UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus
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The UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus is a network storage box built only for SSDs. It has four M.2 NVMe slots and no hard drive bays, so it suits people who care more about speed and silence than raw capacity: video editors pulling footage over the network, photographers, and home users who want a small, quiet NAS. It pairs a 10-core Intel Core i5-1235U with a 10GbE port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and Wi-Fi in a case about the footprint of a Mac mini. Capacity decides the purchase. With the largest M.2 drives the maker supports, four slots top out at 32TB before any RAID protection, and flash costs far more per terabyte than hard drives.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Four M.2 NVMe slots in a case about 7 x 5.6 x 2 inches | No hard drive bays; capacity tops out at 32TB raw |
| 10GbE port measured near line rate in file copies | Only one wired network port |
| Two Thunderbolt 4 ports for direct connection to a laptop | Slots 3 and 4 run at PCIe 3.0 x2, well below slots 1 and 2 |
| Core i5-1235U with Quick Sync for Plex or Jellyfin | M.2 drives with heatsinks do not fit under the cover |
| Silent at idle in Liliputing’s sound-meter test | Warranty is two years, not the three UGREEN gives its other NASync models |
| Second SO-DIMM slot takes RAM to 64GB | No SD card reader, and the headphone jack did nothing at review time |
UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus Comparison Chart
![]() UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus | |
| Price | List Price: $899.99 Amazon Prices: Loading prices... |
| Version | 8GB, diskless |
| Drive Bays | None |
| M.2 Slots | 4 x M.2 NVMe, storage pool only Slots 1-2 PCIe 4.0 x4, slots 3-4 PCIe 3.0 x2 |
| Max Raw Capacity | 32 TB |
| Included Drives | None (diskless) |
| System Drive | 128GB M.2 2242 SSD |
| Processor | Deca-core 3.30 Ghz (max 4.40 Ghz) Intel Core i5-1235U |
| Hardware Transcoding | Yes (Intel Quick Sync) |
| RAM | 8 GB DDR5 SO-DIMM Max 64 GB, 2 slots 8GB DDR5-4800 in one of two slots |
| ECC Memory | No (DDR5's built-in on-die ECC only) |
| Network Ports | 1 x 10GbE RJ45 |
| PCIe Slot | No |
| Expansion Unit | None |
| Operating System | UGOS Pro |
| Third-Party OS | Yes (Allowed; UGREEN does not support it) |
| File Systems | Btrfs, ext4 |
| USB Ports | 1 USB 3, 2 USB-C Rear: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-A 10Gbps |
| Thunderbolt Ports | 2 |
| HDMI | 1 |
| WiFi | Yes |
| Idle Power | 18 W (UGOS Pro idle on one Ethernet link, NVMe SSDs installed) |
| Load Power | 55 W (Writing a 100GB file over 10GbE, NVMe SSDs installed) |
| Power Supply | 140W external |
| Noise | 42 dB (100GB file copy, meter next to the unit; under 30 dB at idle) |
| Dimensions width x length x thickness | 7.05 x 5.59 x 2.05 inches (179.07 x 141.99 x 52.07 mm) |
| Weight | 2 lbs (0.91 kg) |
| Released | 2024 at $999.99 |
| In the Box | Main unit, 140W adapter, Cat 7 cable, 4 thermal pads, M.2 screws, manual. |
| Expandability | RAM to 64GB (2x SO-DIMM). 4x M.2 2280, no heatsinks. Thunderbolt 4 and USB for external drives. |
Four SSD slots, one 10GbE port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports
The aluminum case measures 7.05 x 5.59 x 2.05 inches. A cover on the front hides the four M.2 2280 slots, and the rear carries the 10GbE RJ45 port, HDMI rated for 8K, a USB-A port at 10Gbps, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Power comes from a 140W external adapter. UGREEN ships thermal pads for the drives instead of heatsinks, and the cover’s built-in fan sits so close that TechRadar could not refit it over a low-profile heatsink SSD. Plan on bare M.2 drives.
The M.2 slots do not share bandwidth evenly. Slots 1 and 2 get PCIe 4.0 x4, while slots 3 and 4 run at PCIe 3.0 x2, according to TechRadar and Android Police. Even the slower pair is faster than the 10GbE port, which caps any network transfer near 1.25GB/s, so the split matters most for work done on the box itself or over Thunderbolt. TechRadar suggested mirroring the drives instead of a four-drive RAID 5 because of the speed gap. UGREEN’s operating system lives on a separate 128GB M.2 2242 drive, so all four main slots stay free for data.
The Core i5-1235U is a 2022 laptop chip with 2 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. Its PassMark CPU score of 12,543 is more than double the Intel N100 and N150 chips in budget NAS boxes, which leaves room for Docker containers, a virtual machine, and Plex or Jellyfin transcoding with Intel Quick Sync. It ships with 8GB of DDR5-4800 in one of two SO-DIMM slots, and UGREEN rates the box for 64GB. The “ECC” in UGREEN’s spec sheet is the on-die ECC built into every DDR5 chip, not ECC memory modules.
The single 10GbE port uses a Marvell AQC113 controller, and an Intel AX211 card adds Wi-Fi. There is no Bluetooth and no second wired port, so link aggregation and a separate management network are both out. A laptop can connect straight to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports as a network link; Liliputing measured 1.51GB/s that way from an Intel NUC 13 Extreme, though a mini PC in Liliputing’s Thunderbolt tests saw no gain over Ethernet. TechRadar lists the Thunderbolt ports as host mode only, and Android Police notes the USB ports are host mode too: external drives plug into the NAS, but a computer cannot mount the NAS as a USB drive.
