What attracts me most about the Shiguang Dock is its lifetime free internal network penetration with no speed or data limits. For many beginners and some experienced users, the inability to access NAS devices externally is a significant pain point. How can I only enjoy a hard drive’s TV series at home? Moreover, with the current scarcity of public IP resources, the bandwidth for direct public connections to NAS is decreasing. Some ISPs that allow direct connections impose speed limits, while others, despite having IPv6, do not allow bridging routers for dialing, making direct connections impossible. (For instance, my local Dongguan Mobile does not allow bridging, and after requesting a super password from the broadband technician to change the bridge settings, I found that the backend could not access the internet after about a day). Therefore, the free, unlimited-speed, and unlimited-data internal network penetration offered by Shiguang Dock is a compelling reason to purchase it.
The Shiguang Dock N3 natively supports 3.5-inch hard drives. Although it is a single-bay device, it can support up to 20TB enterprise drives, which is quite good for home use. Especially with the Wi-Fi version available, it is very worthwhile for those who did not reserve many network ports during early home renovations, as it can connect via Wi-Fi, reducing the constraints of wired connections!
The Shiguang Dock uses a USB-C power supply, but I am unsure which protocol it supports, so I hesitate to use my own charger for powering the device, fearing it might burn out. It has an HDMI video output interface, a USB 3.0 port, an SD card reader, and a wired network port. The SD card reader is quite useful for those who frequently take photos and need to back up data from their SD cards. The HDMI interface allows direct video output via an app. In practice, the Shiguang Dock can also play videos through DLNA screen mirroring, which is very friendly for TVs that do not have built-in set-top box functionality.
For someone who has a lot of video resources stored on a NAS and wants to binge-watch shows outside, many third-party systems’ free penetration services have relatively low bandwidth, only allowing smooth viewing of videos with a resolution below 720P. I can directly mount the video resources from another NAS on the Shiguang Dock N3 and use the Shiguang Dock’s video app to watch videos on the NAS externally. A 50M bandwidth is sufficient for watching low-bitrate 4K videos, and 1080P is completely manageable. However, the free internal network penetration from Shiguang Dock cannot exceed your home’s physical bandwidth limit. Many home broadband connections are limited to under 5M due to PCDN issues, or some newly established gigabit broadband connections only provide 10M to 20M upload speeds. This can only be resolved by complaining to the broadband provider.
The built-in video service of the Shiguang Dock supports video scraping, allowing various downloaded video resources to be automatically scraped. As long as the specified video file path is set in the service, an entire hard drive or resources mounted via local network Samba can be automatically scraped. Moreover, the system can automatically keep track of the last watched progress. The Shiguang Dock N3 Plus supports server-side decoding of 4K videos, so if the bandwidth at home is insufficient when watching videos from the NAS, it can transcode to 1080P for smooth playback.
To my surprise, the Shiguang Dock comes with a free music playback application that can directly play audio files from the NAS. Does this mean I no longer need to subscribe to music services? Currently, the music playback program can only play songs and create playlists, which feels a bit lacking. I hope future updates can add more features, such as frequently played songs and lyrics scraping.
Currently, the Shiguang Dock’s external network penetration is free for life, with no speed or data limits. It also provides free internal network penetration for other devices, with no speed limits and 1GB of data per month. For example, if I penetrate my black skirt, I can access it directly via a URL. This is useful for office workers who need to log into their company’s internal OA ERP systems over the local network, allowing them to utilize this free service. Of course, there is also a 50M unlimited data internal network penetration package for other devices, which costs only 144 per year and is simple and easy to use.
As an ARM-based NAS, the Shiguang Dock is very energy-efficient. The 500GB HDD I mounted has a standby power consumption of only about 3W, which is very friendly for those who are particularly concerned about NAS power consumption. It supports web login over the local network and has Docker functionality, allowing for more tinkering. Additionally, there is WeChat customer service technical support available, so if you encounter issues, you can directly contact an engineer for online assistance.