Greenlink private cloud DX4600 experience: Is now a good time to start NAS?
One of the readers (ID: Canadian Tiger) bluntly said:
"When will (NAS) fly into the homes of ordinary people, just like Apple makes computers not bloated and Dyson makes people fall in love with suction, NAS should be plugged in and ready to use."
Indeed, a good NAS should plug in and go, without being overly complicated.
The good news is that in recent years, as major manufacturers have entered the NAS market one after another, they have also successively launched more diversified products. For users, not only are the options increasing, but the threshold for use is also gradually lowering. However, in order to distinguish it from traditional NAS products, they also have some different definitions of NAS names, such as private cloud, personal cloud, home storage, and so on.
Among them, the Greenlink private cloud series, which focuses on home use and ease of use, should be a relatively distinctive series of products among the new products, and has a high degree of discussion on the Internet.
Recently, we are also experiencing the latest private cloud DX4600 released by Greenlink. After using it, we will find that this new type of private cloud is indeed revolutionizing the experience and gameplay of NAS. It also began to "fly into the homes of ordinary people".
Excellent four-bay configuration, and dual M2 SSD sockets
DX4600 is the third product of "Lvlianyun" (network private cloud storage). Different from the previous two dual-bay products, the Greenlink DX4600 has a four-bay (HDD) setting, and its performance and positioning are closer to the flagship. It is also the most powerful one in the current Greenlink private cloud series.
The packaging is also relatively simple. In addition to the DX4600 body, it also provides a set of DC power adapter (12V/10A), two CAT-6 network cables, heat dissipation silicone grease for M2 SSD, screw accessories and a small screwdriver.
Greenlink DX4600 continues the black and gray texture and simple design style of the whole series of Greenlink products. The shell is made of aviation aluminum, supplemented by a frosted surface, which brings a better texture. 
The front panel is a metal cover with a magnetic suction design, and you can see the four disks hidden in it when you gently remove it.
After taking out the four hard disk brackets, you can see the relatively regular structure inside. There are four SATA interfaces on the black PCB board.
Considering the ease of use, Greenlink has posted prompt signs on the hard disk bracket and the magnetic cover. In addition to the legend, you can also jump to watch the video tutorial by scanning the QR code, which is more friendly for novices.
Since it is a four-bay NAS, we prepared four 4TB Seagate Coolwolf NAS hard drives. (This set of hard drives should be more expensive than the NAS itself)
This is also the hard disk that Greenlink officially recommends. Users without a hard disk can choose the version with a hard disk when purchasing, and the hard disk provided by Greenlink is also this Seagate Coolwolf NAS hard drive.
The DX4600 puts the memory slot and the M2 slot at the bottom of the fuselage. It is equipped with an 8GB DDR4 memory stick by default. Users who need it can add another 8GB memory stick to upgrade it to 16GB memory stick. There are also two M2 interfaces on the side, which support the NVMe protocol (PCIe 3.0), and can carry up to 4TB of SSD on one side.
Since it is positioned as the data management center with the most powerful performance, the four-bay DX4600 can load up to 88TB of storage capacity, including up to 20TB × 4 HDD hard drives, and up to 4TB × 2 SSD solid state drives.
But I don't think many people will directly fill it up and use a single 20TB hard drive. After all, the price of a 4TB or 8TB HDD is more economical and practical, and a 16TB HDD is now about 3,000 yuan. Fortunately, the price of SSD has dropped, so it is very suitable to buy a 2TB SSD to improve the read and write speed.
It should be noted that Greenlink's system supports the use of SSDs to create "storage acceleration packages". A single M2 SSD can activate the read-only mode. If you want to accelerate both reading and writing, you need to fill up two M2 SSDs. .
The two CAT-6 network cables that come with the package are naturally prepared for the dual 2.5G network ports on the back, which can be used to connect to the router.
There is a cooling fan on the back of the fuselage, and Lulian has placed a magnetic dust-proof filter on its surface, which can be removed when cleaning is needed.
All the interfaces of Greenlink DX4600 are placed on the back of the fuselage, including USB-C × 1, USB-A 3.0 × 2, 2.5GbE network port × 2, DC12V power interface from left to right. Of course, there is also a reset button and a power button here. Dual 2.5GbE network ports support link aggregation to 5GbE, which can further break through the bandwidth limit and obtain a higher-speed transmission experience.
And the only USB-C interface can also be used to connect a camera (such as my A7R3) or a high-speed SD card reader to directly save the picture material to the NAS space.
After connecting the network cable and the power cable, the preparatory work of the hardware part is completed.
What's more interesting is that if this USB interface is used to connect an external wireless network card, it can also be directly connected to the WiFi network, which is very convenient for the post-installation environment without reserved wires. Moreover, Greenlink itself also has related wireless network card accessories, such as the AC1300 dual-band wireless network card in the picture, which can directly connect DX4600 to 5GHz WiFi.
It's just that the transmission speed of the wireless network will be slower than that of the wired network. The best way to use it is to use a wired connection to the router.
Self-developed UGOS system, NAS should be plug and play
Greenlink DX4600 is still equipped with Greenlink's self-developed UGOS system, which focuses on convenience and ease of use, so the pre-installed system in the machine does not actually have too many complicated configuration steps. The graphical system interface will guide you step by step on the mobile terminal/computer terminal to complete the configuration of the hard disk. 
In order to show the combined effect of different RAID disk arrays more intuitively, Greenlink provides Chinese and graphic notes on the storage mode selection page.
For example, normal mode, backup mode, balanced mode and extreme mode, and then there are beast mode and safe mode in other modes. It also lists the estimated available capacity, which makes it easier for users to understand and choose when getting started.
