Ice Whale Zima Cube 2 Personal Cloud NAS review | Tech Radar

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Ice Whale Zima Cube 2 Personal Cloud NAS review: A modern, high-performance network-attached storage device with plenty of room to grow

Leaving its Kickstarter past behind, Ice Whale delivers a second-generation Zima Cube 2 for those who want more of everything in an NAS

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Support for up to six hard drives and six NVMe drives gives this platform a broad foundation. Throw in True NAS compatibility as an alternative to Zima OS, and the Zima Cube 2 Personal Cloud NAS has a credible claim on some serious attention.

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The original Zima Cube was a Kickstarter campaign by Ice Whale that delivered a workable NAS with a reasonable specification. Having proven the concept, the Zima Cube 2 Personal Cloud NAS is a direct-to-retail launch that addresses several shortcomings of the original.

Replacing the N100 CPU is a Core i 3-1215U, an Intel 12th Generation Alder Lake chip with six cores, eight threads, 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, and DDR5 memory support.

At $799, it ships with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD pre-installed, along with Zima OS already loaded, which can be upgraded to Zima OS+ for a small fee. Six SATA bays are ready for drives, and four M.2 slots sit in the expansion section for NVMe storage.

That puts it in direct competition with the UGREEN NASync DXP6800 Pro, which costs north of $1,000, though that machine does come with an i 5-class CPU.

Where the Zima Cube 2 stands out is its pair of free PCIe slots, which make it straightforward to add 10 Gb E LAN, a discrete GPU, or additional M.2 capacity. It also accepts up to 32GB of DDR5 memory.

That flexibility extends to software as well. The internal 256GB NVMe drive runs Zima OS, a Linux-derived NAS platform, but Ice Whale also supports True NAS for those who prefer it.

On the whole, the Zima Cube 2 addresses many of the complaints levelled at the N100-powered original, while keeping the minimalist styling intact. But with memory and storage prices what they are, is it offering enough performance for buyers looking to run local AI workloads?

This might not be one of the best NAS devices for home and small business users, but the impressive functionality and build quality make it an interesting alternative.

The Zima Cube 2 is only available direct from Ice Whale for $799.

At that price, this Personal Cloud NAS sits above the mainstream six-bay offerings from Synology and QNAP but below their higher-end units with comparable processing power. The QNAP TS-664 in the same bracket uses a Celeron N5105. Neither offers Thunderbolt 4 nor any of the open-platform flexibility.

The Synology DS1825+ is an eight-bay machine that also ships without 10 Gb E as standard, uses the same AMD Ryzen V1500B with four cores, and comes with 8GB of DDR ECC. Synology asks $1,149.99 for the privilege.

The DS1621+ is now end-of-line and has not been replaced. The only six-bay DS series NAS Synology currently offers is the ageing DS620slim, built for 2.5-inch drives.

Closer in price is the five-bay DS1525+, at

It is worth noting that since Synology began restricting compatible drives to its own-brand range, you can no longer use third-party M.2 SSDs in these machines. Synology's own SSDs arrive in remarkably small capacities and at eye-watering prices. The SNV5420-400G Enterprise Series M.2 NVMe SSD, a 400GB drive with a 650MB/s write speed, costs $484.99. If Synology is still positioning itself as a prosumer and small-business NAS vendor, its pricing makes that argument difficult to sustain.

Asustor has the Lockerstor 6 Gen 3 AS6806T, a six-bay machine with a Quad-Core AMD Ryzen Embedded V3C14, 2.5 Gb E LAN ports, the option to add 10 Gb E via PCIe, and four M.2 slots. It lacks Thunderbolt but does support USB4. Asustor wants $1,539.99 for that, which puts it on par with the Zima Cube 2 Pro.

A more balanced comparison is with Ugreen, which launched its i DX series at CES 2026 with Intel Core Ultra 7 processors, dual 10 Gb E, and Thunderbolt 4 at competitive prices. Those units are entering the market at the same time as the Zima Cube 2, and their specifications closely overlap with those of the Zima Cube 2 Pro.

From Ugreen, and currently on offer, $679.99 gets you the four-bay NASync DXP4800 Pro, which uses the i 3-1315U, comes with 8GB of DDR5 RAM, 10 Gb E and 2.5 Gb E LAN, and dual M.2 slots running at Gen 4x 4. It lacks Thunderbolt and has two fewer bays, but the processor is 13th Gen rather than 12th.

Six bays from Ugreen means stepping up to the NASync DXP5800 Pro, which uses the i 5-1235U found in the Zima Cube 2 Pro. It comes with dual 10 Gb E LAN, 8GB of RAM, dual PCIe Gen 4x 4 M.2 slots, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a single PCIe x 4 slot. The asking price is

Circling back to the Zima Cube 2, the pricing is reasonable for what you get, particularly when compared to Asustor or Synology.

