I wasn't aware that they'd backtracked on this. Instead I thought they'd introduced a new line called "Red Pro" which avoids SMR drives. Either way, their normal Red drives are shit for NAS enclosures unless (as you say) you don't plan to use RAID with them.

Another thing incidentally they've been found out for recently is claiming that some drives are 5400rpm when they're actually 7200rpm. They even doctored the firmware to report the slower spindle speed. May not sound like a massive deal, but if you're buying a lot of drives to pack into an enclosure that will be on 24/7, the additional heat output and power drain of the drives may come as an unwelcome surprise.

Anyway, until they stop all this fucking around, I'm avoiding WD drives until they can learn how to tell the truth and market their stuff with some degree of honesty.

It hasn't arrived yet but already potentially regretting buying something with only 100mbit ethernet.

Maybe 300mbit on WiFi will be ok

Preload the drive before you stick it in the box?

Shouldn't need any more than that for usb2.

 :-(

DIFFERENT NAS :C

Does it support some sort of ethernet over USB whachumacallit? Or can it be connected directly to your router? It's got USB3.

Possibly, worth a look. Though think the USB3 may be for connecting it to a computer as an external drive, but to be honest no idea since it's an odd little device.

Good news, it's in the UK at Atherstone RDC, hopefully arrive soon enough.

Are you sure it's only 100Mb? I can't see anything that says otherwise, and a YouTube vid that seems to discuss that NAS says it is Gigabit Ethernet.

Not sure about anything with this device to be honest!
I will find out when it arrives and I'll give it a thorough review, then probably brick it installing Open-WRT.

Been stung for customs. That adds £13.58 to the total (£8 handing fee!!).

Anyone else seen an increase in customs charges lately on stuff from China?

I've had many very expensive items slip through without checks or charges in the past. Lately I've had a couple of relatively cheap things (<£50) get charges added.

Not sure if these Chinese sellers have started declaring things correctly and not as £2 and a gift!

We got a $25 web cam shipped to Ca, no added charge. It did take ~3-months.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ODROID-HC4-A-Raspberry-Pi-alternative-that-doubles-as-a-dual-NAS.498839.0.html

Interesting. Rather it be a unit without a drive sticking out of the top, but could put it in a box I guess!

Well it's arrived, and it's a fairly well built unit.
US power supply though.

One large issue, ethernet doesn't seem to be working :@
Wifi does, but don't want to risk installing openwrt if ethernet is screwed.

Same model #, not sure if it's the same device (video shows attempting to connect via mobile app):

WiFi was working fine.
Device is now bricked after I tried to install OpenWRT :'D
I'll have to wait until I'm near my soldering iron to attach a serial adapter and sort it out.

Had you got the ethernet working, or did you decide to chance it?

Chanced it. Like the fool I am.
Confident I'll be able to at least return it to the state I got it in though. Maybe. We'll see. Already created a dispute on aliexpress since it wasn't functioning right at the start.

Currently trying to get a refund for the device and using it as a USB drive with a RPi 2 as the USB bit seems to run separately from the network side of things.

I've unsurprisingly come to the conclusion that it isn't the 90s and I can't cope with 100mbit transfer speeds.

I think a RPi 4 instead will be what I end up going for. Gigabit network and USB 3. May as well just order one now.

Pi4 arrived. Swapped the microSD from the Pi2 to the Pi4 and it booted perfectly first time.
Gigabit and USB3 speeds. Much better.