paid version for free. Install from an iso before 1.5.0 and then upgrade once installed. Should work until mid next year when they disable the free upgrades
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      5. Turn OFF Schedule feature. I disagree with you. Turn off schedule feature relates to shutdown , so right place. Maybe you’re used to having everything under system settings or something, but i don’t think they made a mistake there. And nothing prevent them to add it later on somewhere else.
        All UI have learning curves.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      6. You keep saying free application. Is Synology DSM not free? Is Truenas Scale not free?
        I do like the UI, but it seems barebones. I am sure they will implement more features, have to. File sharing (private and public links) are important.
        I also like their different NAS models. Nice design. They need to come up with a 1U server.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      7. Synology Client allow you to Sync local folder to your remote Synology drive. You can define as many folder to sync as you want. It’s a 1 to 1 Folder sync.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      8. Agree. Looks great for nubies. I’ve been playin’ with Unraid. There’s a lot to learn. But I’ve paid OS devs that have “hung in there”, especially for decades, more than $30. OSS has come a long way. And well thought out interfaces come later. They look like they’re going in the right direction. The home NAS sector seems to be having a creative marketing competition…. 😉
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      9. The lifetime license is mostly the first step to a subscription system. When the developers have spent the money from the lifetimers they will still need money to pay their costs and then the subscription will come.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      12. 30 bucks for lifetime? Yeah no that’s actually an incredible price to support an already great product, especially considering how much I’ve been enjoying my Zima cube. It gets mixed reviews but I’ve had zero issues with it (after I swapped the fans for noctua ones lol).
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      14. I’ve been running the iOS app for weeks on my iphone. Works fine. Wish there was a Linux desktop version, but I just use Tailscale to tunnel into my home server and it works just the same.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      17. $29 is fully justified. However I also bought the zimaboard 2 so my premium licence is included. Not enough people these days are supporting hardware and software manufacturers. This isn’t a budget breaker and if you’re using it, support them.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      19. An update about my use of ZimaOS. It’s a wonderful beginner os but has a big flaw, at least for me : you can’t install drivers.

        It’s based on a version of Linux that doesn’t allow for manual driver updates. How do I know that? I plugged a 10gb Mellanox NIC to my ZimaOS machine and it was recognized using lspci command, but there is no drivers built into the kernel of the OS for the NIC.
        I tried to SSH the drivers install but was told by the Devs on discord that drivers installation isn’t possible on the OS.

        Result ? I had to ask on the forum for Devs to add the drivers to the OS. And this is a big bummer for people wanting to use Zima on any hardware they own
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      20. I love zimaos but I’m having trouble where a raid 5 array, which is empty atm, Keeps spinning up every 30 minutes, But there is activity in my pihole from a zimaos website every time the spin up occurs.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      21. A raid 6 easy to apply is a big missing feature, including the fact at the moment a user cannot share files with external friends… i hope the will fix it on V 1.6
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      22. It’s a Chinese company which means they will hand over any and all data to the the Chinese communist government upon request, so I wouldn’t consider it for anything serious. It is unknown if there is even a backdoor or other data export already going on at this point.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      24. I have no idea who would be angry about a $29 lifetime license. Have you seen unraid’s pricing strategy? I love free things, but also don’t want to work for free, so I have no problem with paying other people whose hard work made for software I like. ESPECIALLY when it isn’t a subscription!!! These guys did good work. Quit complaining and pay them the tiny bit of cheddar they are asking for.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      25. i have been using ZimaOS as a NAS/Plex Media Server combo for about a month now and am very happy with it .
        only thing is when downloading apps on the NAS ie transmission or qbittorrent it is quite difficult to actually setup and get working . Could you please do a video showing the install and “setup” of the app – so that the save directory is the same as Plex Media Library , so that after downloading is complete Plex will auto analyze and update the Plex Library.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      28. I deleted zima 1.4 because plex wouldn’t load or find my video files on my second mounted disk. I added the location in settings from zima and within the plex library settings. Was the bug fixed ?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      29. Just setup ZimaOS in proxmox and using it to backup my NAS to an external drive. So far like what I see, and may try it on another NUC, with some apps, etc. I will say it is much improved form CasaOS. Currently running Jellyfin on a NUC with Truenas but may move the box over to ZimaOS. I had a UGREEN for about two weeks, and liked the overall OS and integration. But decided to return it when I got a deal on a UNAS Pro. The ZimaOS is not providing as a backup for that NAS. Keep up the good work, always appreciate your videos.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      31. The greed in subscriptions based software/streaming solutions are killing all of them.
        It also fueling piracy that is moving to local users i2p groups that uses large disk to share and thus going semi/invisible.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      33. Who’s lifetime though? We’ve seen companies revoke this type of perpetual license over and over again. This is based on CasaOS, and CasaOS is genuinely free, maybe that’s a better option? I fear this move will slow adoption of ZimaOS, and this type of software thrives on community engagement.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      34. When Ubiquiti gets iSCSI on the UNAS I will buy this just for a Plex server and ditch my Synology DS920. Good OS tho for other things as well. Good video—thanks for the info.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      35. I agree with the 4 disks on free tier being too tight. If one of those disks is going to be used for the OS, that only leaves 3 for the storage, that is an awkward number, even for someone who just wants to tinker stuff. It should have been at least 5 for the free tier, just to allow some experimentation with RAID5 and RAID10
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      37. First of all; Thx, that u publish this video for the public
        But 2nd; Nope, i duno agreee with u. HexOS and Unraid … Unraid is long anough on the market, so ppl. knew, why its worth to pay or not. HExOS, i can´t say it is worth or not, but it was the same discuss at the beginning of changeing przepolitics at unraid.
        And Plex… oh commeon, to place this as argu… thats poor

