NAS Guides · Published 2026-09-26

Ugreen Unveils Its New AI NAS, Smart Security Products And 300W Charger At CES 2026

Direct answer up front, then the trade-offs that matter. This page covers UGREEN's new AI-centric storage ecosystem and answers: What is a NAS and do I need one?.

Quick Answer

At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, UGREEN unveiled three product lines under its new "Activate Smarter Living" banner: the NASync iDX Series AI NAS (iDX6011 and iDX6011 Pro), its first smart home security ecosystem called SynCare, and the Nexode Pro 300W GaN desktop charger. The iDX Series runs local AI entirely on the box — search, photo organization and offline AI chat with no cloud round-trip — and pre-orders opened at nas.ugreen.com with pricing from $999 to $1,559. SynCare cameras store footage on encrypted NASync storage instead of a paid cloud plan, which is the detail that matters most for a privacy-first buyer.

Key Takeaways

• The NASync iDX6011 and iDX6011 Pro are UGREEN's first NAS units built around on-device AI, powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H with up to 96 TOPS of local AI compute (PR Newswire official release, accessed 2026-09-26).
• Pre-order pricing runs $999 (iDX6011, 32GB), $1,199 (iDX6011, 64GB) and $1,559 (iDX6011 Pro), each well below the stated MSRPs; a $30 deposit locks in savings of up to $1,040 (PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26).
• SynCare is UGREEN's first home security ecosystem: 4K indoor and outdoor cameras, a 4K+2K video doorbell and a Smart Display D500 hub, all recording to encrypted NASync local storage with no cloud fees (Herald Biz/PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26).
• The Nexode Pro 300W is an eight-port GaN desktop charger with three 140W PD 3.1 ports, a dedicated 240W DC port for gaming laptops and a 3-inch TFT status display (CGMagazine, accessed 2026-09-26).
• If you are comparing this against renting cloud storage, run the five-year numbers first — our public cloud vs. private NAS comparison shows how fast subscription fees overtake hardware cost.

Quick Answer in Context

UGREEN used CES 2026 to move beyond chargers and cables. The company hosted a dedicated launch event during the show and presented the NASync iDX Series as the center of its intelligent storage lineup, flanked by the new SynCare security ecosystem and the Nexode Pro 300W charger (PR Newswire, January 9, 2026). Attendees could see the full portfolio at booth #30025 in the LVCC South Hall (Herald Biz, January 6, 2026).

The framing matters for storage buyers. UGREEN's pitch is "privacy-first, cloud-independent" intelligence: AI runs on the device itself, so file search, photo albums and voice-note transcription work offline. The company reinforced the message with a panel at the event that included Intel's Benjamin Hacker and Western Digital's Brian Mallari, alongside UGREEN's AI Lab director Kaijie Zhou and a representative of Reddit's NAS moderator community (PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26). Intel and Western Digital are named as the two hardware pillars of the platform — Intel supplying the compute, WD the storage.

That positioning puts UGREEN in direct competition with Synology and QNAP at the mid-to-premium end of the home and small-business market, and with the growing crop of "AI NAS" boxes from Asustor and others. What is genuinely new here is not the idea of local AI — it is a mainstream consumer brand bundling an offline large language model, semantic photo search and a home security system around one storage box. Forbes flagged the announcement as UGREEN's clearest statement yet of where the brand is heading (Forbes, via the original topic feed, accessed 2026-09-22).

How It Works

The iDX Series hardware

The NASync iDX6011 and iDX6011 Pro are built on the Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 255H — 16 cores and 16 threads, boosting to 5.1 GHz, with up to 96 TOPS of AI performance. That headroom is what lets the box run AI inference locally instead of shipping your files to a data center (PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26). Connectivity is modern across the board: dual 10GbE networking, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, up to 64GB of LPDDR5x memory, and storage that scales to 196TB with Western Digital drives (Herald Biz, accessed 2026-09-26).