Reviewer Insights
Liliputing
Ian W Morrison’s Liliputing review measured file copies, power, and noise. Copying a 100GB file over Ethernet averaged 1.09GB/s in one direction and 1.15GB/s in the other, close to what 10GbE can carry, and a direct Thunderbolt connection reached 1.51GB/s. At the wall, the unit drew about 18W idle, about 20W running a virtual machine and a Docker container, and about 55W while receiving the 100GB copy. Noise stayed under 30 dBA at idle, rose to 42 dBA during the copy, and hit about 56 dBA with the CPU fully stressed before throttling brought it down to 49 dBA. The review also covers the launch dispute over third-party operating systems: UGREEN first said TrueNAS or similar would void the warranty, then walked that back to saying it would not provide support. On the software after several updates, Morrison wrote: “It’s not exactly perfect yet, but many of the issues that earlier reviewers complained about have already been addressed.” His conclusion was less warm: at its launch price plus the cost of drives he called it a hard sell, citing the mixed PCIe lane speeds, the single 10GbE port, and cheaper NVMe NAS options with more mature software.
TechRadar
Mark Pickavance at TechRadar listed the box as fast and silent, and named the cost, the single LAN port, Thunderbolt that works in host mode only, and the no-heatsink rule for M.2 drives as its drawbacks. On price and specs he wrote: “Ugreen is positioned at the expensive end of the SSD NAS pool but offers specifications that other brands can’t match.” His verdict was that people comfortable with virtual machines and Docker can add the features UGOS Pro lacks compared with Synology, QNAP, or TerraMaster software.
How-To Geek
Patrick Campanale’s How-To Geek review scored it 6/10 on software grounds. Setting up Plex took a 16-step Docker process, and creating a RAID array failed several times before it started properly. He liked the hardware and the built-in 10GbE and Wi-Fi 6, but concluded: “The user experience of having to set up Plex alone is enough for me not to recommend the NASync line to newcomers to the network-attached storage world.” That review dates from September 2024, and UGOS Pro has had many updates since.
Android Police
Cody Toombs at Android Police gave it 8.5/10 and focused on size and quiet operation: “It’s like night and day to go from a box the size of a toaster oven that’s always noisy to a whisper-quiet device the size of a book.” The unit has no SD card reader despite UGREEN marketing it to video editors, the headphone jack did nothing at review time, and he wanted USB-C power delivery so one fewer cable would come along on a job.
XDA Developers
Brady Snyder at XDA Developers tested a pre-production unit during the spring 2024 Kickstarter campaign and scored it 7/10. He called UGOS far from finished at that stage while noting how far it came during his few weeks of testing, and summed it up, software headaches aside: “the DXP480T Plus is a solid all-flash NAS.”
Customer Reviews
On Amazon the DXP480T Plus holds 4.1 out of 5 stars from 42 ratings, and most of the praise is about speed and silence. Verified buyer Ignis filled it with four 2TB drives and 32GB of RAM and wrote “Noise is almost non-existent,” while noting “The app store isn’t as robust as Synology’s.” Verified buyer yverick uses it as plain file storage on a gigabit network and reported that “the fan doesn’t come on when in an air conditioned room so it can be entirely silent.” Roger Dunbar, also verified, wrote “setup software is a little wonky.. but the speed of moving files is extremely quick.”
One verified one-star review objects that “the user base has been requesting dark mode for years and this company ignores it.” Nishant kumar liked the interface but said “the device had a few scratches and appeared slightly dusty when I unpacked it.” Frodo Baggins warned that buyers new to NAS may misread the capacity claims, since “out of the box there is no storage”: the unit ships without drives.
Who the DXP480T Plus suits
The DXP480T Plus makes sense for someone who edits or moves large files over a 10GbE network or a Thunderbolt cable and wants the storage to be silent. It also works as a small home server for Docker apps and Plex with hardware transcoding. Anyone who needs more than 32TB, or who wants cheap terabytes for backups, will get more for the money from a hard drive NAS; the UGREEN vs Synology comparison covers the four-bay options from both makers. For a lower-cost all-flash box, the Beelink ME Mini takes six M.2 drives with an Intel N150 and 2.5GbE, trading speed for price and power draw.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the UGREEN DXP480T Plus take hard drives?
No. It has four M.2 2280 NVMe slots and no 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch bays. UGREEN rates it for 32TB with four 8TB SSDs. Hard drives can connect externally over USB or Thunderbolt 4.
Are all four M.2 slots the same speed?
No. Slots 1 and 2 run at PCIe 4.0 x4 and slots 3 and 4 at PCIe 3.0 x2. Over the 10GbE port the difference is small, because even the slower slots outrun the network. Drives with heatsinks do not fit under the cover.
Can I upgrade the RAM in the DXP480T Plus?
Yes. It ships with one 8GB DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM and has a second free slot, and UGREEN supports up to 64GB. The memory has DDR5’s built-in on-die ECC; it does not take ECC modules.
Can the DXP480T Plus transcode video for Plex or Jellyfin?
Yes. The Core i5-1235U includes Intel integrated graphics with Quick Sync, which Plex and Jellyfin use for hardware transcoding. Both run in Docker on UGOS Pro.
Can I install TrueNAS or Unraid on it?
UGREEN does not block other operating systems, but it does not support them either. The system drive is a separate 128GB M.2 2242 SSD, so all four main slots stay free for data under any OS.
How much power does the DXP480T Plus use?
Liliputing measured about 18W at idle with the OS running and Ethernet connected, about 42W while sending a large file, about 55W while receiving one, and up to 82W with the CPU fully stressed. It runs from a 140W external adapter.
What comes in the box?
The NAS, a 140W power adapter, a Cat 7 Ethernet cable, four thermal pads for the SSDs, M.2 screws, a user manual, and a warranty card. It ships without drives.