        My critics; 3 Users is poor; As privat Person i have 5 ppl. who wanna have access… theirfor i can grab a synology or u green, and it’s fine. As “Community” here; we have over 98 Households, 40 of the are activ in gardening and other; we exchange pictures, videos, news… and i run this over a x86 system, absolut silence, cause ugreen/synology is too loud (Fan).
        And i wrote a lot with IceWhale, .e. The Bee Mini me; u know , 6 nvme , absolut great working together, but 6 nvme….
        And we both know; N150 pcie 3.1 – only 1 Lane per NVME, but the future will come, and 4 NVMEs is the minimum. Devices like the Mini Me will grow… and to pay for every of them, 29 Nickers???
        At the moment, i run 20 Devices; 5 Seriouse ones, the rest for testing; to show my sourunding how good is the gameplay between ZimaOS and this devices;
        And even with the brandNew ZimaBoard (Okay, this will have lifetime udate) its so easy to set HA; but… cube… missing; the old zima devices… ahhh; so;
        Whats left??? Jonsbo N2 (or higher), with N150 or N355 Board (or others); and than the fun will beginn, far away from ready solutions like Synology/Ugreen/others.
        But what we have till now with Zima OS?? A Slid base, nothing more, nothing less.
        Remember beginning f the year, how bad ppl. talk about the ugreen OS; and now… with teh now devices, the have a great os. Much more far away , closer to use, than a zima os was: TTheir success of the last months was bugfixing and implant “few” basics features.
        I waste nearly 9 months to work with this.
        For simple NAs i could have stayed a TrueNas, or for more “Proxmox” or OMV.
        At ZimaOS i still feel as “Beta”_user; and all what i did; p.e beeing part to help to translate… okay, they take it; and when i get the fresh update, there is still “Zwietracht” instead “discord”; and everyone knew, whats discord.
        And at this point of time, where the have a stable/solid base, start to ask for 29 nickers…
        What will be in a year???? When basic features, which u have in UG OS or DSM, are implanted too??? 99 nickers for lifetime???
        Sorry.
        I understand, icewhale would earn money, but the dont have the hardware.
        Their OS can less than my old 2009 NAS System from MEdion (Cheap brand here in europa);
        This was a basic NAS with some multimedia features.
        If i would plug a HD on my Router (okay, forget the speed), i would have nearly the same

