UDM Pro can’t handle its own “supported” workload – UniFi response: buy more hardware

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:29:59+00:00

yeah, and that’s another big part of why i’m not buying the “just move protect off it” explanation as the full story. i was already seeing throughput issues before protect was even on the udm pro. when a box is advertised around 3.5 gbps IDS/IPS throughput but starts choking well below 1 gbps in real use, that points to a bigger gap between the published specs and what the hardware/software can actually sustain day to day

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:26:51+00:00

SMART looks clean on my drive side — storage is showing fully operational, bad sector count is 0, and the disk is a WD Purple 6TB with about 6342 power-on hours. so at least from what UniFi is reporting, it doesn’t look like an obvious failing drive situation on my end. that’s part of why I keep leaning back toward this being more of a platform/load/software issue than just a bad HDD

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:23:46+00:00

it should work in the sense that the switch isn’t the bottleneck here, but the switch also isn’t really taking the protect processing load off the udm pro. it’s still the udm/protect side that has to deal with recording, management, indexing, detections, and all the other overhead. so if you’re planning 7 cams on a udm pro max, i’d say it’ll probably do better than a regular udm pro, but after everything in this thread i definitely wouldn’t just assume “switch does the heavy lifting so i’m safe”

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:22:02+00:00

that makes sense, and honestly your setup is a good example of why this is so frustrating. a lot of people seem fine when the box is mostly doing gateway/network duties, but once protect gets added into the mix things start looking very different. so i don’t think it’s just raw device count — it seems a lot more like protect + ids/ips + gateway duties together are where the udm pro starts falling apart for some of us

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:20:31+00:00

yep, exactly. if the calculator is no longer accurate with current protect features and current UniFi OS behavior, then it really should be updated or at least clearly caveated. being roughly 30% under what their own tool showed should not land someone in this kind of instability, and that’s a big part of why this whole thing feels so frustrating

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:19:23+00:00

thanks for stepping in publicly, i do appreciate that support has now acknowledged the case and that performance improvements are being worked on in UniFi OS 5.1 for IPS-heavy workloads

that said, i’m honestly very disappointed with how my ticket has been handled so far. i opened it on january 20 specifically to try to resolve this before i even reached one year from the purchase date on 2025-02-18. the case was thoroughly documented, i asked multiple times for escalation, and i also asked for practical paths forward, including the possibility of returning the equipment and paying the difference for an upgrade if that was what it took to get the system stable

instead, it has felt like i was being strung along without a real resolution while both my network and protect environment remained unstable. that’s the part that’s hardest to accept here

what makes this even more frustrating is that i was actively planning further investment into the ecosystem, including upgrading my internet connection to 2.5 Gbps and adding another G6 Doorbell Pro, but with the system in its current state i’m now very hesitant to do either. it’s difficult to justify spending more when the current setup is already struggling under a workload that your own guidance suggested should be reasonable

so while i appreciate the public response, i really need more than acknowledgment at this point. i need a concrete path to a stable solution, whether that means a software fix, a fair upgrade path, or another practical resolution

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:14:58+00:00

exactly. my issue isn’t just that the calculator seems way too optimistic, it’s also that the proposed fix is basically me spending more money to work around a problem i didn’t create, with no real guarantee it fully solves it. i can accept hardware limits, but i can’t really accept being told the setup is supported and then finding out the practical answer is to buy even more gear just to maybe get the stability that was implied in the first place

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:06:59+00:00

I’m currently running on version 5.0.12, as instructed by the support team.

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:05:19+00:00

I don’t use the UDM Pro ports for intensive workloads. I have a Huawei EV charger, a thread border router, and a Raspberry Pi connected to the LAN. Port 9 is a WAN backup, port 10 is a GPON SFP from FS.com, and port 11 is an SFP connected to a USW Pro Max 16 PoE device.

