WebReviewAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Links below are affiliate links; the price you pay is unchanged.
Basis: The manufacturer's published specifications and the retail listing. The supplied manual is image-only and could not be read, so no manual-only details are claimed here. WebReviewStar has not independently tested this unit.
Review summary
The short answer
Buy it for a home media library, photo backup and Plex. Skip it if you intend to edit 4K video directly off the network, or if you expect to expand past two drives without starting again.
Buy it if
- You want one place for films, photos and phone backups
- You run Plex and want hardware transcoding
- You want Docker without building a PC
Skip it if
- You plan to edit 4K footage directly from it over the network
- You need more than two 3.5-inch bays
- You want the drives included — this ships empty
What it is
A two-bay desktop NAS with an Intel N100, 8 GB of DDR5, a 2.5-gigabit network port, two M.2 NVMe slots and an HDMI output that can drive a 4K display.
That is a sensible specification for a home media server. It is also, for anyone planning to edit video from it, a specification with a ceiling in a specific place — and that ceiling is the network port, not the processor or the drives.
The one number that decides whether it suits you
2.5 GbE. In theory that is 2.5 gigabits per second, about 312 megabytes per second. In practice, with overhead, expect roughly 280 MB/s on a good day with a matching 2.5G switch and no other traffic.
That number is fine for almost everything a home NAS does. Copying a 20 GB film library takes a couple of minutes. Backups are invisible. Plex streaming needs a few megabytes per second, not hundreds.
It is not fine for editing 4K footage in place. A single stream of 4K ProRes 422 HQ runs around 110 MB/s. Two of them, plus audio and render cache, saturate the link and the timeline starts to stutter. Multicam is worse.
So the honest framing is: great media server, adequate for proxy editing, wrong tool for direct 4K editing. If that last sentence describes your plan, you want a 10GbE box and a 10G switch, and you should budget for both.
What works
- Intel N100 with QuickSync, which is the right chip for a media server
- 2.5GbE rather than the gigabit most two-bay boxes still ship
- Two M.2 NVMe slots alongside the two HDD bays
- 4K HDMI output, so it can drive a TV directly
What doesn't
- 2.5GbE caps real throughput near 280 MB/s
- Two bays means RAID 1 costs you half the capacity
- Ships diskless — the drives are a significant extra cost
- The M.2 slots are best used as cache, not bulk storage
Where two bays hurts
Two 3.5-inch bays is the entry point, and it forces a decision the moment you set it up.
- RAID 1 mirrors the drives, so two 20 TB drives give you 20 TB usable. You lose half your capacity to redundancy — which you should, because a NAS with no redundancy is just a second copy of your files waiting to fail.
- RAID 0 or JBOD gives you the full capacity and no protection. One drive dies, everything is gone.
With four bays you get the same redundancy and keep more of the capacity. With two, you are choosing between safety and space from day one, and there is no upgrade path that does not involve buying a different machine.
Where it is genuinely good
The N100 is the right chip for this job. It is efficient, it idles low, and it has Intel QuickSync — which is what makes hardware transcoding in Plex work. A NAS without QuickSync transcodes on the CPU, badly.
2.5GbE at this price is still not universal. Plenty of two-bay boxes ship gigabit and cap you near 112 MB/s.
Two M.2 slots give you somewhere to put a fast cache or a small SSD volume for Docker containers and their databases, which is where a spinning-disk array feels worst.
HDMI output means it can be a media player as well as a server — one box under the TV instead of two.
Where it falls short
Diskless. The price you see is for an empty chassis. Two drives of usable size are a significant additional cost, often comparable to the unit itself. Budget for both or you will be disappointed at checkout.
The M.2 slots are not bulk storage. They are best used as cache or for containers. Do not plan to store a video library on them.
Two bays, permanently. No expansion. If your library outgrows two drives, you are buying again rather than adding.
Who should buy something else
If you edit video for a living, buy a four-bay unit with 10GbE. The DXP2800 will do the job until the first multicam timeline, and then it will not.
If you only want backups and photos, this is more machine than you need — but it is the right shape, and it will last.
If you want to grow to eight drives, start with a chassis that has the bays. Migration is possible but never free.
Specs that matter
| Flash | 2 × M.2 NVMe |
|---|---|
| Stated maximum | Up to 80 TB |
| CPU | Intel N100, quad-core |
| Memory | 8 GB DDR5 |
| Network | 2.5 GbE |
| Video out | 4K HDMI |
| Software | Docker, virtual machines, Plex, AI photo management, surveillance |
| Drives included | No — diskless |
| Warranty | 2 years |
Questions
Can I edit video directly off it?
For 1080p and proxy workflows, usually yes. For 4K ProRes or multicam, 2.5GbE is the bottleneck long before the drives are, and you want 10GbE.
Is 80TB realistic?
That is two 40TB drives, per the manufacturer. Realistically you will buy smaller drives, and with RAID 1 you get half of whatever you install.
Does it come with drives?
No. It is diskless by design, so budget for two 3.5-inch drives on top.
Will Plex transcode in hardware?
The N100 has Intel QuickSync, which is what you want for transcoding. Whether a specific file transcodes in hardware depends on the format.
Sources
The bottom line
If it suits how you actually use your network, this is the one to buy.
Check price on AmazonWas this review useful?
Thanks — that helps.
Comments
No comments yet. If something here is wrong or missing, say so — corrections get fixed.