INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Roughly 7 years ago if you wanted to surf the web or playback your media collection onto your large TV screen you had two easy choices, either build a small HTPC system which you could also use as a download server or opt for one of the newly introduced hardware media players. Things however became even more complicated if you wanted to build a surveillance system to safeguard your property since you could either use the same HTPC (or any computer for that matter) and pair it with IP Cameras or choose a standalone DVR device. Needless to say that if you wanted to be able to do all of the above the more appropriate solution would be an HTPC since not only would it save space but it would also reduce the overall cost significantly. There were two problems with that solution however, first that you'd need to spend more to purchase software licenses (especially for multiple IP Camera setups) and that even a small HTPC would use quite a bit of electricity when running 24/7. NAS Servers changed all that when they entered the market for good in 2009 thanks to their multiple functions, small size, limited power consumption and reduced cost (always compared to a full HTPC system). Well it did take 4 years for people to actually get to know and trust NAS servers but today they've advanced so much both in terms of performance and features that in some cases they can even replace entire server systems. Today’s review is about one of the latest NAS servers to hit the market and more specifically the AS-304T by ASUSTOR which is aimed at Home and Power Users alike.

 

   Founded in 2011, ASUSTOR Inc. is a leading innovator and provider of private cloud storage (network attached storage) and video surveillance (network video recorder) solutions. We are devoted to providing the world with unparalleled user experiences and the most complete set of network storage solutions possible.

 

   ASUSTOR is certainly a very new player in the market but that didn't seem to hold them back since just by checking its specifications sheet it's not hard to realize that the AS-304T is amongst the most advanced mid-end NAS Servers we've tested so far. More specifically under the hood we find an very strong Intel ATOM 1.6GHz Dual-Core CPU (CE5335 SoC model combined with the Intel GMA3600 based on the PowerVR SGX 545 IGP) paired with 1GB DDR3 RAM by Samsung (unfortunately the RAM is soldered to the motherboard and can't be extended). The list doesn't stop there however so ASUSTOR has also equipped it with a total of 4 USB ports (2xUSB 2.0/2x USB 3.0), Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI version 1.4a port and 4 SATAII/III bays compatible with both 2.5/3.5" drives. Surprisingly enough although their ADM 2.0.3 software suite may not be as complete as the ones offered by QNAP and Synology still it has gone a long way since 2011 and offers pretty much everything you'll ever need and then some. To see is to believe however so let's see exactly what the latest AS-304T 4 Bay NAS Server by ASUSTOR is all about.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASUSTOR doesn't seem to place much importance on the package of their NAS (it's what's inside that matters anyways) so we just see their logo at the front along with the words network, cloud and storage repeated over and over.

 

 

The same words are repeated on all sides.

 

 

The large sticker at the front informs the consumer about the units hardware and bundle contents.

 

 

Once you open the top of the box you will find a thank you message and a message pointing to the installation instructions printed in several languages.

 

 

The unit is placed inside a plastic bag between two thick Styrofoam spacers while the rest of the bundle is placed inside a cardboard box again placed between the spacers.

 

 

The contents of the package are just the basic and aside the AS-304T you will also get the power cord, Ethernet cable, software CD, quick start guide and two small bags with mounting screws for 2.5/3.5" drives.

 

 

THE AS-304T EXTERIOR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The AS-304T measures 185.5mm in height, 170mm in width and 230mm in depth while weighing a total of 3.4kg.

 

 

As you can see ASUSTOR followed the same basic design as QNAP (although the TS-420 is a bit longer) but i think i like the ASUSTOR vision a bit more.

 

 

On the left side we see a perforated section which is in place to help hot air escape the chassis easier.

 

 

ASUSTOR has placed their logo right above the on/off power button and the power/activity LEDs.

 

 

A USB 3.0 port and two Ethernet activity LEDs are placed on the lower end of the fascia.

 

 

Although the more expensive line 6xx has a working LCD screen the space here is just for show (much like what most manufacturers do with their low/mid-end models).

 

 

The 4 drive trays don't feature locks but they have activity LEDs at the top.

 

 

To open one of these trays you will need to press a button placed on the lower left (that's a safety feature we don't see much).

 

 

All trays are made by aluminum and can be used both with 2.5" (bottom holes) and 3.5" (left/right holes) drives.

 

 

As expected the rear of the device is not painted and contains the majority of connectors.

 

 

This is the first time i see an 120mm exhaust fan on a 4bay NAS Server and it makes me wonder why others don't do the same (more airflow/less noise levels).