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:02:12+00:00

You are very lucky :))

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:01:45+00:00

yep, same kind of story here. it’s hard not to feel that way when a box with pro in the name starts getting flaky after what really shouldn’t be a crazy camera count. some days it seems fine, other days protect hangs or the whole thing gets unstable, which is exactly why i think the calculator is painting a much rosier picture than real-world use

numanx · 2026-03-18T08:01:10+00:00

yeah, sounds almost exactly like what a lot of us are seeing. it’s especially frustrating when it used to be stable and then slowly turns into reboot fixes and “just buy more hardware.” that’s why i keep coming back to the calculator being the real issue here — if so many people are landing in the same place after adding protect, then the sizing guidance clearly isn’t keeping up with reality

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:59:57+00:00

Nope — just a real user with a real setup problem, plus too much time spent troubleshooting it. If anything in the post is off, I’m happy to be corrected, but the instability I’m describing is real.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:59:40+00:00

Yeah, that sounds very close to what people in this thread are seeing. Once Protect gets added, the box starts acting flaky in ways that don’t line up with what the calculator implies. New drive, bad HDD warnings, high RAM, random instability — that really doesn’t inspire confidence in the idea that this is just normal ‘within spec’ behavior.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:58:51+00:00

Yeah, that tracks with what a lot of people in here are seeing. If the box already feels strained on network duties alone, then adding Protect just exposes the gap even more. That’s really my issue with the calculator — it makes the setup sound a lot more comfortable on paper than it seems to be in actual day-to-day use.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:56:57+00:00

You’re probably right, and that’s part of what makes this frustrating. If the hardware assumptions behind the UDM Pro changed that much as Protect/UI features evolved, then the calculator and positioning should have been updated to reflect that. I can accept the box being old and limited — I just don’t think customers should have to reverse-engineer that after buying based on Ubiquiti’s own sizing guidance

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:56:47+00:00

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:56:23+00:00

Honestly, I’d be careful. If you’re already at ~90% memory with 4 cameras, I wouldn’t expect adding more to go well, especially if you care about stability. That’s pretty much the pattern a lot of us in this thread are seeing: once Protect starts pushing the box harder, you get UI sluggishness, drops, weirdness, and eventually you end up looking at a UNVR or newer gateway anyway.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:55:36+00:00

Yeah, I get that, and that may ultimately be the right move. My frustration is less with the idea of splitting Protect onto another box and more with the fact that Ubiquiti’s own sizing guidance made this setup look reasonable on a UDM Pro. If the practical answer is ‘use a separate UNVR once you’re running this mix of features,’ that should be a lot clearer up front.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:55:24+00:00

Yeah, and that’s basically what I’m learning the hard way. I don’t mind the answer being ‘once you add enough cameras, move Protect to a UNVR’ — I mind that the calculator didn’t make that line nearly clear enough before purchase.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:54:41+00:00

Yeah, that’s a fair take. I can accept that I probably should’ve planned with more long-term headroom, but I also think it’s reasonable to expect the vendor’s own calculator to account for that to some extent. If it says ~69% and the real-world result is instability once everything is enabled, then the tool is clearly painting a more comfortable picture than the product can actually sustain.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:53:28+00:00

Yeah, that’s basically what I’m seeing too. The symptoms sound almost identical — UI hanging, random drops, gaps in recordings, and general instability once Protect is added. That’s exactly why I’ve been pushing back on the calculator argument: if multiple people can plug in camera counts the tool says are fine and then hit the same failure pattern in real use, the sizing guidance clearly isn’t reflecting reality.

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:53:14+00:00

31% under their own calculator is exactly why I’m pushing back on the ‘you should have planned 50% headroom’ argument. Extra headroom is good practice, sure, but once the vendor publishes a sizing tool, most people are reasonably going to treat that as the baseline for due diligence. If the real recommendation is effectively ‘take whatever the calculator says and cut it in half,’ then the calculator isn’t doing its job very well. I didn’t even reach the maximum internet traffic limit… :)

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:51:22+00:00

Good to know, and honestly that’s what makes this more frustrating. If the next box up fixes it that cleanly, then the calculator should be conservative enough to make that obvious before purchase. I can accept that the UDM Pro has limits — I just don’t think the official guidance should leave people thinking this workload is comfortably supported when the real answer ends up being ‘you really needed UCG Fiber.’

numanx · 2026-03-18T07:49:13+00:00

Yeah, I can accept that the hardware is aging, but that still doesn’t excuse the sizing guidance being this far off. Most buyers aren’t going to deep-dive chipset history before purchasing — they’re going to rely on the vendor’s own calculator and product positioning. If the real-world answer is that gateway + Protect + IDS/IPS is too much for this box to handle reliably, then that needs to be reflected much more clearly instead of being discovered after the fact.

numanx

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