Asustor AS6204T NAS Review

[Guest]

Asustor's AS6204T sports Intel's Braswell-based Celeron N3150 processor, 4GB of RAM, tons of I/O and a long list of software features. Is the NAS worth its hefty price tag compared to some of the other strong appliances in this segment, though?

Asustor AS6204T NAS Review : Read more

 

[JQB45]

I wish they would just sell the case in mITX size. Then I could add more own OS and other hardware.

 

[UKVamp_1]

2 x 2gb sodimm and the max 4 tb ram ????

 

[Lutfij]

UKVamp_1
1GB for each TB thus 4GB = 4TB max storage capacity.

 

[littleleo]

I have the ASUSTOR AS-202TE hooked to my living room TV. Some of the apps are just not functioning as promised but for what I paid it was a good deal.

 

[CRamseyer]

8GB max for the system memory. The limitation is from Intel on this processor / chipset.

 

[HideOut]

Again, just get a Buffalo 441e and put your own drives in it. It's not as fact, but its about $190 for the system + whatever 4 drives you use.

 

[Xajel]

I'm looking for a 4-bay NAS, it will be my first one.. but I need three more features: Link Aggregation, Upgradable RAM & Visualization.. I know there's multiple options including this I'm not in hurry for the matter.. but why do you guys make a comparison table in each review...

 

[DaDude1]

I wish they would just sell the case in mITX size. Then I could add more own OS and other hardware.

There are cases like this available. I looked at them a few month ago (approx. $180 for 5 bays), but finally settled on a node304 (6 internal bays) for my home server. I got the case for $50 (on sale on newegg), added the ASROCK H97 ITX with WLAN ($50 on sale), Celeron G3258 ($44) and CX430 powersupply ($10 after sale and rebate). The memory I used from my desktop (had 32 GB, so removed 16GB and added into the server) and I had as well 4 x 3TB WD Green in my desktop, which I added to the server (plus an old 120GB SSD as boot drive). I added as well a 8TB Seagate external ($200 on sale) and a 5TB Seagate external (paid $120 a while back) via USB3 for backups of the system. Got Windows 2012 R2 DataCenter from Microsoft (free educational license). Running right now on the box Home NAS, MediaConverter, Linux VM (OwnCloud), MSSQL VM, Windows Access Server VM and Windows Remote App/Desktop VM. I have approx. 7 GB Memory free on the box, which leaves plenty for additional VM's. The only disappointing aspect of this HomeNas/Server build is MS Storage Spaces or more specifically it's implementation of RAID5. I get with mirrored drives plenty of throughput, but writing to a RAID5 volume is running between 25 and 30 MB/s after the cache is used up. So when I transfer large volumes of data (some Datasets I use for analysis are in excess of 1TB), take forever to transfer to the volume. Overall the box cost me approx. $250 (excluding harddrives) and I take this anytime over any of the NAS boxes. I tried some of the NAS boxes (QNAP, Synology) and was very disappointed. If you have a bit of time (took me approx. 1 hour to build and approx. 6 hours to install and configure Windows 2012 R2) this would certainly be a better choice.
Getting back to cases look at the following:
Silverstone DS380 (8 hot-swap plus 4 x 2.5 internal) for $160
I believe Startech USA had a case that looked like the Asus or QNAP 4 bay units for approx. $180.

 

[JQB45]

@DaDude1 - I like the SilverStone DS380B you mentioned.

Here is a custom build using the SilverStone DS380B that costs less then a Diskless Asustor AS6204T NAS

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($67.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($149.45 @ OutletPC)
Case: Silverstone DS380B Mini ITX Tower Case ($144.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Certified SFX Power Supply ($39.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: Linux - CentOS ($0.00)
Total: $512.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-04-17 05:11 EDT-0400

All thats left to add is the hard drives.

 

[CRamseyer]

Great, so who do you call for support if something doesn't work right? Also, Linux isn't exactly user friendly for people coming from Windows. You are comparing apples to oranges here.