UGREEN RAID calculator: usable capacity under UGOS Pro
By Devin Chua · Data checked by Owen Nakamura · Updated With 4 × 8 TB in RAID 5, a UGREEN NAS keeps about 21.83 TiB usable (24 TB in drive-maker terms), and a single drive failure is survivable. Worth knowing: UGOS Pro has no SHR. Mixed drive sizes cost you real capacity here, because every drive counts only as much as the smallest in the array. The calculator below shows only the RAID types UGOS Pro actually offers, priced to fill in Canadian dollars.
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RAID 1 (Mirroring)
That is 8 TB the way drive makers label capacity. Your NAS shows you the smaller number because it counts in powers of two.
Drives: from CA$2,016 for 4 × 8 TB (CA$63.01/TB overall)
What UGOS Pro does differently with RAID
UGOS Pro has no SHR and no equivalent. You get Basic, JBOD and the classic RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10, and nothing more. In practice that means mixed drive sizes cost you real capacity, because every drive counts only as much as the smallest in the array. On UGREEN, buy matched drives.
Third-party drives in a UGREEN NAS
UGREEN mandates no drive brand. Its compatibility list is a recommendation, not a lock, and UGREEN says so itself. It does expressly advise against SMR drives, and rightly so.
Calculate for your exact model
Bay count matters: a two-bay unit cannot do RAID 5, which needs at least three drives. So each UGREEN model has its own calculator with the bays already set:
- UGREEN NASync DXP2800 (2 bays)
- UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus (4 bays)
- UGREEN NASync DXP4800 (4 bays)
- UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro (6 bays)
- UGREEN NASync DH4300 Plus (4 bays)
- UGREEN NASync DH2300 (2 bays)
And then the drives
Which drives belong in a UGREEN NAS is covered in the buying guides. The short answer: CMR, not SMR, rated for 24/7 use. Why that is not a detail but decides whether a rebuild succeeds is explained under CMR vs SMR.
Frequently asked questions
Which RAID types does UGREEN support?
UGOS Pro offers Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10, depending on how many bays your model has. A two-bay unit cannot do RAID 5, which needs at least three drives.
Does UGREEN have an equivalent to Synology's SHR?
No. UGOS Pro has no flexible RAID, so mixed drive sizes cost you real capacity — every drive counts only as much as the smallest in the array. If you have a stack of mismatched drives, Synology (SHR), TerraMaster (TRAID) or Unraid are the more economical platforms.
Can I put third-party drives in a UGREEN NAS?
UGREEN mandates no drive brand. Its compatibility list is a recommendation, not a lock, and UGREEN says so itself. It does expressly advise against SMR drives, and rightly so.
How much storage is left with 4 × 8 TB in a UGREEN NAS?
In RAID 5, about 21.83 TiB usable — 24 TB in drive-maker terms. One drive goes to parity and a single failure is survivable. The NAS shows less than the label because makers count in decimal and the NAS in powers of two.
Which drives belong in this NAS?
CMR NAS drives rated for 24/7 use: Seagate IronWolf, WD Red Plus, Toshiba N300 or their Pro variants. SMR drives do not belong in any RAID array, because they collapse dramatically during a rebuild after a failure.
Devin Chua works out which drives, RAM and NVMe cache fit which NAS model at nasdrives.ca, and what the RAID choice means for usable capacity, checked against what is in stock on Amazon.ca.
Data checked by Owen Nakamura, Technical editor (data checking)