CONCLUSION

   ASUSTOR may not have the history QNAP, Synology and Thecus have behind them but they have managed to take quite a large piece of the market thanks to their high-performance NAS server models which from day one featured a very nicely designed OS something which none of the other manufacturers can claim (although right now they have very good ones as well). Performance is also up there with the best NAS servers we've ever used although with just 1GbE tests we really can't have the best possible results and since we have a 10GbE switch i can't really figure out why ASUSTOR and QNAP are not sending their 10GbE cards along so that we can cover even the most demanding readers out there. That being said even 1GbE tests show some differences between the top models so chances are that these will also transfer/reflect onto 10GbE performance charts (however we can only guess). Power consumption is also quite high but do take into consideration that we're basically talking about a AS7004T but with 6 drives (the ones we used) and if that number gets up to the 10 it supports well you can imagine that consumption will get even higher so i wouldn't pay much attention in that particular test if i was you. The AS7010T also did quite well in our noise levels and HDD temperatures charts and honestly quite better than we had hoped when placing 6 drives inside (although the two 120mm fans kinda gave the temperature results away). ASUSTOR also seems to be paying much attention to what consumers ask since their OS is getting improved all the time by adding extra features so it wouldn't be a stretch if i was to say that they're catching up really fast with what QNAP offers with their QTS OS. As for media playback not much to say here since the AS7010T is just as good as the excellent AS7004T. Unfortunately we still don't have native 4k content which we can use to test the capabilities of the AS7xxxT series by ASUSTOR but we're talking about an I3-4330 CPU with 2GB of RAM and a very light OS so i doubt 4k playback would be a problem for these models.

   I'm quite positive that right about now many of you are wondering about how much the AS7010T NAS Server by ASUSTOR costs and let's be honest there's simply no way that an i3-4330 based model with room for up to 10 HDDs can come cheap and with a current price tag set at USD1949 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at around 1750Euros inside the EU it's certainly not. Of course the people who will require such a powerful NAS server can obviously afford it since this is a model targeted towards small businesses and enterprises. The true "drawback" however is that at that price the AS7010T doesn't feature the 10GbE card and to get it you need to spend another USD499. Again this is probably nothing for its primary target group but overall price is a little bit hot although in terms of hardware specifications things don't get any better than this. So if you need a powerful NAS server with room for up to 10 HDDs and plenty of features and money is not in the way then the AS7010T is an excellent choice and that's why it gets our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Excellent Build Quality
- Intel Core i3-4330 (3.5GHz)
- Excellent Performance
- Features
- 2GB SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM (Expandable To 16GB)
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 5 USB Ports (3xUSB 3.0 / 2xUSB 2.0)
- 2 eSATA Ports
- HDMI v1.4a Output
- 4k (2160p) Video Output
- Optical S/PDIF Audio Output
- 10 Drive Bays
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10
- SATA III (6Gb/s)

CONS

- Price (For Some)