Intel UHD Graphics (64 EUs), Intel Alder Lake-UP3 GT1

Intel UHD Graphics (64 EUs), Intel Alder Lake-UP3 GT1

2x Thunderbolt (USB-C) 40 Gbps, 4x USB 3.0 USB-A, 1x USB 3.0 USB-C, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x Display Port 1.4, 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x PCIe 4.0 slot (x 16 physical, x 4 lanes), 1x PCIe 3.0 (x 4 physical, x 2 lanes)

2x Thunderbolt (USB-C) 40 Gbps, 4x USB 3.0 USB-A, 1x USB 3.0 USB-C, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x Display Port 1.4, 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x PCIe 4.0 slot (x 16 physical, x 4 lanes), 1x PCIe 3.0 (x 4 physical, x 2 lanes)

JBOD / Basic / RAID 0 / RAID 1 / RAID 5 / RAID 6 / RAID 10

JBOD / Basic / RAID 0 / RAID 1 / RAID 5 / RAID 6 / RAID 10

From the outside, the Zima Cube 2 looks remarkably similar to the original. It is the same size, the same aluminium box, with storage below and the system above, which makes sense from a heat management perspective.

The six front-loading SATA bays sit behind a plastic grille held in place by magnets, but there is no obvious way to remove it. The designer left no tab to pull it or get a fingernail underneath. Having removed it a couple of times, I would be more likely to leave the grille in the box than deal with it repeatedly.

With the grille off, there are six vertically mounted drive trays and a seventh for the four M.2 drives. The trays were a disappointment on several counts.

They are not lockable and require screws, regardless of whether you are fitting 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives. Virtually every branded NAS maker now offers tool-less 3.5-inch trays, and installing 24 screws for a full build is a tedious way to spend an afternoon.

Extracting the M.2 bay means unscrewing a retained thumbscrew, but that alone is not enough to pull it free. Getting it out required me to remove bay six first, just to find something to grip. These are the sort of issues that should have been caught at the prototype stage.

Another carry-over from the original is the placement of the ports 14cm up the cube. Three USB 3.0 ports sit on the front (two USB-A, one USB-C), alongside an audio jack and the power button. Around the back are the power inlet and reset hole, dual 2.5 Gb E LAN ports, dual Thunderbolt 4, dual USB 3.0 Type-A, Display Port 1.4, and HDMI 2.0 video outputs.

The problem with routing USB and Thunderbolt cables from mid-height is that most external drives ship with cables that are not long enough to reach a desk without some awkward draping. Placing the ports on top would not be much better. This is why most NAS designs put the mainboard, and its associated ports, at the base.

The upside of Ice Whale's approach is that the system is genuinely easy to access. Remove four screws, lift the top, and everything is exposed: the DDR5 SODIMMs, the two PCIe slots, the CPU cooler, and an unoccupied M.2 slot on the motherboard.

What I found slightly odd is that there are no fans pushing or pulling air through this area, only small perforations in the sides and rear. Warm air will naturally rise and collect where the system lives, but there is no active mechanism to extract it. The CPU cooler in this model is noticeably larger than the one in the original Zima Cube, which helps, but once the heat leaves the chip, it still has nowhere obvious to go.

Keeping the same enclosure no doubt reduced the cost of bringing the Zima Cube 2 to market. But the fact that almost none of the physical design problems have been addressed is hard to overlook.

More than anything else, the N100 processor is what damaged the original Zima Cube. Intel gave that chip just nine PCIe lanes, which was simply not enough to service six hard drives, USB ports, and dual 2.5 Gb E LAN simultaneously.

The Zima Cube 2 swaps that for the Intel i 3-1215U, a CPU with six cores, eight threads, and, critically, 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Since those lanes are PCIe 4.0 rather than PCIe 3.0, the total available bandwidth is more than four times what the N100 could offer.

The architecture splits those six cores into two performance cores with hyperthreading and four efficiency cores, giving eight simultaneous threads in total. That is not as capable as the Zima Cube 2 Pro, which uses the i 5-1235U with ten cores, but it is more than sufficient for the typical NAS workload mix.

In practice, the Zima Cube 2 can handle Docker containers, media transcoding, RAID rebuilds, and light virtualisation running concurrently, without the processor becoming the obvious throttle.

That said, the 20 lanes have to stretch across a lot of hardware. The bandwidth consumers include two M.2 slots on the mainboard, four M.2 slots on the bay-seven riser, two PCIe slots, six SATA drives, all the USB ports, dual 2.5 Gb E LAN, and the two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 connections. That is why there is no 10 Gb E LAN port included on the standard model.

