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When “NAS” Means “Some Assembly Required”

The Xyber Hydra arrives in the world wearing the word "NAS" on its product page and in its pitch—but not, critically, in its software. On paper, it looks like a compact, aggressively priced network storage appliance: four M.2 slots, dual 2.5GbE, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C power delivery, HDMI outputs, and an Intel Twin Lake N150 (or higher) pushing the whole stack. At $219 (sale) or $249 (regular) for the base unit, it undercuts many name-brand SOHO NAS boxes, at least in upfront cost. But crack it open—figuratively and literally—and you discover something very different: the Hydra is not a plug-and-play NAS in any conventional sense. It's a tiny Linux box with storage bays and no integrated NAS stack. For most consumers, that mismatch is a problem. For the right kind of buyer—this audience—it’s an opportunity.

The Xyber Hydra is best understood not as an appliance, but as a pre-wired, pre-assembled NAS dev kit.

The Hardware: Compelling on Specs Alone

From an engineering perspective, the hardware story is surprisingly strong for the price:

  • Intel Twin Lake N150 (4c/4t, up to 3.6GHz burst), with options for N250/N350/N355
  • 16GB DDR5 4800MHz (soldered)
  • 64GB eMMC for the OS
  • 4 x M.2 2280 NVMe (PCIe 3.0 x2 per slot), up to 4TB each (16TB total)
  • 2 x 2.5GbE ports
  • 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10Gbps)
  • 2 x HDMI 2.0 (4K @ 60Hz)
  • Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0
  • USB-C PD input (65W recommended)
  • Metal base with thermal pads to wick heat from the NVMe drives

In test scenarios, once correctly configured as a NAS, the Hydra delivered transfer speeds that outpaced a powerful System76 Thelio desktop in a 300MB file copy test over the network. For a palm-sized box, that’s non-trivial performance. Four NVMe bays at PCIe 3.0 x2 won’t impress high-end storage architects, but for home labs, self-hosted services, media servers, Time Machine targets, or CI cache volumes, this is ample. Dual 2.5GbE opens the door to link aggregation or segmented networks. HDMI plus Wi-Fi make it viable as a hybrid: NAS, microserver, or even a low-end dev workstation. On hardware alone, this is a credible foundation.

The Software Reality Check: Ubuntu, and Then You’re On Your Own

The trouble starts at boot. Instead of a guided web UI and storage wizard, you get Ubuntu Linux (shipped as 24.10 in the reviewed unit) logging directly into a preconfigured `xyber-co` account without a password. There's:

  • No native NAS management interface
  • No RAID configuration flow
  • No SMB/NFS stack set up
  • No documentation that meaningfully bridges this gap

You’re given an OS, a user account with questionable defaults, and a pile of hardware potential. Everything that turns that into a NAS? That’s your job. For a device marketed as a NAS, this is more than an oversight; it's a product positioning failure. From a security and reliability standpoint, starting with an unsupported Ubuntu release and a passwordless account is a red flag for any serious user. The first steps any informed buyer must take are:

  1. Create a proper user with a strong password.
  2. Remove or lock down the default account.
  3. Upgrade to a supported Ubuntu release (do-release-upgrade).
  4. Only then begin building the storage and sharing stack.

If that list feels natural to you, you’re the target demographic—whether X-Plus realizes it or not.

Turning the Hydra Into a Real NAS

Once the OS is upgraded and hardened, the Hydra becomes interesting again. You have two main paths:

  1. Classic stack (manual):

    • Use mdadm or ZFS for redundancy.
    • Configure Samba for SMB, and optionally NFS for Unix clients.
    • Manage via shell and config files.

  2. Web-managed stack (friendlier, still not turnkey):

    • Install Cockpit for web-based management.
    • Add extensions such as cockpit-file-sharing to expose and manage Samba shares.
With Cockpit and its file sharing extension in place, you finally get something resembling what mainstream users expect out of the box: a browser-accessible UI, share management, service visibility, basic observability. But it is crucial to stress: none of this ships configured. The reviewer needed Linux familiarity to:
  • Diagnose that nothing NAS-like was running
  • Discover the unsupported Ubuntu version
  • Run the OS upgrade
  • Install and configure Cockpit + extensions
  • Wire up storage and sharing correctly

Ten minutes for an expert. An afternoon—or complete failure—for a casual buyer.

