Networking

The UNAS Pro was Ubiquiti’s first attempt at a NAS appliance, and it shows. If your requirements are SMB shares, NFS exports, RAID, and snapshots, it handles those reliably—the 10GbE connectivity is a genuine strength, and once a share is configured it works like any other file server. But the software shipped before it was fully baked and arguably still isn’t: no iSCSI, no built-in rsync or scp in the UI, sparse feature additions over time, and an admin interface tied to UniFi Identity that adds friction to what should be straightforward. If you’re coming from Synology or TrueNAS expecting a rich ecosystem of packages and services, recalibrate your expectations. The UNAS Pro is best understood as a UniFi-native file server that does the basics well, and the newer UNAS Pro 8 is a better buy if you don’t already own the original.

I cannot say enough good things about the Switch Pro HD PoE . This is the switch the Pro 24 PoE wishes it could be: every port runs at 2.5GbE minimum, every port supports PoE, and you get two 10GbE ports plus four SFP ports for high-speed uplinks. The all-port PoE alone is transformative—no more checking port numbers, consulting diagrams, or rerouting cables when you add a camera or access point. Plug in your PoE device, it works. Then there’s Etherlighting, which makes your switch ports glow with customizable color-coded activity through translucent cable connectors. It is objectively unnecessary, obviously an excuse to charge more, and I love it. This switch is expensive, and the premium cables make it more so, but it made my network feel complete.

The Ubiquiti SmartPower RPS is not a UPS, and that single fact made it a purchasing disaster for me. The product description is frustratingly vague about what it actually does, which led to an expensive misunderstanding. The RPS is a redundant power supply—it keeps your UniFi equipment running if the internal power supply module fails, not if the electricity goes out. If you lose power, everything still goes dark. For most home lab users, this solves a failure mode that’s relatively rare and usually fixable by swapping hardware. What you almost certainly want instead is Ubiquiti’s actual UPS line, the UniFi SmartPower USP , or the Mission Critical Switch which integrates battery backup directly into a PoE switch.

The Ubiquiti G4 Dome is a simple, reliable camera that integrates cleanly with UniFi Protect—plug it in, adopt it, watch your footage. The image quality is good, the dome form factor is unobtrusive, and the Protect interface handles everything consistently across all your cameras. It also gets genuine credit for full Linux compatibility, something that set it apart from the proprietary-plugin nightmare I dealt with on a previous camera system. Of my eight units, seven continue working years later without issues. The eighth failed, likely from sustained direct exposure to the Texas afternoon sun—a reminder that camera placement matters, especially in hot climates.

The Ubiquiti G4 Doorbell is a mixed experience. It integrates seamlessly into UniFi Protect with good picture quality, handles existing doorbell wiring better than the Ring and Skybell it replaced, and—critically—requires no monthly subscription for cloud storage since recordings go to your local Protect storage. But persistent software limitations undermine the hardware. Protect treats it like a camera rather than a dedicated doorbell, so you must stay actively signed into the app to receive notifications—and the app will sign you out. Cold weather kills reliability below freezing, WiFi signal through exterior walls is a constant struggle, and the optional chimes are disappointingly quiet. My advice: treat it as a camera that happens to be mounted at your front door, not as a reliable communication device.

The Ubiquiti Mini Rack is a 6U open-frame rolling rack designed for UniFi equipment. The build quality is excellent—smooth-rolling wheels, sturdy frame, toolless mounting for UniFi gear—and it’s genuinely useful for staging and organizing equipment before deployment. But 6U is an awkward size that gets cramped fast once you account for a switch, gateway, and power distribution, and the open mobile design creates an aesthetic problem: cables running to a rack on wheels look perpetually temporary. My gear ultimately ended up in a wall-mounted rack that looked intentional rather than improvised. The Mini Rack remains a good workbench on wheels for assembly and configuration, just not where I wanted my network infrastructure to live long-term.

The Ubiquiti USW-Pro-24-PoE is a managed Layer 2/3 switch with PoE on every port that slots neatly into the UniFi ecosystem. Coming from unmanaged Netgear PoE switches, the visibility it provides into network topology transformed how I diagnose problems—the controller’s topology view shows exactly which devices connect to which ports, turning what used to require physical investigation into a glance at the dashboard. I bought it because every port has PoE, eliminating the guesswork of which wall port maps to a powered switch port. I kept it because of that topology view. Twenty-four ports sounds like plenty until you start counting cameras, wall jacks, access points, and infrastructure devices, so plan your deployment carefully.

The Ubiquiti U6 Long Range access point makes a bold claim right in its name. After deploying a single ceiling-mounted unit in a 4,000 square foot two-story home, that claim holds up—complete coverage across both floors with no dead spots, handling approximately fifty devices without complaint. Previous access points produced spotty coverage in corners and struggled through walls; those problems simply don’t exist with this unit. The UniFi integration is seamless, roaming between multiple APs is invisible to connected devices, and WiFi 6 efficiency keeps everything stable even when the household is actively streaming, video conferencing, and transferring files simultaneously. Just don’t mount it on your bedroom ceiling—the blue status LED is bright enough to disturb sleep.

The Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro represents a significant step up from consumer networking gear, offering enterprise-grade features in a package that’s actually manageable for technically-inclined home users. After three years of continuous use, it’s proven itself as the backbone of a demanding home network running four VLANs, approximately fifty devices, nine cameras through Protect, and automatic WAN failover. The centralized management interface handles both networking and Ubiquiti’s camera system from a single console, replacing what would otherwise require command-line configuration or separate tools. The cloud login trend and occasional UI hiccups are annoyances worth noting, but they haven’t undermined three years of reliable operation. If you’re comfortable managing VLANs and understand why IoT devices belong on a separate network, this delivers.