        No no no – its the same wrong desission as Synology did with their “HD” brandings
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      39. $30 to give folks who are trying to make serious software for rock solid backup and other tools? a freakin’ bargain. Frankly, they should charge more. Part of the problem is with all this free software, the perceived value of software is in the gutter, and that is a big problem for the community.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      41. So I used this for about a month, and while I love the concept, it left a bit to be desired in my opinion. I liked the mobile app, but found it to be extremely sluggish when used outside my network.. sluggish to the point it would sometimes fail to find my server. l experienced none of this using NextCloud with Tailscale so I attributed it to either their VPN implementation or an immature mobile app. I didn’t try switching to Tailscale, which would have isolated the issue further. I also observed some disturbing network traffic I couldn’t attribute to a specific app, so maybe it was something in the OS itself? Since I don’t need this to replace my TrueNAS/Proxmox servers, and since it was super easy to move back to that setup for my cloud storage and home lab needs, I decided to let things mature a while rather than investigating further. As far as the price goes I would absolutely agree it’s worth the money. 100%. I hope they spend it working on the mobile app and true RAID capability, because if they get those two things nailed down I would prefer this to anything else out there – including many of the all in one solutions available – for the home user.

        Thanks for the commentary!
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      42. $29 for a lifetime licence is a good solution to thank the maker and provide a solid future. Not any problem, ill pay that when the system is good. You can start for free to test it with a minimum setup anyway.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      45. Why should we pai for something that is juat as secure as an external hard drive again. It I am putting the work to DIY a NAS, I want all the RAID configurations out there, including RAID6 and last time I checked they did not suppoerted even 1. Sure they had a very easy way to make a software RAID 0 but that is not safeguard your data is it? Just flash an ubuntu server and you are done.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      46. I was very pleasantly surprised when they listened to the community feedback and got rid of the app limit they had planned. If they hadn’t, I would have left zimaos, but it’s refreshing to see a company take in and apply feedback almost immediately (compared to other recent news).
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      47. $29.99 for ZimaOS or $49.99 for Unraid Is a no-brainer. The most important reason I love Unraid is because it gives you the ability to use whatever drives you have lying around instead of having to go out and purchase 4 or 5 brand new drives at one time. Who has that kind of CASH! Add to that Unraid is a proven stable product that many people are using with a million youTube videos showing you how to do anything under the sun and you shouldn’t even need to know ZimaOS exists!
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      48. Как бы ты это не произносил, это русское слово – Zima. Спроси любого русского и он тебе скажет что это – зима. Снег, мороз и холод. И теперь живите с этим ???????????? Zima = зима = Winter
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      50. So how do you ensure you have multiple installs if you want to get lets say 2 or 3 so you have them covered before they start charging next year? Meaning how is an instance tracked that makes that install unique? I plan to run ZimaOS and replace my xpenology instance but am not ready yet. Be good to get a few installs of ZimaOS in place if your like me, on Proxmox and can do either VMs or LXC’s @NASCompares.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      51. It’s neat they’re giving free Plus. Curious how this is going to affect users who want to reinstall ZimaOS at a later time though.
        It’s just $30, and if your needs are fairly simple, it’s something you can use for years. In that context, $30 is fair imo.
        The only qualm with ZimaOS is it can be pretty limiting if you have to do anything outside of the ‘App Store’ services. Probably the reason ZimaOS should never cost anywhere near what HexOS or Unraid costs.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      52. Just install Zima OS 1.4.1 on a drive to get the free upgrade 😉

        I’ve been using Zima OS since version 1.3 and it’s been smooth for me. i’m a noob at docker, NAS and such. Zima OS is the perfect OS for people like me.

        You install it, and it’s done. Creating RAIDs and such is easy.

        The only “problem” I have with ZIma OS is the impossibility to have SSD caching at the moment
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      53. As of right now, if you install an older version the update you get grandfathered in to the paid version right now.