This is where Xyber Hydra quietly exits the Synology/QNAP comparison and enters the DIY homelab arena.

Why This Device Matters to Builders and Operators

For developers, SREs, and infrastructure tinkerers, the Hydra’s flaws double as its pitch:

  • No proprietary lock-in: You’re not fighting a closed vendor OS. It’s just Linux.
  • Flexible roles: NAS today, k3s node tomorrow, self-hosted AI model cache next week.
  • Native Linux environment: Perfect for scripts, Git mirrors, internal registries, local artifact storage, or as a target for automated backups from CI/CD.
  • Price-to-capability ratio: A small, efficient edge box with multi-gig networking and SSD-based storage at sub-$250 (before drives) is compelling.

Compare this to traditional NAS appliances:

  • Synology/QNAP: Polished UIs, baked-in apps, mature ecosystems, higher margins, and opinions about how you should run your stack.
  • Hydra: Gives you a bootable OS and hardware canvas; assumes you can paint.

If you work in:

  • Home labs / self-hosting
  • Dev environments that need fast local artifact storage
  • Small office networks with in-house Linux skills
  • Edge deployments where you want to manage the full software stack

…the Xyber Hydra is less "fake NAS" and more "cheap, well-specced microserver with NAS-friendly design."

The Risks Vendors Should Stop Ignoring

For all its upside to power users, Hydra’s current presentation is risky—and revealing.

Three key concerns stand out:

  1. Security posture:

    • Shipping with a passwordless account and outdated Ubuntu undermines trust instantly.
    • For a device advertised as network storage, that’s unacceptable.

  2. Misaligned expectations:

    • Marketing it as a NAS implies an appliance experience.
    • Shipping it as a DIY kit without clear documentation sets non-expert buyers up to fail.

  3. Missed opportunity:

    • X-Plus could ship a supported LTS release plus preconfigured, hardened NAS stack (Samba/NFS, web UI, basic RAID/ZFS tooling) and still keep it open.
    • That would bridge the gap between Synology-style friendliness and Linux-native flexibility.

Instead, the onus falls entirely on the user to secure, update, and operationalize the box. For this audience, that’s doable. For everyone else, it’s a liability.

Who Should Actually Buy the Hydra?

If you recognize yourself in any of the following, the Hydra is worth a look:

  • You’re comfortable on the Linux command line and understand Samba, NFS, or ZFS.
  • You already run home lab gear and want a compact, low-power box with NVMe-based storage.
  • You prefer open, modifiable systems over vendor-walled UIs.
  • You’re okay trading time and expertise for lower cost and higher control.

If, instead, you want:

  • A guided setup wizard
  • One-click snapshots, replication, user management
  • Supportable, documented security defaults

…then this is not your NAS. Buy a Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS Mini, or similar system that’s opinionated on your behalf.

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A Small Box That Asks a Big Question

The Xyber Hydra is a contradiction in a plastic shell: sold as an appliance, delivered as a kit. That makes it a poor choice for beginners—and a quietly fascinating one for experts.

In a market tilting toward increasingly closed ecosystems and glossy management UIs, the Hydra leans the other way: here’s raw hardware, a mainstream Linux distro, and enough headroom to build exactly the storage and services stack you want, if you know how.

It’s not the NAS most shoppers think they’re buying.
But for developers and operators who see “some assembly required” as an invitation rather than a warning label, the Hydra might be one of the more intriguing little boxes on the market.

Source: Original reporting and review details based on ZDNET’s coverage of the Xyber Hydra NAS: https://www.zdnet.com/article/looking-for-a-capable-nas-heres-one-i-recommend-but-its-not-for-beginners/