🔍 Read the full analysis: Our Guide To Choosing And Setting Up A NAS For AI on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
Get the latest gadgets delivered free with Prime
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
- Member-only deals all year
TL;DR
Thorsten Meyer says a sync-service backup created 29 conflicting database-dump copies and left a server with 2% free disk space. He has bought a six-bay UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro, but as of November 1, 2026, it is not connected or configured; its backup plan and acceptance tests remain unverified.
Thorsten Meyer says a sync-service backup created 29 conflicting database-dump copies and left a server with just 2% free disk space, prompting him to buy a six-bay UGREEN NAS for his small AI and publishing operation. As of November 1, 2026, the NAS has been delivered and equipped but is not connected to the network; the proposed setup has not yet passed its tests.
Meyer’s account on ThorstenMeyerAI.com says two machines uploaded a database dump with the same filename to one iCloud folder. The resulting conflict copies accumulated until the database server was nearly full. He also reports that on October 29, a nightly job failed to delete old copies before a timeout while iCloud was busy. The backup itself completed, he wrote, but managing the copies did not.
The purchased system is a UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro, fitted with four Seagate IronWolf Pro 16 TB hard drives and one NVMe SSD. Meyer cites UGREEN’s specifications: six SATA bays, two M.2 slots, a 10-core Intel Core i5-1235U, two 10GbE ports and 8 GB of DDR5 memory, expandable to 64 GB. He says he chose six bays over a less expensive four-bay model to leave room for additional drives.
His planned storage layout uses four drives in RAID 6, which he estimates would provide about 32 TB of usable capacity and tolerate two drive failures. The SSD would hold containers and test databases in a separate pool. These figures describe the intended configuration, not tested performance or a completed installation. Meyer says he paid for the NAS and drives himself; UGREEN did not provide or sponsor them, and the article is not a review or long-term test.
Infographic 01 · The box
Six bays, two fast slots, two 10GbE ports
What UGREEN lists for the NASync DXP6800 Pro, and how we plan to fill it.
How we fill it
Delivered and equipped; the setup is our plan (1 Nov 2026)
Bays 1–4: Seagate IronWolf Pro 16 TB, RAID 6, Btrfs → ≈ 32 TB usable, any two drives may fail. Bays 5–6: free for growth. M.2 slot 1: the NVMe SSD (ordered: Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB) as its own fast pool. Slot 2: free. Six 16 TB drives in RAID 6 would give ≈ 64 TB.
What else UGREEN lists
From the product page, not measured by us
- Separate 128 GB SSD for the operating system, UGOS
- RAID: JBOD, Basic, 0, 1, 5, 6, 10
- 1× PCIe x4 · 2× Thunderbolt 4 · 8K HDMI · SD card reader
- Power: 43.07 W drives in use · 24.91 W drives in hibernation
- Stated maximum: 208 TB with 32 TB drives · 3-year warranty
Why six bays: with RAID 6, two drives always hold parity. In four bays that leaves half the raw space usable; with all six bays filled it becomes two thirds.
Sources: UGREEN DXP6800 Pro product page, checked 1 Nov 2026; Seagate IronWolf Pro data sheet DS2129.4; our setup plan, 6 Oct 2026.
Powered by Thorsten Meyer AI
Faster Local Recovery, Separate Safeguards
The purchase addresses more than storage capacity. Meyer reports that his current backup need is about 6 to 8 TB, while the immediate problem was unreliable copy management and the time needed to restore large amounts of data from offsite storage. A local NAS could provide a nearby restore point, although it would not prevent the recurring kernel panics he says have affected the database Mac since August.
The planned design also separates storage roles: local backups on hard drives, snapshots intended to resist accidental deletion, and an encrypted offsite copy. Meyer says each Mac would use its own non-admin account with a storage quota. The offsite copy would use restic to Backblaze B2 with Object Lock. These are proposed protections; none has yet been shown to work in this installation.
For readers running AI tools on several machines, the account highlights a practical distinction: keeping files synchronized is not the same as maintaining a recoverable backup. A sync system can reproduce deletions or duplicate errors as well as wanted changes. A separate backup destination may help, but only if access controls, retention and restoration are tested.
Popular right now
Vitamix Propel Series 510 Professional-Grade Blender, 3 Programs, Black
Ninja CREAMi Scoop & Swirl 13-in-1 Ice Cream and Soft Serve Maker (NC701)
Dyson Airwrap i.d. Multi-Styler for Straight and Wavy Hair
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
From Sync Conflicts to NAS Purchase
Meyer describes his operation as a small fleet of always-on Macs: one runs the main Postgres database for a publishing system, another hosts local AI models, and others run content pipelines and tests. In measurements taken October 6, he says the main desk machine used about 2.6 TB, the database server about 744 GB—including a 293 GB database—and the model server about 3.2 TB, mostly downloadable model files.
He also reports that the database machine has experienced recurring kernel panics since August, at its worst roughly every five days. One crash on August 8 caused 2¼ hours of database downtime, according to his account. He says test databases running in Docker on his laptop had also expanded a virtual disk to about 30 GB.
Meyer’s reasoning follows the familiar 3-2-1 backup approach: keep three copies, on two types of media, with one copy offsite. He cites US-CERT guidance and says a local NAS would add an on-site storage medium, while cloud storage would remain the offsite layer. The NAS is not intended to replace that remote copy.
“A sync service is not a backup.”
— Thorsten Meyer, ThorstenMeyerAI.com
Setup and Recovery Tests Still Pending
The NAS has not been connected to Meyer’s network, and the planned Time Machine test with a non-admin account and test of snapshots that the account cannot access or delete have not run. Meyer says the system will be returned if either test fails. Until then, the proposed RAID layout, account restrictions, snapshot protection and offsite workflow are plans rather than demonstrated safeguards.
It is also unclear how quickly the system will restore the database in practice, whether its drives will sleep during office hours as planned, or how reliably the complete backup chain will operate. Meyer says disk-heavy work is intended to run from 20:00 to 06:00. He has not reported measured noise, energy use, transfer speeds or recovery times, and says he will report results after the NAS is running.
Acceptance Tests Before Deployment
Meyer’s next step is to put the NAS on the network and run the two acceptance tests before relying on it: a Time Machine backup using a non-admin account and a check that snapshots remain inaccessible to that account. If both pass, his plan is to configure the RAID 6 storage, use the SSD for containers and test databases, and add encrypted offsite copies with deletion protection.
Until those steps are completed, his existing backups remain in place: local Time Machine disks on two Macs and an iCloud copy of the nightly database dump. The next meaningful update will be evidence from the live setup, particularly whether backups and restores work as intended.
Key Questions
Has the NAS been installed and tested?
No. Meyer says it had been delivered and fitted with four hard drives and an NVMe SSD by November 1, 2026, but was not yet on his network. The acceptance tests had not run.
Why did Meyer choose a six-bay NAS?
He says the six SATA bays leave more room to add drives than the four-bay model he had compared it with. The NAS also has two M.2 slots, according to UGREEN’s specifications cited in the article.
How much capacity is planned initially?
Meyer estimates about 32 TB usable from four 16 TB drives in RAID 6. That is a planned capacity figure, not a tested result, and usable space can vary with formatting and system overhead.
What will happen if the NAS tests fail?
Meyer says the NAS will be returned if either the non-admin Time Machine test or the snapshot-access test fails.
Will the NAS replace cloud backups?
No. Meyer’s plan keeps an encrypted offsite copy in Backblaze B2, alongside local NAS storage. He says he will not use a UGREEN cloud mirror as the offsite backup.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