        Just set my NAS up with ZimaOS this weekend doing this and I have 8 drives connected without paying.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      54. I’m trying it on my new Zimaboard 2 as a possible media center OS. So far, it has some rough edges, but I like it. Not sure if I need to complexity of TrueNAS, though I have been testing it too, and like it. The price seems fair. We all have to eat. No one can sustain working for free.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      58. I paid for HexOS and for ZimaOS so I could test them both. I do like having the TrueNAS backend of HexOS, however, after testing both of these extensively I prefer using ZimaOS over HexOS. That may change in the future, but for me I am running TrueNAS for all my critical data and ZimaOS as a backup and for easy everyday storage options. If I need to spin something up really quick for testing or create a real quick share I always turn to ZimaOS first. If after testing I need a more permanent solution I will then move it to Proxmox. ZimaOS for $29 is way better at this point than HexOS for $199 by far.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      64. Thanks, another great video. I am looking to backup my phone photos at my home (dynamic IP) and out of my home. I know I can used tailscale but is there any way I can do with native to any nas O/S and please don’t say synology ????
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      65. I would pay 29 usd to have a simple NAS OS that provides a plug-and-play experience to have a personal cloud. Something I can only get at the momento by buying a Synology NAS, which at this momento is a little bit more than 29 usd.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      67. Hard to argue that $29 is too expensive. I expect that the mobile client may eventually become a monthly charge, and the $29 is a Trojan horse, but the mobile client is still free as of now.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      68. Have only watched the beginning and end of this viddeo. I am happy to pay a small annual software maintenance and upgrade fee.
        Pay approx £10 / year for an backup application which is highly personalised and pay slightly more for a music / photo / video application. These are not walled gardens – I am not a fan boy – they work and do their job. May I suggest Synology locks people ionto particular applications and people get upset if they are removed. An annual fee is preferable to forced advertising and other dubious schemes.
        . . . . For me 3 NAS devices are just a storage backup solution — other software provides the real value.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      71. Excellent presentation. Thank you. I was just about to download a copy to tinker with it in a VM when I heard you say “no snapshots”. I wont waste my time. Maybe when they add snapshots I will give it a demo.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      73. I think this is a reasonable value at 29USD. It’s actually the direction I thought Synology would have gone with DSM (although probably starting at a higher price tier).
        As with all lifetime licenses, it remains to be seen what that actually means.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      74. Slightly OT : I wanted to try ZimaOS so that I could install it as a VM on my QNAP. But, I could only find an IMG file and QNAP requires an ISO. Renaming the file did not help as some suggest. Any ideas ?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      81. Nice video, but I tried it and it is nowhere close to be considered as a normal nas system. It is a child toy after working with truenas, ugreen and unraid. Installed it, tried, uninstall to be never touched again. Installing back truenas. Have 5 nas systems. 3 are truenas, one ugreen and one unraid (no sub bought it years ago for$40)
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      82. This is a great video thank you. Unfortunately ZimaOS is not great. After purchasing the Plus upgrade, still cannot get it to work properly on non Zima hardware. Just constant UI issues, cannot select or create RAID even with identical brand new disks, formatted, not formatted…doesn’t matter.
        I troubleshot for 2 days, finally had to accept that this OS wasn’t going to work for me and gave up.

        Sucks, I really wanted it to work but it clearly is not ready for prime time.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      84. thank you for the video. I’m very interested. quick question that might be pertinent to many who have mixed hard drives. does zimaOS support JBOD + snapraid (container hopefully) for parity?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      85. Been using CasaOS for a couple of years and it’s pretty good. ZimaOS looks like it fills many of the gaps in functionality. Definitely going to give it a try.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      86. I like their OS for simple stuff. I turned my gen1 Zima board into an nginx proxy the other day. I could have just done a linux distro but it’s always fun to try other stuff and I can give my less tech leaning family and friends this as a good NAS and service option.

        Good stuff, thanks for the good video as always.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      87. Sadly, while I like the idea of ZimaOs and this was a great video – I have killed two USB sticks trying the install. Downloaded BalenaEtcher and ZimaOs, Followed the instructions and as soon as the creation process finished the USB disapeared from File Explorer. It was not listed as a USB to be ejected. It was not recognized as existing let alone a boot source on the old laptop I was intending to practice with. So, on the next experiment.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      90. As a sidenote: ZimaOS is made by IceWhale Technology Ltd. located in Shanghai, China. So bear in mind that Xing Jingping might have easy access to your personal data. Don’t be fooled by its artistic UI.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      91. noo, this OS still has a long way to go until it’s a usable an reliable as a NAS system. Installed this on brand new hardware and experienced some weird ass behaviours with it. Restarting the NAS caused it to enter a boot loop, the only way to resolve the problem was to physically unplug it from power sources, press and hold power button did not have any effect on it. Another issues was with my intel i225-v network card which was either working on 100mbps mode with internet connection or 1000mbps but no internet connection, simply stupid problems. The OS is good and polished, got immich and jellyfin with transcoding working really fast but reliability and hardware compatibility are real issues with this OS.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      93. You just saved me 250$. I’ve currently on unRAID trial. Its good, but not 250$ good. I’m truly impressed with ZimaOS. I can live with a few flaws for saving hundreds of bucks.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      94. After TrueNAS’s updates recently, it seems to have broken my media pool, so now I’m looking at ZimaOS, I’m just worried about getting my pool imported from the Drives that was in TrueNAS to be used here, looking forward to trying it though.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      95. Totally agree! Used TrueNAS for years, from Core to Scale. Tried OMV which was confusing and looked so outdated. Had a TerraMaster which was just useless. Was never going to try Unraid, as it was subsription only….ZimaOS is by far is the best and easiest solution I have ever found after searching for years, and whats more, it’s totally free!!! Well Done ZimaOS and thank you. please keep up the excellent work.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      96. Loved your truenas videos, followed your guides to setup my Beelnk ME Mini with 24TB of storage. It was a great replacement to my QNAP turnkey unit I’ve had for 5 years or more.
        Then I discovered this video and ZimaOS. Blew away my TrueNAS, installed this, got up and running in record time. No fudging with SMB permissions. ZimaOS just works. I’m now replacing QNAPS with similar setups using ZimaOS. It is as close to turnkey as you can get.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      98. Beginner Friendly I think not! I’ve wasted too many hours on ZImaOS.
        I was really hoping this would be the open Source Linux, Synology killer! as I hate the Apple like walled Garden Synology bring, with the use their hardware, drives ect. cant just reuse HP or Dell office PC.