The local AI layer

The software is the differentiator, and CGMagazine's CES report lists the features in detail (accessed 2026-09-26):

• Universal Search — describe a concept, scene or partial memory in plain language and the device retrieves matching documents, photos and videos. You search the way you think, not by filename.
• Uliya AI Chat — a built-in large language model answers questions about stored files, summarizes documents and works entirely offline, so nothing leaves the box.
• AI Album — recognizes faces, animals, objects, scenes and text, then auto-categorizes your library; type "Dad on a bike" and the matching photos appear.
• Voice Memos — recordings are transcribed, translated and summarized on-device, which suits meetings, interviews and classroom capture.

None of these features phones home. That is the core trade against cloud AI assistants: less raw model power, but no uploads, no accounts and no subscription.

SynCare: security that stores itself at home

SynCare is UGREEN's first entry into home security. The lineup includes the 4K Indoor Cam ID500 Pro and 2K ID500 Plus (both with pan-tilt tracking and multimodal AI that distinguishes people, pets and events), the weather-rated Outdoor Cam OD600 Pro (a hybrid bullet/PTZ design with optical zoom and 24/7 recording), and the Video Doorbell DB600 Pro with head-to-toe 4K+2K video (Herald Biz, accessed 2026-09-26). Everything connects through the Smart Display D500, a hub with dual-band Wi-Fi, app control and real-time event reporting.

The system uses UltraColor night vision, cross-camera awareness and risk-based alerting — and it stores footage on encrypted NASync local storage rather than a cloud service. No cloud fees, no third-party retention of your camera footage.

What to Look For

Local AI that actually runs offline

Any "AI NAS" claim is worth testing before you believe it. The iDX Series' headline features — Uliya chat, semantic search, AI Album — are specified as fully local, which means they should keep working with the WAN cable pulled. That is the demo to demand from any brand making the same promise.

Expandability

The 196TB scalable ceiling comes from the drive partnership, not the chassis, so check bay count and per-drive capacity limits for the configuration you actually intend to buy. Dual 10GbE and dual Thunderbolt 4 give the iDX Series room to serve as both a file server and an AI workstation, which matters if you plan to grow into it.

Backup automation

A drive full of AI-indexed memories is only as good as its backup. UGREEN's ecosystem story assumes the NASync unit is the primary store; keep a second copy on an external drive or a second machine, because RAID is not backup.

Noise and power

A Core Ultra 7 255H under sustained AI load needs airflow. UGREEN has not published noise figures for the iDX Series yet, so treat placement (office shelf versus living room) as an open question until reviews land.

Real-World Costs

UGREEN published pre-order pricing alongside a $30 reservation deposit that locks in savings of up to $1,040 (PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26):

A Kickstarter campaign for the series opens in March, per the official release. The SynCare security lineup arrives in the second half of 2026, and the Nexode Pro 300W charger follows around Q2 2026 at ugreen.com (Herald Biz/PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26).

Two cost notes. First, pre-order versus MSRP is a real gap — 40% or more on every tier — but pre-order prices are promotional, not permanent. Second, the "no cloud fees" claim only saves you money if you were otherwise paying for one: against Ring or Google Nest plans at roughly $3–$12 per month, SynCare's local storage model saves $36–$144 a year, which compounds the way our five-year cost calculator shows.

Recommended Setups

Budget setup

The base iDX6011 (32GB, $999 pre-order) with two large-capacity drives in mirrored RAID covers household backups, photo libraries and the AI album features for a household. Uliya and Universal Search are not memory-gated at the low tier, per the official spec sheet.

Family setup

A 64GB iDX6011 ($1,199 pre-order) plus the SynCare ecosystem is the coherent whole-home package: cameras, doorbell and the Smart Display D500 hub all writing to the same encrypted NAS. This is the configuration UGREEN is implicitly selling, and it only makes sense if you are comfortable with a single brand owning both your storage and your cameras.

