UnifyDrive UT2 review: Kickstarter, cost, performance

Information storage is an enormous downside for content material creators engaged on the go, or within the area. Whilst you can offload reminiscence playing cards or wait till you return to base, it might be higher to have the choice to do it whereas on location.

Exterior drives may additionally be seen as an apparent reply to the issue. However even then, you do not get the advantages of redundancy in a multi-disk setup like a network-attached storage machine.

The UnifyDrive UT2, presently in crowdfunding, works round that by providing the usefulness of network-attached storage (NAS) whereas working remotely.

Most network-attached storage units are big and heavy. The thought of the UT2 is that it’s a NAS that is additionally extremely transportable and battery-powered.

The UnifyDrive UT2 has an aluminum enclosure guarded by a silicone bumper. It has many design cues taken from different exterior drives.

This features a comparatively compact dimension of 6.7 inches by 3.3 inches and 0.8 inches thick. The ends are the place the ports are situated, with one together with a USB-C port for energy, 2.5Gb Ethernet, HDMI, and an influence button. The opposite finish has an SD/TF card slot, a CFe Sort B/A card slot, a USB-A port, and a USB-C connection.

UnifyDrive UT2 evaluation – Ports on the tip of the unit

The surface additionally has discrete vents on the perimeters. On the prime edge, there’s a collection of indicator LEDs.

Because the port choice hints, there’s much more happening than this being a mere exterior drive.

For a begin, it features as a NAS, which suggests it has a pair of SSDs inside. It helps as much as 16TB, which is various capability for a transportable machine.

That is nice, however for a tool supposed to be transportable and introduced into the sector, the open vents millimeters away from the SSDs looks as if a nasty concept. The whole level of “the sector” is filth, particles, and presumably water. Open vents in these environments aren’t nice.

UnifyDrive UT2 evaluation – Vents adjoining to the SSDs

The 2 SSDs may be configured to function in just a few modes, together with UDR, Single-Disk, and the mirroring of RAID1.

Utilizing the included ports, customers can rapidly offload their information from reminiscence playing cards to the onboard drives.

UnifyDrive claims it’s able to SD card learn and write speeds of 312MB/s, with CFe learn and write speeds additionally at 312MB/s. This could imply that photographers and videographers can rapidly dump information from their reminiscence playing cards to the machine and get again to work.

Our testing bore this out, for essentially the most half.

The SSDs are claimed to have write speeds of 769MB/s and reads of 813MB/s. We did not see even near that in any situation.

Utilizing a wi-fi LAN connection, we noticed transfers within the single-digit megabytes per second vary. That is massively higher when utilizing the machine as a Wi-fi Hotspot, with about 75 megabytes per second learn and write to the drive.

UnifyDrive UT2 evaluation – SSD ports

When the unit is related to a number in Flash Drive mode, we noticed about 315 megabytes per second learn and write, no matter whether or not the unit’s drives are in mirrored or efficiency format.

Good, not nice — and never near marketed speeds.

To drive the unit, there’s the Rockchip RK3588C, an ARM chip with an 8-core CPU, a G610 GPU, and an NPU able to 6 trillion operations per second. It additionally has 8GB of reminiscence and 32GB eMMC flash storage for the machine’s software program and settings.

Storage is offered by a pair of M.2 2280 SSDs, permitting for as much as 16TB of native storage. The free app permits for mirroring or efficiency choices. It would not appear to matter which mode you choose because it pertains to switch speeds, so stability your want for storage or information security.

That information is accessible to an iPhone consumer with an app. The app is okay — not fabulous — from a design and UI standpoint, however it will get the job performed.

The USB-C port can be utilized to attach the UnifyDrive UT2 to a neighborhood host, like a MacBook Pro. We had points with this, with the unit disconnecting continuously when not related to energy. This downside didn’t manifest once we related the enclosure to exterior energy and our MacBook Air.

The storage scenario is considerably difficult. There are two storage swimming pools on the machine — Flash Drive mode, and NAS managed information.

In Flash Drive mode, the machine works as a normal exterior SSD. Information placed on the drive by the NAS performance are solely accessible to the NAS however to not a neighborhood host — however information moved by Flash Drive mode can be found to each.

This feels unusual and pointless. We’re hoping for a repair in software program after launch.

Since it may be hooked as much as the community over Ethernet and act as its personal restricted Wi-Fi 6 entry level, it could present entry to saved information to a number of customers. Wi-Fi vary is proscribed, because the antennae are inside to the metal-clad machine.

There’s additionally Bluetooth 5 assist, however you are much less probably to make use of this for information transfers except you completely must.

In a location with dodgy energy, a built-in battery acts as an actively cooled, uninterruptable energy provide.

Do not depend on that battery for a very long time, although. With out exterior energy, the corporate says it lasts for about an hour. Our testing proved it to be nearer to a half-hour.

Happily, you may configure an automated and secure shutdown when the unit is not related to exterior energy.

Whereas the UnifyDrive UT2 may be very a lot a content material creator assist machine, it is also helpful on the subject of content material consumption. You possibly can join a show or headset to it by way of USB-C Show port, or to the HDMI port, after which play media immediately from the machine.

This consists of having the ability to play again 4K films with HDR, and even 8K movies. And it comes with a wi-fi distant!

It is actually no Apple TV set-top field, which is sweet and unhealthy. The media participant included, like each different characteristic within the app, is clunky, however it works, and the machine’s software program has restricted metadata search options.

As a bonus, it additionally has assist for a wider array of codecs in video than the Apple TV field has, and assist for as much as 8K video.

For nearly all people, an Apple TV field can be higher. Nevertheless, for the goal cell skilled market, the native codec assist is a big plus.

I needed this to be higher than it’s, however this can be a solvable downside with time. The UnifyDrive UT2 is an fascinating machine, with good {hardware} — however with basically poor software program as previewed for us.

The UnifyDrive UT2 tries to unravel an issue creatives can generally run into, which is nice! On the similar time, it delivers a transportable information storage machine that gives redundancy and a variety of NAS-like accessibility, which can also be good.

Alternatively, the software program that’s completely required to make use of that is fairly unhealthy. And, additionally horrible is how the native storage versus community storage swimming pools are dealt with.

With all this stated, this product because it stands immediately targets a really slender set of consumers. When you have a dependable supply of exterior energy, take a completely absurd quantity of photographs that you simply wish to offload wirelessly in a (relative) hurry, and must do all of it in a small bundle, then the UnifyDrive UT2 is superb now.

It really works fairly effectively as a media participant which you can hook up with a TV for a resort keep. At $599 plus the price of storage at retail, it is extremely spendy for that use.

However, it is too gradual for storing video because it data. Even shifting large film information within the area can be arduous.

All people else ought to hold on a bit and see what updates the corporate will make to the machine’s firmware and successfully necessary app. There are simply too many compromises proper now for me to wholeheartedly suggest the UnifyDrive UT2 to greater than that individual market as of early October 2024.

We’ll re-evaluate this when the machine ships and the software program has been up to date just a few occasions.

• Good SD and CF card assist
• Actively cooled
• 2.5-gigabit Ethernet connection

• Spendy for what you get, not even together with storage
• Not what you’d name rugged for a tool that is supposed for use within the area
• The successfully necessary app will not be good. In any respect.

As of October 3, the UnifyDrive UT2 is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Supply of any crowdfunded undertaking will not be assured. We don’t cowl Kickstarters for which we should not have the {hardware}.

For a restricted time, a $399 pledge on Kickstarter will get you {hardware} when it ships. It’s anticipated to retail for $599. The corporate was searching for $20,000, and that line is way behind the place funding stands at current.