        some apps work right after install like openspeedtest, Scrutiny, Syncthing & others like Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Btop; they install, but wont run.

        ive invested & lost so much time using ChatGPT & Grok, scrolling BigBear, going thru logs and trying to get the crap to run.

        but yeah don’t waste your time on ZimaOS, the file system works well but forget about using it for anything else like Apps. its just not ready
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      99. I have no idea how people have been able to install this. I have tried on several computers. Never am I able to boot the final install. I’ve tried all of the secure boot diabled / UEFI modes there are and nothing works. I’ve tried installing to final media via balena and also using the USB installer on the final machine. Neither solves this issue. I have no idea what is going on and suspect it is still something with EFI not being written correctly to the final media.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      101. My Beelink ME Mini NAS is on the way along with 4x 4TB drives. I’ve wanted to set up a home NAS for quite some time and your videos have been very helpful in understanding everything and what HW works for me. I was 90% leaning towards TrueNAS and 10% considering UNRAID. I’m about to put both of those on pause and seriously consider ZimaOS. I really like what I’m seeing here, especially for a novice type like me. ????
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      102. Would you try to use current Zima Os (August 2025) vs UGreens upgraded (August 2025) OEM install on the Ugreen Dxp 4800 plus with 2 storage pools, pool 1: a 2x 1 TB NMVe in Raid 1 and pool 2 : 4 x 10 TB HD in raid5. Use profile of Jellifin for transcoded 1080p some 4k movies,TV series / music, / light Home Assistant. , Thanks CLM
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      106. I slapped ZimaOS on an old 2012 Mac mini and everything worked other than the old Broadcom wifi built in. Even the Thunderbolt 1 controller using a 10G adapter from Sonnet using the Aquantia chipset. I have two SATA 8TB Samsung SSD’s in it booting off a little USB stick running as a backup NAS. Plex even has an option for the i7 iGPU for transcoding but it doesn’t seem to be working right still using 100% CPU maybe iGPU is too old.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      107. Im normaly a shell guy i hate true nas scale the permisions are way to weird, i would rather use nfs-kernel-server/samba directly. But this seems to be usable.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      108. it is for beginner only and believe me, you will start as beginner but hit the limits very fast. Lack on support, no way to proper config networks for VMs, see half of the app store is just unuasable, so you will start learning and see you need more. I did play with Zima OS after replacing synolgy and qnap hardware, but got stuck in so many small issues, just not worth it. So finally i deleted and did start again, ubuntu server …. or maybe proxmox? If you need a GUI , take Ubuntu desktop und have the freedom to dig below the surface if needed. just my 2 cents
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      109. 1 year ago in your ZimaCube Pro review you tore the ZimaOS a new arsehole basically leaving me with the impression it was total crap. Has it actually improved that much in a year to completely change your opinion of it? Because if so, that says something.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      110. For me, ease of use is king. It’s why I still current use Synology despite all the issues. I”m not a HomeLab user, or a network or system engineer. I don’t mind paying money for something that is easier to setup and manage, but I also love free if it can deliver. This looks great though seems to be missing crucial systems like ZFS and mixed drive support which is pretty important for me. 90% of my Synology is for media, and I’ve been looking at different options for migrating from my Synology, so this is something I will definitely be keeping an eye on.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      113. Ummm…I dont know if you know this or not, but CasaOS sends a ton of data to China. I know this bc I tried it, did a packet analysis, then stopped using it after a couple weeks, and then a few months later, a range of IP addresses from China attempted to bruteforce into my server via SSH. The features CasaOS offers are awesome with the built-in file manager in the browser. But the spyware on it is a big no-no.