Introduction

Today we're taking a look at the first two-bay NAS we've tested since 2022, the unit in question is Ugreen's new NASync DH2300. This is also the second Arm based NAS we've tested this year, although it has a generation newer CPU core than the QNAP TS-432X, with four Cortex-A72 main cores, as well as a four Cortex-A53 cores in the Rockchip RK3576 SoC. We'll go into more details about the Rockchip SoC in the closer look part of the review, especially as this is the first NAS we're aware of that incorporates this specific Arm SoC.

The design of the NASync DH2300 is somewhat different from your typical two-bay NAS, as you pop the top off it to access the drive bays. Ugreen uses a different type of drive caddy here compared to those used in its DXP-series of devices, and these are a bit "old-fashioned" in the sense that you have to screw the drives in place. The design is fairly discrete if nothing else and looks quite smart, plus—as it's fairly quiet—it's a device you could use hooked up directly to a living room TV, since Ugreen has a pretty decent media playback feature via the HDMI port.

An obvious downside from the get-go is the fact that the NASync DH2300 only has a Gigabit Ethernet port, and we'll see how much that hampers performance once we get to the benchmarking part of the review. With most consumer NAS devices having moved to at least 2.5 Gbps, this might end up hurting the appeal of the NASync DH2300 for those that shuffle around a lot of files. On the other hand, we're looking at a device that has a pretty low MSRP and often sells for below that. This could make it an attractive option for those that don't have so high demands, although it's by no means the cheapest NAS we've tested here at TPU.

Specifications

Packaging and Bundle

The NASync DH2300 ships in a brown cardboard box and as Ugreen didn't bother putting our review unit in another box, we're not entirely sure about what's on the backside of the box, as it was covered with shipping labels. The NAS itself is held within the box by two foam/cardboard sheets, and there's a separate internal box for accessories.


The accessory bundle includes a quick start guide, a user instruction manual, a support card, two bags of screws, a small screwdriver, an Ethernet cable and a power adapter. The power adapter is from a company we've never heard of before called GVE, or Foshan Shunde Guanyuda Power Supply Co. Ltd., if you want the full name, and it's rated at a rather unusual 50.4 W.


Ugreen also provided us with a pair of 4 TB Seagate IronWolf hard drives for our testing, and we'll use these drives for future two-bay NAS reviews. This also means that the test results won't be quite comparable with other devices we've tested so far.