 

 

From top to bottom at the rear right next to the fan we see a headphones port (strange but could be useful), reset switch, USB 3.0 port, HDMI v1.4a port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 2 USB 2.0 ports and an Kensington lock.

 

 

THE AS-304T INTERIOR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To open the chassis you just need to remove 3 screws placed at the rear.

 

 

The first thing we noticed is the 150W power supply unit by FSP.

 

 

As mentioned in the introduction page you can't upgrade the amount of RAM so no such spots on the mainboard.

 

 

The good thing however is that ASUSTOR used 1GB of high speed DDR3 RAM manufactured by Samsung and clocked at 1600MHz.

 

 

All 4 drive ports are regulated by the asmedia ASM1061 SATA III 6Gb/s controller which offers support for RAID0/1/5/6/10 modes and of course hard drive hot-swapping.

 

 

SETUP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before you start with the entire setup procedure i suggest heading over to the official ASUSTOR support page to download the latest firmware and software versions.

 

 

The easiest and fastest way to setup the unit is to launch the control center software and double click on the NAS.

 

 

That will launch an explorer window which will guide you through all the necessary steps to setup the NAS.

 

 

After that you will need to setup the password, time zone, language and network options to proceed.

 

 

You should also create a new ASUSTOR id if you don't already have one to get official support and be able to download applications and use the cloud connect service.

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASUSTOR uses their very own ADM (ASUSTOR Data Master) operating system and right from the login screen you know they place a good amount of weight on looks.

 

 

The main screen shows that only the basic applications are installed and as ASUSTOR explained to us they don't install any extra ones by default since people may not need them so they leave that selection to you (the New Page at the bottom can also be renamed).

 

 

As always from the Access tab you can add/remove user accounts, groups, domain users, domain groups and also gives you the ability to create shared folders and set application privileges.

 

 

From the Activity Monitor tab you can check the available space on the installed drive(s), monitor the CPU/Memory/Network utilizations and see what processes are currently running.

 

 

The App Central menu is kinda self-explanatory so from here you can see the installed applications, see the recommended apps by ASUSTOR, check all available applications (over 100), check for application updates and of course add/remove applications. We did install some application which we will go through later on.

 

 

From within the Backup & Restore tab you can use remote sync options, setup FTP/External backups, configure the one touch backup (front USB port), use the cloud backup feature and also adjust the system settings.

 

 

The File Explorer page allows you to upload and download files from and onto the NAS without much effort.

 

 

The Services tab includes several server options for Windows/Mac OSX/NFS/FTP Server/WebDAV/Web Server/MySQL Server/Terminal and Rsync use.

 

 

Under the settings tab ASUSTOR has placed pretty much everything you can adjust including the media mode feature (need to enable it to watch content on your TV), network settings, regional options, hardware options (LEDs/Buzzer/Fan control/Power settings), various notification options, ADM defender (firewall), ADM update (manual or automatic), network recycle bin, energy saver (drive standby mode/fan control/wake on LAN), ease of access (Cloud Connect/EZ Router/DDNS), factory default settings and product registration.

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via the Storage Manager tab you can create and manage volumes (JBOD/RAID), check the state of the drives via SMART and use the iSCSI feature.

 

 

The System Information tab allows the end user to check the state of the hardware components of the NAS (including their temperatures), check the network activity, read logs, see who's logged in and use the DR.ASUSTOR diagnostic tool.

 

 

The FTP Explorer feature is quite a good move by ASUSTOR since you can use it to transfer files (supports resuming) and browse FTP sites from within the NAS.

 

 

I was somewhat surprised to see that the Download Server tab allows you not only to download files using the BitTorrent Client or directly from HTTP/FTP but you can also use it for Thunder/FlashGet/QQDL downloads (you can also use the Download Assistant software to manage all the download tasks running on your ASUSTOR NAS from within Windows).

 

 

Not all is perfect however and although the Surveillance Center has a very nice and feature-rich design it lacks support for IP cameras. To be more specific version 2.0.3 only supports a limited number of models by just 13 manufacturers and as such we were unable to use it with any of the 3 IP cameras that we have here by TRENDnet, Airlive and Zavio.

 

 

XBMC SOFTWARE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The XBMC app is not really something new but in the case of the AS-304T you will also need to enable media mode and restart it in order for it to work. You can control the XBMC application either by using the ASUSTOR remote control (acquired extra), mouse/keyboard or Android Application.