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      115. You neglected to mention that apps like Plex can’t easily be updated. there are convoluted things you have to do including running commands via CLI that are a huge PITA to figure out for a newbie. This review kinda makes it seem like it’s newb friendly but it’s really not.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      116. I was trying out Truenas on my spare minipc, before this video appeared, and was not having much look getting it to do various backups from my other NAS’s. Switched the mini over to Zimaos and have played with it for the last week. So far I have been very impressed and learning new procedures every day. Got it to back up from my other NAS’s and syncing files through syncthing. Backing stuff up from phone using the client tool was easy. Viewing all files via the client tool is easier and quicker than both Asustor and QNAP clients. I gotta say, so far i am very impressed. Will definitely consider going down this root when I buy my first non-turnkey NAS/
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      120. eMMC is trash, literally
        it is scary that hundreds of $ machines uses it as boot drive because once they fail, that machine is e-waste
        eMMC wears out crazy fast and most of the time they’re not replaceable
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      121. ZimaOS 1.4.2 is now a release candidate, not beta. When creating storage space, JBOD and RAID6 are now supported, and a new storage creation interface is available. Also, it supports SSL certificates for better access security. Please do a follow-up video.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      122. Need some help to install ZimaOs on my Beelink ME mini as I can’t find any tutorial online. I have downloaded the ZimaOs image have it flashed on a USB drive, but how to proceed then ?? Can’t find it… Help is very much appreciated or a reference to a (how to) guide. I have both a Mac (M2) and a windows PC available… Anyone who wants to share experiences installing ZimaOS on the Beeline ME mini ?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      125. I spend 40K on storge devices, and they don’t have anything like this client tool, will be keeping an eye on ZimaOS from this point onwards.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      126. Towards the end, you said my main concern – is it finished? No. I have a Zima blade and I tried it on that and then I tried it on an older 7600 I had lied around and it was OK but every like couple weeks there was an update. And either I don’t need to be updating it every couple weeks for a feature change or feature add versus trying to make it more stable. I’m about to rebuild another small PC and may put Zima OS on that but I might just go for true scale and just load everything I need as a container.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      131. Repurposed a small Acer XC895 and installed it to see how would run. It’s pretty efficient as energy, at idle cpu only takes about 1W. Even though the network share works, I could find a way to access a media folder to use with either jellyfin or plex. Maybe I missed something, but it doesn’t look bad. As for WM’s it’s interesting that they offer windows 10 and 11 natively.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      133. I always loved the UI Zima has, but in terms of mixing in drives of different sizes, unRAID is the only game in town. Been running it since 2014-15.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      137. 4:04 – Say what?! QNAP don’t charge for Thunderbolt usage “thousands of dollars”. The cost is much lower and is mostly connected with the hardware you get in the NAS as well as the Thunderbolt license fee. So great you have it “for free” here… But you pay for hardware with TB eventually…
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      138. Do i understand it correct??? The NAS Device can run on WLAN, and there is no ethernet connection needed? Means; i can place my Me Mini anywhere in the room, run ZimaOS on it and connect with my Laptop with Wifi only????
        Wow… where is the guideline, to realizes this??? For me it would be helpfull, p.e. place the MeMini beside my AudioDevice (HomeCinema) which is far away from the router.