The four M.2 slots in the expansion bay also deserve some clarity. Each runs at PCIe Gen 3 x 1, which gives an individual bandwidth ceiling of around 800MB/s per slot. That is adequate for tiering or caching, but it is not the full-speed NVMe performance the slot count might suggest. Users expecting PCIe 4.0 x 4 speeds will be disappointed. Those planning to use them as high-capacity supplementary storage on top of a SATA array will find them perfectly serviceable.

The obvious answer to both the missing 10 Gb E port and the slow M.2 slots is the PCIe expansion slot, but what those slots appear to offer and what they actually deliver is worth clarifying.

The larger x 16 slot looks as though it could take a low-profile video card, but electrically it is only PCIe 4.0 x 4. Each lane delivers 2GB/s, so there is enough bandwidth for a single PCIe Gen 4x 4 NVMe drive or two 10 Gb E LAN ports.

The second PCIe slot is physically x 4 but electrically only two lanes of PCIe 3.0. Ice Whale sells an accessory card for this slot, with two M.2 2280/2242/2230 positions, though it was designed for PCIe 4.0 and would perform better in the x 16 slot. With two PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives on that card, each would get around 4GB/s.

There is also a PCIe to 2.5 Gb E Ethernet adapter available, offering a relatively inexpensive way to add network bandwidth if your infrastructure supports channel bonding. Alternatively, Thunderbolt adapters can deliver 5 Gb E or even 10 Gb E if you need it.

It is hard to overstate how much of an improvement the i 3 represents over the N100. The bandwidth increase alone unlocks possibilities that simply were not available before. Even so, this is 12th Gen Intel silicon built on Intel's 10nm Enhanced Super Fin process, a considerable distance behind the Series 100, 200, and 300 silicon Intel currently ships.

There are no AI accelerator components here whatsoever. Ugreen's i DX series has moved to the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, rated at 96 TOPS. Neither the Zima Cube 2 nor the Pro model can compete with that, so if running a local LLM on your NAS is the goal, this is not the right machine.

One last point worth flagging is the memory configuration. The machine ships with a single 8GB DDR5 module. There is a free slot, so getting to 16GB is straightforward, but a single module means the NAS is not running in dual-channel mode. DDR5 4800MT/s is inherently dual-channel in specification, but most systems only enable it with two modules fitted. Adding a matching module would noticeably improve memory bandwidth.

Ice Whale states the system accepts two 32GB modules for a maximum of 64GB, which is four times the total in the N100. At current RAM prices, most buyers are unlikely to go that far, but there is headroom if needed.

The Zima Cube 2 platform is a significant step forward from the original. The problem is that the NAS market has moved forward, and some of the competition is now ahead of where this machine has landed.

Zima OS arrives pre-installed and boots straight to a browser-based dashboard, with no keyboard or monitor required during setup, provided the machine finds a network connection.

The interface has matured considerably since the early Casa OS days. Drive management, RAID configuration, Docker container deployment, and an app store covering Plex, Jellyfin, Immich, Photoprism, Home Assistant, and several hundred more are all accessible from the same web UI, with no command line needed.

Compared to the relatively limited app selection that Ugreen currently offers, Zima OS looks well-stocked. Plex, Home Assistant, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Syncthing, Pi-hole, Portainer, Tailscale, and Word Press are all there.

It is worth noting, though, that most of these apps are not native Zima OS applications. When you launch them, they open as web-based applications with their own port numbers rather than appearing within the main system interface. That suggests the App Manager is essentially managing pre-configured Docker installations behind the scenes.

There is a reasonable argument that with tools like Portainer now widely available, the concept of native applications matters less than it once did. That was previously one of the strongest selling points for Synology. What Zima OS does is make Docker installs feel as seamless as native apps while still delivering the functionality users actually want.

The introduction of a paid Zima OS Plus tier, priced at $29 for life, has generated debate in the community. Ice Whale frames it as a contribution to sustainable development rather than a subscription, and states that a third of licence revenue is distributed back to community contributors.

Core functionality for most home users is available without the Plus licence. The paid tier unlocks unlimited disk support, unlimited users, and certain advanced features. Whether that feels fair depends on how much of the Plus tier a given user actually needs. Given the overall cost of the machine, asking for a licence on top feels like a second bite of the cherry.

If you don’t pay the extra $29, you get a version of Zima OS that can support a maximum of four disks and three users. And, although basic RAID is available in the free version, Plus enables advanced configurations for better redundancy and data protection, including enhanced support for ZFS and larger storage arrays. There are also enhancements in remote access, backup/sync and priority support.

It’s worth noting that the license is ‘lifetime’, but it applies only to that specific hardware, not to any other Zima OS devices.