And I loaded four 4TB Seagate Coolwolf NAS. Considering read and write performance and security, I chose the RAID5 balance mode. Finally, a total of 16TB space was generated to generate a storage space of 10.91 TB, and 3.63TB of data was reserved. protection capacity.
In terms of network hardware, I connected GreenLink DX4600 with Xiaomi AX6000. Unfortunately, since AX6000 only provides a 2.5GbE network port, it cannot perfectly use the link aggregation peak transmission rate of DX4600's highest 5GbE.
If you want to maximize the peak rate of DX4600, you need to choose a device with dual 2.5GbE network ports. But a single 2.5GbE actually represents most of the actual usage scenarios.
In the case of the same local area network, use MacBook Pro to connect to wireless WiFi, and then upload a 22.99GB video file to the hard disk. The real-time transmission rate is 95~110MB/s, and it takes 3 and a half minutes to complete the transmission.
The convenience of walking outside is mainly reflected in the mobile terminal. The iOS client interface of Lvlianyun is very intuitive, and the position and functionality of the buttons are basically in line with the usage habits of the public.
The access to the external network is also very simple. Both mobile phones and computers can be remotely connected to the Greenlink private cloud at home, access the data stored in the NAS, and complete upload or download operations.
In the actual measurement of Guangzhou Telecom's 5G mobile phone network, the upload speed can reach 2.15MB/s, and the download speed can reach 3MB/s. Of course, this depends on conditions such as the mobile operator's signal at the time, and is also limited by the bandwidth level of the home broadband network.
It can be confirmed that, thanks to the current 5G network and the increase in the rate of fiber-to-the-home, the speed and efficiency of external network access to NAS are satisfactory.
Many functions are pre-installed in the UGOS system developed by Greenlink, among which the "album" function is placed in a more important position, and it also provides the function of "smart classification", which can complete the identification of photos in the terminal. Then classify according to footprints, memories, people, things, etc., which will help us find the photos we want among the massive materials.
I have always had a strong desire for multi-device material management. Now after taking the mobile phone evaluation sample, I can immediately upload it to the Greenlink private cloud DX4600 through the app in the mobile phone. After that, whether it is to share with colleagues or to Heresy viewing will become very convenient. Every time you upload a sample of a mobile phone, a photo album is created for management, which is clear at a glance, and it becomes more convenient and quicker to call pictures.
Most importantly, the existence of a private cloud is not afraid of losing it, and it is also easy to manage.
As for the backup function, it also does a better job. It supports automatic backup and time machine. It also supports WeChat backup on the Android side.
The most gratifying and frequently used offering on UGOS is "Lvlianyun Cinema". This feature was put into internal testing in January this year.
It can automatically scan audio and video files according to the folder path set, and then the system will automatically identify and match the content of the audio and video files, and then automatically create a file and add a poster cover and content introduction. We only need to click on the corresponding content to directly call the player to play.
This means that the audio-visual wall function that needs to be configured with Docker in the past can now be used directly in the GreenLink app, and there is a better viewing experience on both the computer and mobile terminals.
Although its own functions are good enough, the DX4600 is pre-installed with some mainstream and commonly used third-party applications, especially "Baidu Netdisk" and "Xunlei Download".
Through Baidu Netdisk, we can directly manage the file transfer between the netdisk and the private cloud in the interface; through Thunder Download, we can directly download bt and other P2P files in the Greenlink private cloud. Moreover, these two software can also be remotely controlled on the external network, and membership and other rights and interests are also interoperable after logging in.
Greenlink Private Cloud provides a relatively useful "Share" function. Right-click on the file and select "Share". code. Friends can download the file by themselves through the link. 
Perhaps in order to further multiply its own ecology, Lvlianyun also provides "Greenlink Cloud Mutual Transfer" and "Data Migration" functions, so that other Lvlianyun friends can more easily communicate files in the private cloud.
In fact, the rich pre-installed functions have already given Greenlink DX4600 relatively great playability, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as "one app handles everything".
But if you want to advance to achieve more functions, Greenlink DX4600 also prepares Docker containers. Users can install applications or systems such as CentOS in the mirror warehouse to expand more functions and gameplay, which is also the place where configuration performance is the most important. 
In terms of core configuration, in addition to the standard 8GB RAM, Greenlink DX4600 is equipped with Intel's Celeron N5105 CPU, which has 4 cores, 4 threads and 24 core GPUs. This configuration not only provides relatively strong performance, but also has higher energy efficiency ratio and lower power consumption under the same load, which is suitable for long-term stable work. 
I won’t go into details about how to play Docker here. Originally, my main purpose of using Docker was to build an easy-to-use video wall. However, with the continuous upgrading of “Lvlianyun Cinema”, the demand for self-built video walls has suddenly increased. just disappeared. It is commendable that the Lvlian Cloud client still provides an intuitive and beautiful graphical interface for Docker, and the entry threshold for DIY is still not high.
There is no doubt that Greenlink DX4600 has completed the job of this "mustard seed" very well. After a long period of experience, I always feel that the product manager of Greenlink Private Cloud should also have used many home NAS products in depth, and then stepped on all the criticized pits to create such an efficient Simple and feature-rich private cloud NAS comes out.
Another deep impression is that the OTA frequency and speed from this UGOS are relatively in place, and some occasional bugs that appeared in the early stage will be pushed to OTA repair soon.
Then the subsequent versions of OTA also brought many new features. The Lulian Cloud Cinema mentioned above also came with the OTA update, which will continue to bring a sense of "usual and always new" experience.
In general, as mentioned at the beginning, the current private cloud NAS is no longer "the former swallow of Wang Xietang in the old days", and it has begun to "fly into the homes of ordinary people". As for the Lulian DX4600, which has a very high price-quality ratio, I think it will be a time-saving, worry-saving and labor-saving option.
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