I started this post back in August, a week after sliding the drives into my UniFi UNAS Pro. Since then, the server has been quietly and reliably providing network storage for my media server. I had intended for this post to be an introduction to what was at the time Ubituiti’s only storage server. Things have changed since then, but my opinion on the server has not–but, would I have made the same purchasing decision in the current market? No. Since my purchase of this server, a 4 bay and 8 bay model have been announced with SSD cacheing. That being said, the UNAS Pro still exceeds my needs, though if the 4 bay model were available when I purchased the 7 bay UNAS Pro, I would have made that purchase instead. That being said, let’s get on with it…

When I purchased the UNAS Pro, it followed months of planning to build a NAS. I had a parts list roughly thrown together, a plan for the OS I would use (Unraid), and the idea in my head that I would eventually move my media server to the custom build. During this planning process, I kept making compromises on parts and eventually decided that what I would have ended up with would probably be unreliable, not very performant, and cost prohibitive. Additionally, I would added another server to manage–something I’m not very good at doing anyway. Eventually I decided that building my own NAS was just not something I wanted to do, and migrating my media server to a custom built NAS was also something I did not want to take on. Currently, my home server needs are met by several Raspberry Pi 4’s, and an M2 Mac Mini. (Some people will think my M2 Mini is a stupid server, and of those people several of them will be vocal about telling me so, I don’t give a fuck.)

Cue the decision–I would purchase and deploy the UNAS Pro. I had done quite a bit of research on the device and with only needing a storage solution, I thought it would be a great fit for me–I was right. Installation, configuration, and deployment was very easy. Remote file access is available, and simple to use. Integration with the rest of my network stack was seamless. I have no complaints–eve