CONCLUSION

   Once again ASUSTOR surprises us with the release of a powerful NAS server which has no problem taking on the equivalent solutions by QNAP without breaking a sweat. Performance is once again at the top, build quality is second to none and in terms of features I really see very little that QNAP is better at right now. Both companies use similar operating systems and share a large number of 3^rd party apps (including KODI which I sure hope gets updated to resolve the small 4k media playback issues we’ve encountered both with the TVS-682 and the AS6208T) so there’s nothing that the equivalent QNAP NAS can do that the AS6208T can’t. With a total of 8 bays you can currently have up to 80TB of storage capacity and although this is indeed overkill for regular consumers it’s not really a lot for office and small business use. Unfortunately ASUSTOR has yet to implement a SSD cache function (on the works as far as I know) and there’s limited support for 10GbE in their models (link aggregation is good but too complex and even with 4 RJ-45 ports performance is nowhere nearly as fast) but these two features are aimed towards experts in the field (mainly professionals and enterprise users) and not regular consumers. The one issue I have with ASUSTOR to date is that they don’t offer models with 8GB right from the factory which means that people need to open them up to add more RAM and with possible incompatibilities that may not be as simple as it sounds for some (installation instructions are available).

   NAS servers with over 6 available drive bays don’t really come cheap especially when they have the specifications of the AS6208T and so with a current price tag set at USD875 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at 906Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) this is not an exception. With that out of the way ASUSTOR offers a slightly better bang for your buck ratio compared to the equivalent models by QNAP although again it does lack some features aimed at really demanding users. At the end of the day the AS6208T is an excellent network attached storage server capable of taking on anything you throw at it and that’s why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Intel Celeron J3160 Quad Core CPU / Cherryview Intel HD 400 Graphics GPU
- Excellent Performance
- Features
- 4GB DDR3L RAM (Expandable To 8GB)
- Power Consumption / Noise Levels / Temperatures
- 4 Gigabit RJ-45 Ethernet Ports
- 3 USB 3.0 Ports / 2 USB 2.0 Ports / 2 eSATA Ports
- Optical S/PDIF Output
- HDMI v1.4b Output
- LCD Screen
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10/JBOD + Hot Spare/Swap Support
- SATA III (6Gb/s)
- ADM 2.6 OS
- Android / iOS Apps

CONS

- Surveillance Center Still Needs Work
- Lacks Support for SSD Cache & 10GbE (On the Works)