tldr: Don't use Umbrel to store important data like photos, docs, media etc
As noted in other SN posts, Umbrel have just released their new hardware which we must admit, looks pretty sick. Is it good value for money... well that depends on how good you are with building your own PC's. For us, we've been building PCs for literally decades now so we could absolutely build something better for the price tag. We're very aware that many don't have the skill or time to deal with it though, so a "premium" plug-and-play node is totally fine too. Each to their own 🙂
For now though, let's put the "value" aside and just look at the system as a whole. To begin with, we're BIG Umbrel fans. Have run their software for years on multiple hardware platforms, it's amazing. But. We had to write a small warning for those that are not as technical and who might be looking at getting one.
Our main concerns revolve around using an Umbrel Home as a "home server". A place to store all your documents, media files, family photos etc. Essentially, using it exactly as Umbrel advertises you can use it. These are our main concerns:
Data Storage
It has a single 2TB drive. That's it. That's 1,862GB of usable space after formatting. After you subtract the OS, Bitcoin, Lightning, Electrs apps it's 1,197GB. That's about... 200 4K movies. If you're really using this for an "ultimate home server" then it needs proper amounts of storage AND clear paths for upgradability. Sure, you can plug in USB 3 HDD's... but now you have multiple folders, multiple things to backup, things hanging off your node... it's not very elegant and a huge PITA trust us. The NVMe is great... but we would have expected at least two slots, possibly even 4 to make it an NVMe NAS!
Data Redundancy
There's literally 1 NVMe... and no other slots. Super simple photo, docs and media apps are great, but what happens once you've "deGoogled" yourself, have all your family photos, tax docs and media on this (assuming you have less than 1.2TB of that stuff) and then.... the NVMe dies 😵 Game over. They're pushing self-sovereignty (which we 100% agree with and encourage) but aren't making their customers aware that part of taking responsibility for your data is managing drive failures. There's no software (or hardware really) for this that we can see. Modern NAS have multiple drives that are combined with RAID for proper redundancy. When a drive fails (and it WILL fail), you just swap it out. No down time. No lost data.
Data Backup
Back is different to Redundancy and there's also no 3-2-1 backup solution with Umbrel Home. They need something like Synology's Hyper Backup to allows users to properly manage and automatically backup all their data across all their apps. They need snapshots, ransomware protection etc. While they say they have system settings backups coming later this year, backing up of your data seems to be completely ignored at this point.
Security
According to their GitHub Repo, "Umbrel is currently in beta and is not considered secure". They note multiple concerning security holes and while it's good they're not hiding them... this new product feels like it shouldn't really be a "beta". If you're just mucking around with umbrelOS for fun, sure, no problems. If you're buying custom hardware storing TB's of private user data and who knows how many sats on it... it starts to get a bit sketchy.
As a Bitcoin Node, it's super simple and something we'd highly recommend as it helps your privacy and security immensely. But while it has the software apps for things like Plex, NextCloud, PhotoPrism etc... the underlying management of all that user data is essentially non-existent making it VERY dangerous to use, especially for less technical people who aren't aware. Also trust us... you're gonna need more than 1.2TB of space!
We really hope Umbrel address these issues fast as otherwise users will be the ones suffering. Loss of data like family photos, business files or access to your sats is not fun!
Stay safe and sovereign 🤙