š° New article from Retro Handhelds
LincStation E1 NAS Review: Solid Hardware Held Back By Software Walls
https://retrohandhelds.gg/lincstation-e1-nas-review-solid-hardware-held-back-by-software-walls/
The LincStation E1 is a hardware gem trapped in a software prison. On paper, itās a sleek, compact beast featuring the same Rockchip RK3568 chip found in popular retro handhelds, paired with a clever ā2+2ā layout supporting both SATA drives and M.2 NVMe SSDs. For $200, the build quality is surprisingly solid, and installing drives is genuinely tool-free and fast.
But hereās the catch: the proprietary OS, LincOS, is a mess. You canāt even initialize the device without installing a Windows desktop client and registering with their cloud portalāa massive red flag for anyone seeking true digital sovereignty. Once inside, the browser interface is sparse, lacking basic drive management tools. To actually format drives or set up RAID, youāre forced to use a buggy Android app that throws generic Linux errors if you try simple configurations.
Performance is equally frustrating. Because the software forces mismatched drives into a single RAID 0 pool, your blazing-fast NVMe SSDs are dragged down to the speed of your slow mechanical hard drives. Transfers are sluggish, files over 2GB take minutes to initialize, and the system crashes more often than it should.
The Verdict: Buy the hardware if you love tinkering, but hold off on buying it ready-to-go. The software needs years of refinement. If you want a hassle-free NAS experience today, look elsewhere.