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I recently picked up a Yxk 2-bay NAS from Amazon (thanks for the tip on the $100 price point). The hardware is interesting for the price, *and* I'm concerned about the default firmware. Happy to help with any re-flashing/testing you might be doing on this system. I put it on a segregated vLAN and connected to it in a browser to see what was on offer by default, and I was asked for a phone number to verify a PIN. Hard pass, and looking forward to flashing this with Debian.
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Hi, thanks for reaching out and for testing that unit so carefully. Yes, the Yxk 2-bay (often called the “Iron Cow”) is one of those surprisingly capable budget NAS boxes, but the default firmware raises the same concerns we’ve seen with a few of these no-name Chinese systems. Asking for a phone number during setup is definitely not normal for a local NAS OS, and you did the right thing keeping it isolated on a VLAN.
Flashing it with Debian or another clean Linux build is the best way to go. Once Debian is installed, you can add OpenMediaVault or CasaOS to get a proper web interface and clean user management. If you’re up for it, I’d love to hear how your re-flash process goes, since these models sometimes ship with slightly different eMMC layouts or BIOS restrictions depending on batch.
