Review of the UnifyDrive UT2, a battery powered portable NAS device for creatives

When you think about Network Attached Storage (NAS), you generally think about a big box that sits in a closet somewhere and serves up files for your house or maybe even via the Internet. Today's review will shatter that preconception. The UnifyDrive UT2 is a portable NAS device that's focused on not only sharing files on your internal home network, but also has a battery that allows you to copy files from devices such as cameras and drones while you're on the go. It's not currently available for purchase, but you can back the Kickstarter project to get one when it's officially released. Until then, the company has given me a unit to put through the paces to help you decide if it's a product that might fit into your workflow.

Before I get on with the review, I want to remind everyone that this is a Kickstarter project and if you back it, there's no guarantee that the product will ever see the light of day. It seems unlikely that this will be an issue since I have a unit in my hands to test, but Kickstarter doesn't offer guarantees so if you're very risk adverse, you might want to wait until it's available via retail. The Kickstarter ends on November 9th, and should be available to buy directly from the company after that.

With that, on to the review!

Specifications

The UT2 runs UnifyDrive's own custom operating system, UDOS, which is installed on the device's 32GB built-in storage. The UT2 features 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM along with its Rockchip RK3588C ARM processor and a dedicated ARM Mali-G610 MC4 GPU.

The UnifyDrive UT2 has a lot of ports to allow data transfer from nearly any device. There's CFexpress Type B and UHS-II SD card readers which also support TF and CFexpress Type A with adapters, so you can plug storage media from cameras or drones directly into the UnifyDrive UT2. In addition, you have two USB Type-C ports, one USB Type-A port, and an HDMI 2.1 port. Finally, there's a 2.5GbE RJ-45 port for Ethernet connectivity.

The device can be used as an access point to allow multiple people to connect and share files, so the UT2 has WiFi 6 built in.

For storage, the UT2 has room for two, 8 TB M.2 NVMe drives for a total of 16 TB of storage. For this review, we used two 512 MB Western Digital drives.

Finally, the UnifyDrive UT2 has a battery built in. I wasn't able to determine the capacity, but the UT2 can run for roughly an hour on a full charge.

Unboxing Impressions

The first thing I noticed when taking the UnifyDrive UT2 out of the box was the size. Just slightly larger than a flagship cellphone, the UT2 can easily be taken anywhere and even just slipped into a large pocket.

The UT2 looks and feels like a premium product. The device is made of metal and has a rubber sleeve around it to help protect it from falls or bumps in your backpack. However it's small enough to carry around (which is the point!) and is very light.

The color is very subdued and classy and overall it looks very professional. It's also very unassuming, and I can see many people mistaking it for a very large battery pack.

Initial Setup and Configuration

Installation is as straight forward as can be. The UnifyDrive UT2 utilizes two NVMe SSD drives that slide into place and are held down with a screw. The rest of the setup and configuration is done via software.

After plugging the device in and connecting an Ethernet cable, you're ready to begin setup of the UT2. The device gets a DHCP lease from your network and you can then load up the UnifyDrive app on your mobile device to manage the configuration.

The first two screens give information about the process and ask you to agree to the terms of service, while the third screen shows you the device on your network.

After working through those screens, you're asked to update the system to the latest version, which is done automatically, and then create an administrator account.

Finally, you have to configure the NVMe drives. The recommendation is to use what they call UDR, or UnifyDrive Dynamic Raid. This is similar to RAID-1, where data is mirrored between the two drives, but instead of mirroring all of the data, only files and folders you select are copied over. This seems similar to the File History feature on Windows and not a real RAID, but having redundancy is still a good thing.

After that, the device is ready to go and you're dropped into the main screen that gives you the ability to automatically backup your device as well as select various apps.

One odd thing is the choice of DNS servers. While most DHCP clients take the DNS information from the DHCP server, the UT2 decided to hard code two addresses: 114.114.114.114, and 223.5.5.5. These are both Chinese-based DNS servers and it's a little suspicious to me that they would override my configuration. I was able to manually update the addresses to my own choice, but I did not have time to confirm that the settings are actually being honored.