        To ZimaOS. I use the Version from before, yes, it informs me about updates, on a J4125Device with 4 HDs (Backup), and on a cwwk p6, both booted from usb, work fine, and i used it since the days switched from debian12/CasaOS to zima, means since 6 or 9 months just for privat use only, because beside there runs a ugreen and a synology.
        It beginns as “test”, but meanwhile, cause it´s that easy, i really love it for “simple” Nas Devices, means, nothing happend, if a thief came and hack the system and even non it related ppl. like it, cause it´s really that simple as it was p.e. the synology OS (DSM) was it for them before… and teh fear the new politics of synology (useing only own HDs)
        Can u use ZimaOS fully ? Yes, i can recommand. Will it be upgraded? Of course.
        At Casa OS i had the feeling, i am on a “dead end” street, the most important things p.e. security, wasn´t followed anymore, but while my testperiod an Zima, and seeing..okay, the work on it, my trust came back, and it was never so easy t build a Device as U wish it, and i gave TrueNas, OMV and a lot of others a fair chance… but when u wanna keep it simple and fast, whithout study a handbook full of things, u will never need, or forget during the next 14 days… i can recommand
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      139. Great video (as always ????) Can ZimaOS be used on a Beelink ME mini NAS and would that be a good and simple beginner-NAS option, imo this looks a great combination, would love your feedback on this @NAScompares
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      143. Okay you have convinced me. ZimaOs looks great. There’s also going to be way more support for zimaos than the simplier casaos that im currently using on my Beelink ME mini
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      144. Hope it isn’t as crap as CasaOS, tried that for awhile on my server that previously ran Unraid and it somehow found it necessary to remove my entire media library after rebooting for some random reason, reverted back to Unraid right after that. Luckily I made a backup????
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      146. This video was great… Next time please test what happens when you reinstall the os, or you need to repair a raid array. It’s like 10 minutes… Zima right now will need massive command line work in BOTH scenarios to get your data back… From the gui you can’t add an existing raid array back to a new install, or fix an array after a drive failure. You can’t even see the data in a degraded raid 1/5… As a nas os this is not even a thing anybody should consider right now…
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      147. Great video, I’ve ordered a Beelink ME Mini and have 3 x 4TB M.2 drives ready to go. I was leaning toward TrueNAS, but this is certainly worthy of some investigation, I think I may well install this to see how it goes.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      152. Currently a Synology 1520+ user. And i only use it as a plex/jellyfin server. I’m looking to bail on Synology. My question is. Would this be a good fit for someone that just uses their NAS as a plex/jellyfin server? Or am i wrong in that assessment?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      154. How good zima os manage ZFS like creating datasets and snapshots, as far as i onow still does not support, as workaround is it possible to install cockpit to manage zfs?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      156. I don’t trust ZimaOS because its buildbox, meaning it doesn’t have a normal Linux console, so if something breaks (and with this so prone to breaking, it definetly will) you cannot fix it, outside of the GUI. And that is my worry, because all other nas systems, even the proprietary ones such as Synology DSM and Asustor ADM have a console/SSH session
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      158. Would you please give information on the N150 NAS device that you were using? Also would it be possible to dual boot this with Windows 11 on a mini computer? Thanks very much.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      164. ZimaOS isnt Arm CPU compatible like CasaOS is, and IceWhale hasnt updated CasaOS since December 18, 2024 which is sad because it makes me feel like they have decided to stop supporting the development of CasaOS in favor of ZimaOS even though they stated in there blog post “We want to reassure our Casaos community that this new venture will not diminish our commitment to CasaOS itself.” Whats worse is that in a lot of their marketing material, they compare Zima and Casa OS in a way that makes it look like choosing to use Casa OS over Zima is a mistake. I was really hoping to have an alternative to Open Media Vault…
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      175. Thanks for the video Robbie. But regardless of the features, it fundamentally security compromised.

        I like the idea of what Zima OS is trying to do, but there’s a huge elephant in the room that nobody is talking about. Ice Whale (the company that makes ZimaOS and CasaOS) is a Chinese company based in Shanghai. So there’s no avoiding that data security is fundamentally compromised just due to that.

        This isn’t a problem unique to Ice Whale, but with EVERY Chinese OS, including fnOS and the derivatives from Orico and Minisforum, primarily due to the 2017 Chinese National Intelligence Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China). This law requires ALL Chinese companies to put spyware and/or other software (like remote control or kill switches) into any product that the government orders. Not only do they have no choice, but the must do it covertly.

        With PCs, Servers and NAS hardware, we can roll the dice and consider the risks as manageable… but only if we KNOW the software isn’t compromised.