Creator setup

The iDX6011 Pro ($1,559 pre-order) with Thunderbolt 4 direct-attach editing and dual 10GbE for a studio network is the obvious pick for content creators. Pair it with our guide to the best NAS for content creators to see how it stacks against established options.

Common Mistakes

• Treating pre-order pricing as the real price. The $999/$1,199/$1,559 figures are launch promotions against much higher MSRPs; they will not last.
• Assuming "AI storage" means server-grade AI. 96 TOPS runs search, albums and a small LLM comfortably; it will not replace a GPU box for model training.
• Skipping the backup copy. Local-first storage removes the cloud, which also removes the cloud's off-site copy. Keep one.
• Buying SynCare hardware before it ships. The security lineup is dated for H2 2026; pre-ordering the storage now is safe, but camera availability is still a promise, not a product on a shelf.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a NAS and do I need one?

A NAS (network-attached storage) is a small server that holds your files on drives you own and serves them to every device on your network. You need one if you keep growing photo and video libraries, want automatic backups for several computers, or want smart-camera footage stored at home instead of on a subscription cloud service.

How much does a home NAS cost?

For a serious AI-capable model like the UGREEN NASync iDX6011, pre-order pricing starts at $999 for the 32GB unit before drives (PR Newswire, accessed 2026-09-26). Entry-level non-AI NAS boxes from other brands start around $200–$300, but you add the cost of drives, typically $50–$150 per terabyte for NAS-rated disks.

How many bays do I need?

Two bays in mirrored RAID is the sensible minimum for a family; four or more if you keep large video libraries or want room to grow. Check the specific chassis configuration when the iDX Series listings go live, since UGREEN has announced capacity scaling to 196TB but detailed bay layouts vary by model.

Can a NAS replace cloud storage?

For files, photos and camera footage, mostly yes — the iDX Series' remote-access and AI features are designed to work without a cloud account. What it cannot replace is an off-site copy: if fire or theft takes the NAS, a local backup goes with it. Keep one backup off-site, whether that is a drive at a relative's house or a small cloud tier, and you get the privacy benefits without the single-point-of-failure risk.

Sources

• UGREEN Unveils AI NAS Ecosystem at CES 2026, Spotlighting Smart Storage's Future — PR Newswire (official UGREEN release, Jan 9, 2026) — https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ugreen-unveils-ai-nas-ecosystem-at-ces-2026-spotlighting-smart-storages-future-302657703.html (accessed 2026-09-26)
• CES 2026: UGREEN Announces New NAS Systems, Desktop Charger & Intelligent Home Security — CGMagazine — https://www.cgmagonline.com/news/ces-2026-ugreen-nas-charger-security/ (accessed 2026-09-26)
• UGREEN Debuts New Smart Ecosystem at CES 2026, Led by AI NAS — Herald Biz (PR Newswire wire, Jan 6, 2026) — https://mbiz.heraldcorp.com/article/10650229 (accessed 2026-09-26)
• Ugreen Unveils Its New AI NAS, Smart Security Products And 300W Charger At CES 2026 — Forbes — https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiygFBVV95cUxQYldIalRBYkQyUHNMbWVNNEF1VWJaMFBuVGhndjhBRlprYnFPaHIxbHhRWHg3MjF3RnZlcWlKT0N6Sk52TkxmRGtmYXZraFZsTVBtM3hSOUhIVG5CU3VRSGxSYXRBNzZyOUw5cFVDWVFnTjFuMUtCWG43UndLaDVsRlQ3bjV5TE8wTmxTMUFCZDFaV21CSVVKX0kxM3NsbGJKd2ljc1g1My1RWDd3bDBUZF8tU1lJYlZiWFhNNHlrX0ROYlUwam9VVVZR?oc=5 (accessed 2026-09-22)

Affiliate Disclosure: SecureNAS Hub may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no extra cost to you. Facts and figures are attributed in the Sources list; nothing on this page is a fabricated test result. See our full disclosure. Product images, where shown, are supplied by manufacturers. Last reviewed 2026-09-26.