Applications

While there is no official app store like you'd see with a traditional NAS, there are several built-in tools to help run the system. Most of them I wouldn't consider apps - for example, things like "Recycle Bin" and "Settings" are considered applications - but you'll find pretty much everything you'd expect from a base NAS device.

The Monitor app is especially helpful, as it gives a lot of specific details about the UT2, including temperatures of the CPU and M.2 drives, how much disk space and memory are in use, and even how fast the system fan is running.

Despite good coverage of basic apps, the system still has some weird issues that crop up from time to time. For example, when configuring the WLAN hotspot (that lets people connect and share files without an Internet connection if they're local to the NAS), the password is hidden as you type it but is in cleartext on the screen behind the prompt, which feels a bit surreal.

There's some other minor issues with display. For example, when looking at the two drives in the system, it took me awhile to figure out that "Drive bay 1" was a string and "452.9 GB" was a second string, and not that the drive bay had 1452.9 GB, for example.

Since every device now has Artificial Intelligence built in, the UT2 didn't want to be the exception. That said, the facial recoginition was not very good and definitely not on par with something like Synology Photos.

Overall, the built-in tools do what they need to do and, despite some quibbles, work fine. Most people who use this device will be using other tools to actually work with the images and videos.

Use in the Field

The main use of the UnifyDrive UT2 is to get images and videos from non-conneted devices onto the UT2 for backup when away from your home, and the UT2 handles this very well.

As a test, I took my DJI Mini 3 Pro out and snapped some photos. After plugging the microSD card into CF adapter, the UT2 beeped. I pressed the physical copy button on the side of the UT2 twice, heard a couple of beeps, and finally a little later, three beeps indicated the copy was complete. You can watch the entire process in the app as well by launchin the PlugBackup app. Important note (that took me a few minutes to figure out): You have to enable PlugBackup functionality within the mobile app before you can actually copy anything.

Performance when copying files is, as would be expected, very good. When copying files off of the microSD card, it took roughly four minutes for 10 gigabytes of data, or 300 Mb/s. Using the UT2 as an Access Point achieved similar speeds.

It seems to me that the main use case is multiple photographers working a job together and needing to be able to quickly collaborate. If you were working a wedding, for example, one person could be shooting photos, unloading them onto the UT2, and then someone else could begin editing them to create collages or slideshows for a reception, with all of the data centralized to the device itself and all without the need for an Internet connection.

The downside is that although there is a battery in the UT2, you won't be able to do much work with the UnifyDrive without plugging it in. That's because, in my tests, the battery generally lasted just under an hour and started to have random disconnects from time to time after 30 minutes. While this is enough time to power it on, backup your files, and power it off, it woudln't be enough to use it in a dedicated workflow. If you need longer, you can either plug it in or use an external battery pack. The limitation isn't much of a negative though because if you want longer time, you'd need a larger battery, which would impact portability.

Conclusion

Although UnifyDrive is calling this a Network Attached Storage device, the UT2 isn't trying to replace your Synology, QNAP, or TerraMaster NAS in your house. The UT2 is trying to fit into a specific niche for remote photographers and drone operators who want to be able to automatically copy files from their memory cards directly onto a network attached storage while out in the field. This can be helpful to avoid having to purchase as many memory cards or risk having them lost or stolen while out and about, as well as to enable workflows with multiple people on the same project.

Since the UT2 is such a niche product, I don't think most people will have a real use for it. If you're using your phone, you can automatically backup photos to Google/Apple, or buy a device like the previously reviewed BeeStation. If you're flying a drone, you can buy a couple of extra memory cards and back them up when you get home. The software is also still fairly immature, which makes sense since the product hasn't even officially released yet.

That said, if you're a professional photographer or videographer reading this and you work on a team where you need to share files in real-time while in the field, I think the UnifyDrive UT2 could be a perfect solution for you and I suspect the software will only improve with time. The device does a lot of different things and does all of them very well. While not for everyone, it's definitely a unique device that fills a specific need.

As noted before, the Kickstarter is ending soon, but you can back the project for $399, excluding storage.