That said, the cost and the debate can both be sidestepped entirely. The platform was designed with OS flexibility in mind, and True NAS, Unraid, Proxmox, and Open Media Vault all run without modification. pf Sense and OPNsense are options for anyone wanting to repurpose the hardware as a network appliance.

The case for buying the Zima Cube 2 Standard over its predecessor rests almost entirely on the Core i 3-1215U. The original Zima Cube's N100 was a four-core, low-power processor with nine PCIe 3.0 lanes, which proved wholly inadequate for a six-bay NAS running dual 2.5 Gb E networking alongside M.2 storage and any active workload.

The i 3-1215U changes things fundamentally. Six cores and eight threads with 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes means the bus contention that plagued the N100 is no longer a concern. Docker containers and media transcoding can now run at the same time without the processor struggling, and the system can handle light virtualisation on top of that.

Networking on the standard model tops out at dual 2.5 Gb E, which in practical terms means a ceiling of around 280MB/s per port. For home backup, media streaming to multiple devices, and general file serving, that is adequate. For workloads demanding higher throughput, the Thunderbolt 4 ports offer a direct-attach path at up to 40 Gbps, which is a meaningful alternative to 10 Gb E for single-machine workflows.

Anyone wanting permanent 10 Gb E over the network will need the Pro model, or will need to use the PCIe 4.0 slot for a 10 Gb E card. These are not expensive, and you are not limited to Ice Whale-approved options.

From a performance standpoint, the weak link in the Zima Cube 2 is the M.2 expansion section. Gen 3 x 1 per slot does not offer a dramatic improvement over SATA SSD speeds. If you plan to use the slots for hard drive caching, one slot for reads and one for writes, the speeds are acceptable. For anything more demanding, the PCIe 4.0 slot is again the route to better performance.

And that is the underlying tension. The PCIe 4.0 slot is the answer to the 10 Gb E question, the faster M.2 question, and the GPU question. But there is only one of them. Giving this machine four times the bandwidth of its predecessor turned out not to be quite enough.

The Zima Cube 2 is a much better machine than the original, but several problems have been carried straight over from the first generation without being fixed.

Ice Whale seems committed to the cube form factor, even though NAS buyers generally do not care what shape their hardware is. What is telling is that the team listened carefully to criticism of the N100 processor and acted on it, yet largely ignored feedback about the missing drive tray locks and the awkward port placement.

Perhaps the third generation can fix what this one has not, while still keeping the distinctive shape.

In other respects, the Zima Cube 2 is the machine the original should have been. Swapping the N100 for the Core i 3-1215U removes the architectural ceiling that undermined the first generation, and Thunderbolt 4 gives the standard model a high-speed access path that partially offsets the 2.5 Gb E networking limitation.

The M.2 expansion section is slower than its slot count implies, and 8GB of RAM is tight for a machine capable of running Docker containers alongside a six-bay RAID array. But both are straightforward to fix, and the open platform means the hardware is not held back by the software running on it.

At $799, this is a genuinely compelling option for anyone who wants a capable, expandable, properly hackable six-bay server without paying Pro prices.

Limited by the 2.5 Gb E LAN ports and Gen 3x 1 M.2 slots

Limited by the 2.5 Gb E LAN ports and Gen 3x 1 M.2 slots

You want something flexible The ability to configure this system in numerous ways is undoubtedly a strong point. It has enough processing power for multiple functions, and you can expand storage, memory and network bandwidth as required.

You like value for money While it isn’t cheap exactly, what you get for the asking price is impressive when compared to some name brands. The quality of construction is high, and you can easily upgrade many aspects.

You want an AI-capable NAS Ice Whale do include some AI tools in the apps store for Zima OS, the processor in this NAS doesn’t have a dedicated NPU.

What you can do is add a low-profile video card, like the Nvidia RTX Pro 2000 included in the Creator Pack version of the Zima Cube 2, boosting the Compute functionality. But that costs $2499.99, for a system with an i 5 CPU and 64GB of RAM.

You want 10 Gb E networking out of the box It is possible to put a 10 Gb E network card in this system, but that takes up the PCIe slot that you might want for a graphics card or faster M.2 slots. Without the 10 Gb E card you are limited to dual 2.5 Gb E LAN ports.

For more NAS solutions we've collated the best NAS hard drives around

Mark is an expert on 3D printers, drones and phones. He also covers storage, including SSDs, NAS drives and portable hard drives. He started writing in 1986 and has contributed to Micro Mart, PC Format, 3D World, among others.

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Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards

• Ice Whale Zima Cube 2 Personal Cloud NAS review: A modern, high-performance network-attached storage device with plenty of room to grow

• Leaving its Kickstarter past behind, Ice Whale delivers a second-generation Zima Cube 2 for those who want more of everything in an NAS