        I’m not trying to cast aspersions on Ice Whale, Minisforum, Ugreen or Orico, I think they’re making interesting hardware, even though I wish they’d stay in their lane better and follow CWWK’s and AOOSTAR’s example of staying out of the software. None of these companies is in control of whether they will be forced to imbed government malware, and if that happens then they couldn’t even warn us (even if they wanted to).

        With fnOS (also known as 飞致云/FlyCloud) it’s a different story. The software is almost certainly compromised, even though nobody has caught them red handed yet. Feiniu’s business model screams of some sort of back door government funding, and the code is partially closed source, which makes it quite suspicious. All the quick and dirty derivatives from Minisforum, Orico, Ugreen and other are fast ways for these hardware companies to try to reach feature parity with Synology and Qnap, but in doing so, they inherit whatever security compromises that Feiniu has hidden in their software. And who knows, some of the companies may even want the back doors that fnOS provides so they can get the government off their back without doing a lot of work.

        Even if any of these companies built their software from scratch, as Ice Whale has done with ZimaOS and CasaOS, they would still attract government attention and could just as easily be forced to embed spyware/malware even if that wasn’t in their plans at all when they started.

        There’s not a lot of proof yet, but there is a LOT of suspicion, and these sorts of government mandated security compromise have been found embedded in solar inverters and other equipment manufactured in China.

        So, while I think it’s probably OK to use the hardware, I don’t think it’s worth the risk to use any of the software coming from China.

        The big question is, am I the only one that’s concerned about this? Or do you guys agree?
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      177. If they are giving the software away for free to users who bring their own hardware, where does the company make their money? This gives me a bit of privacy concern.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      179. Thanks for the introduction. I’ve been testing it on an older thin client for a while now. The software has been greatly improved. The built-in features are very well implemented and work well.

        The problem is the quality of the apps, some of which are very old versions. I’ve had a lot of problems with this, as the tools weren’t deployed.

        If the apps, which are known to be based on Docker, don’t work properly, the user experience is only half as good.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      185. For someone wanting something very straightfoward and basic, it is decent. Sadly the interface doesnt have a massive amount of options or configuration you can setup though.
        I would say its a good starting point for people but as you start to tinker OMV, Truenas or anything else is a better choice.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      186. @NASCompares did you ever test the QNAP TL-R400S vs. TL-D400S? Mostly interested in the noise and unraid compatability (if it passes through temps, smart etc. etc. and if it stops the disks) apparently some of them don’t for some reason
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      187. I hate this it’s like the unas you have to use like drives and I like the ability to use different sized drives. If anyone comes out with a nas or software that will allow that it will be a game changer
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      194. I’m curious how this will compare with orico. I passed I. The zima nas and went with n1000 orico nas. The 11 hdd is what won me over. They claim to have better chip the. Other models on market… problem is other models are now launching new models that have even better chips
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      195. I’ve been looking forward to your review of ZimaOS and enjoyed watching it. Thank you!

        I’ve tested ZimaOS on a small N150 PC and really liked it. At this point, I prefer ZimaOS over Hex as Hex is still in very early stages and is too basic to me to use on it’s own. I find myself just opening the Truenas side since the Hex dashboard is still so limited.

        I have a Beelink Me Mini on order and have 6 nvme drives waiting for it. Once that gets built, it will be my primary NAS and the HexOS server will be a backup until the day I find HexOS built out enough to make me prefer it over ZimaOS. Who knows when that day will come though. Hex is taking their sweet time getting out of beta and into V1. ZimaOS is actually usable on its own to me today.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      197. It’s a nich market(DIY NAS OS), and too many players, so you have to have something unique, I didn’t like Zima or Casa because they didn’t have anything new to offer, glad they start to change that.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE

      198. So, Zima OS should work similarly Beelink Mini NAS?
        Does Docker or containers work outside of Zima OS App Store?
        Just looked at documentation looks like to run a random Docker app they force you to adapt it to their App Store.
        I want to experiment with various combinations of data / data analytics containers.
        Looks like UGreen would be better choice for me testing docker containers and a BeeLink Mini NAS with Ubuntu/Docker/Portainer would be better for me for on the road demonstrations of various configurations (a pure Docker application server). Adapting a Docker Compose to run on ZimaOS/CasaOS would be a lore priority for my use case. But, if you are looking for a NAS that runs containers like a phone App Store (waled harden) ZimaOS might be a good choice.
        REPLY ON YOUTUBE