Smart Personal Cloud Storage Device Data and Media Files, Built-in 512GB High-Speed SSD with USB Storage, Plex and Home Assistant/iOS/Android/Windows/Mac Compatible

This is a really great entry level NAS for anyone who wants to have a NAS but doesn’t want to deal with all the admin that comes with a lot of NAS systems.Out of the box, this device just works - I wouldn’t say it’s easy enough for your mom to use, but if you know what an ip address is you can probably figure this thing out. It automatically creates web access + smb access, and sets up a secure username and password for you that is shared across both places.You can also choose to encrypt the disk when you first set it up, if you are worried about the device itself getting stolen with sensitive data.In a recent update they have unlocked the ability to use this as a homeassistant server and a plex server. I have set up the plex side of that, and it works perfectly- can handle multiple direct play streams to my Apple TV, iPad, and computer at the same time. Not a huge surprise, since the hardware in here is more powerful that synologys, wd, qnaps, etc. that are twice the price.I don’t personally use this for photo backup, but the app makes it easy enough to set that up.All in all, if you want an easy to maintain NAS that that’s relatively affordable - and you don’t need many TBs of redundant data (i.e. if the built in 512gb + an external drive is enough for you) then this is hard to beat.

The AmberPro comes with two different "quick setup" instructions. And then when those fail, customer support directs you to a third set of setup instructions.The device also has TWO admin pages with two different sets of login credentials. Why two? Why can't all admin functions be under one admin portal? Why make this more complicated than necessary? When connecting via Wifi, allocating storage gives an error about network issues. When connecting physically via non-Windows machine, (DNS) name resolution for the admin URL fails... the instructions then say try using the IP address... but there's no IP address provided for the SECOND admin page and the link on the first page which cust. support tells you to use... uses the failing DNS so you're stuck... their own instructions paint you into a corner. So off to the store you must go, to buy a Windows machine just to set this thing up. Then, after you've also had to buy a USB-Ethernet adapter because your new Windows laptop doesn't have an ethernet port AND Amber customer support told you to use a physical connection instead of wifi.... you get the same exact network error message as you got in the beginning. Firmware's up to date... Amber just packages convoluted garbage and markets it as easy-to-use. I have never been more frustrated setting anything up and I work in IT. I feel bad for any non-IT people who bought this brick. Two weeks back and forth with support and it's still not working.

I set up my iPhone to backup my photo app automatically. That went smoothly and I freed up storage spaces from my iCloud which had been full for a long time, and from my iPhone which was at the verge of being full all the time. Now I am able to take photos and videos without having to worry about running out of storage and being forced to delete some of my photos and videos. I like the fact that I can share my photos with my family and friends. The next step is to organize my oldest photos into meaningful albums.I first downloaded the PC amber iX app but was confused because I actually needed the mobile amber iX app for initial setup. But setup was easy once I have the mobile app. I would recommend that the PC app explicitly message first-time users to setup their amber X using the mobile app to avoid the confusion I encountered.I haven’t tried many of the other features on amber X. I will be providing more review feedback once I try them out.

I got it to expand on my cloud storage as I did not want to go with the Google Cloud or iCloud or One Cloud (Office 365), but wanted something in house and easy to setup and get going rather than a NAS.Pros:- Ease of setup - 8/10Was extremely easy to set it up. I had a small hiccup during initial setup, I killed the app thinking it is taking too long. But it was apparently still setting it up, just no progress and looked frozen. Next time around I let it sit for longer and it was fine.- Ease of use 8/10I use it chiefly to store my phone pictures and share with family. It does all that extremely well.There is one glitch or shortcoming in the iOS app - where the AI recognizes the same person differently (it is possible and expected) but then it does not let you merge those two person as one, and then I have the same person appearing multiple times because in reality it is the same person - just the face detection AI does not see that.Overall for all above all features this is a great device - but if you do not want data on multiple places, then this is not safe in my eyes. Because of following CON.Cons:- [HUGE] no backup of the data on this device.This is not RAID - expected. But has no easy way to setup an off device backup process.I wanted to connected an external drive and want all data from this Amber-X to be backuped on there, but nope - no easy way. We can drag and drop all the files/folders, but there is no automated way to make it do that daily/weekly.And Because of this reason - I had to return my device and then I upgraded to their Amber Pro - which allows for external backups. - which has its own pros and cons. But I have that one has RAID and 2 TB, so more peace of mind.