- Xiaomi has launched its first NAS, a dual-base storage solution that comes in three different storage capacities
- The Xiaomi Smart Storage was not planned but was brought into being by customers eager to own one after a mistaken label indicated one was being designed
- The Xiaomi Smart Storage device attracted a reported 30,000 net orders within its first hour of crowdsourcing
Network-attached storage seems to be the new frontier for Chinese heavyweight Xiaomi, which has come a long way from its roots as a software developer focused on a heavily modified version of Android.
While many of Xiaomi's moves when it comes to investments and product lineups often surprise others given the breadth of its offerings, many of which are unrelated to each other, a NAS drive feels like a relatively timid product line to focus on.
The product sees Xiaomi directly compete in an industry that was previously dominated by Synology, QNAP, Ugreen, and Huawei in the region, with users essentially asking it to bring its plans to fruition.
A 'happy accident' for Xiaomi fans
The firm, whose catalog already spans a Nürburgring-bothering electric supercar, rice cookers, nose-hair trimmers, electric scooters, and the phones that started it all seems to have stumbled upon the possibility of having its own NAS, now known as 'Xiaomi Smart Storage', purely by accident.
The idea surfaced by accident in May 2025, when a schematic labeled "10G NAS" appeared in promotional imagery for the company's networking-switch range. Chinese consumers, however, reacted loudly enough that Xiaomi's ecosystem general manager, Chen Bo, publicly committed to building one, delivering a finished, crowd-funded option roughly 13 months later.
Xiaomi's crowd-funded NAS offering comes in 3 different sizes or configurations: the entry-level 4TB SKU (¥ 2299), the mid-range 8TB SKU (¥ 2899), and a top-of-the-line 16TB SKU (¥ 4699). All of these options include the dual-bay Xiaomi Smart Storage with two equal-sized hard drives.
The NAS comes fairly well-equipped, offering USB 3.0, HDMI, a 2.5-gigabit Ethernet port, and support for both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA drives, and capable hardware reportedly under the hood (a Realtek RTD1619B, a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 clocked to 1.7GHz, with 2GB of DDR3L and 8GB of eMMC).
Xiaomi seems equally committed on the software side of the spectrum; It has also published a companion app on both Apple's App Store and Google Play, while offering support for its Mi Home ecosystem application from the get-go.
This has allowed the company to rack up an impressive 30,000 orders in the first hour the NAS drive went live on its crowdfunding site as consumers buy into Xiaomi's brand value and ecosystem promise alike, even as storage prices continue to head up thanks to AI-centric demand.
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