 

 

The XBMC application transforms the NAS Server into a media server so it can do whatever an HTPC can do aside playing games that is.

 

 

You can personalize the XBMC application quite a bit (for example change the skin of the menus and set the region/language/audio language options).

 

 

You can also check the various hardware/software information screens and of course adjust video and audio settings.

 

 

Unfortunately although we ripped our latest Blu-Ray (Pacific Rim) resulting to a 27GB large MKV file (we will be also using it to test MKV compatible applications in future NAS reviews) we were unable to grab a screenshot from within the software so instead we took a couple of our own (the result is not very good however). The great news is that even at such a huge bitrate there were no playback issues with the AS-304T.

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY – TEST RESULTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Since some of the NAS servers/devices we have tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we will keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. So as always we will be using a single Seagate Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III hard disk drive with the unit at hand (just like with all of the NAS servers) and perform several upload/download tests with a single 10.9GB file. Tests are repeated a total of 4 times after which we record the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. Finally the network device used is the same Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we always use when performing tests on NAS servers.

 

FILE TRANSFER TEST

A single 10.9GB file was uploaded and downloaded to and from all the NAS units in this test. At first I have to say that I was a bit skeptical about the initial results we recorded since they pretty much matched and even surpassed the ones of the x69 series by QNAP but after 4 runs it’s official so the AS-304T does surprisingly well In terms of performance and really has nothing to be jealous of from similar solutions.

 

TEMPERATURES

The AS-304T with its 120mm fan managed to keep our HDD at 33 degrees Celsius during testing.

 

POWER CONSUMPTION

Power consumption may seem quite high but let’s not forget that the AS-304T uses a dual core ATOM CPU along with the integrated IGP (the x59 series are the closest equivalent by QNAP).

 

NOISE LEVELS

It happened just once during testing (while watching Pacific Rim) but the 120mm fan of the AS-304T did almost hit 54dBA (however most of the times the noise levels didn’t cross the 48dBA mark).

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The AS-304T is the very first NAS Server we received by ASUSTOR (more already here) and because of that we didn't really expect much from it especially when it comes to user friendliness and functionality. You see we did expect high performance levels due to the ATOM Dual Core CPU clocked at 1.6GHz and the 1GB DDR3 RAM by Samsung also clocked at 1600MHz (11-11-11 timings) but we didn't really expect from ASUSTOR to be able to develop such an operating system, not when they count less than 3 years in the market. Of course the ADM OS is still somewhat rough around the edges since it doesn't offer some of the less-important features we see with the ones offered by QNAP and Synology but the level ASUSTOR has reached in just over 2 years of life is quite remarkable. As a matter of fact leaving out the fact that you can't expand the DDR3 memory which might just be most crucial to some people there's also the issue of the limited IP Camera support featured in the Surveillance Center. ASUSTOR has assured me that this will change in future firmware updates but until that happens or until they introduce compatibility/generic IP Camera profiles I’m sure that it will bug quite a few potential buyers.

 

   Right now the AS-304T is perhaps the most cost-effective 4 Bay NAS Server available in the market that features an 1.6GHz Atom Dual Core CPU and the reason we say this is because on one hand QNAP has ceased production of their previous generation TS-459 series (featured an 1.8GHz Atom Dual Core CPU) while on the other hand the closest competitors currently are the N4800Eco by Thecus (2.13GHz Atom Dual Core/2GB DDR3 RAM) and the TS-469L by QNAP (2.13GHz Atom Dual Core/1GB DDR3 RAM) two NAS Servers that offer more in terms of hardware but also cost quite a bit more. That being said you can currently find the AS-304T NAS Server for USD499 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 460Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). With that in mind the AS-304T NAS Server by ASUSTOR may not be the king of the hill and it's certainly far from perfect but it does offer a very good price/performance ratio with plenty of features and a great operating system so we are happy to award it with our Golden Award.

PRO

- Excellent Build Quality
- Very Good Performance (Speed/Temperatures/Power Consumption)
- Features
- 1GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600MHz
- Gigabit Ethernet Port
- 4 USB Ports (2xUSB 3.0 / 2xUSB 2.0)
- HDMI v1.4a
- Headphones Port
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10 + Hot Spare Support
- SATA III (6Gb/s)
- ADM OS
- Android/iOS Apps
- Price (For Some) 

 

 

CONS

- Limited Support For IP Cameras (Currently)
- Can’t Add More DDR3 RAM