Asustor AS1002T NAS review (Page 15)

Asustor AS1002T NAS review

Networking 65 Page 15 of 15 Published 2015-10-23 08:39 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Final Words & Conclusion

Final words and conclusion

The AS1002T at a price under the 200 USD/EURO marker is simply terrific value, in fact this might be the best prices NAS for the money when take into consideration how well this unit performs, how silent it is, how incredibly energy friendly it is and what it can do with the software suite. Even though this unit has one simple ARM based dual-core 1 GHz processor and 512MB of RAM, it remains to be fast, flexible, energy efficient. Combined with the extensive ADM software suite this NAS just oozes value.

Overall usage

This box that is highly configurable in terms of HDDs capability. You get RAID 0,1 functionality with 2 tray versions bringing some extra value into this little NAS unit, being a value offering it does not come with hot-spares / trays / displays and HDMI. The two bay unit as tested today can take huge TB sized HDDs, so if you use two 8TB HDDs you are going to see a two bay 16 TB NAS unit, with seriously fast performance. Mind you that for the newer 6TB and higher HDDs you need the latest firmware installed. But during setup, the ADM software should automatically be updated anyway.

Performance

We reached high transfer speeds over our Gigabit Ethernet connection and though Ethernet will always bring in some performance and lag issues over a network connection I must admit that I liked what I saw, it's plenty fast for all your activities. With large files and a fast enough HDD over a Gigabit connection you will reach 100 MB/sec on read and writes, likely even higher. So for this type of connection, really it can hardly go any faster. The performance is staggering when you take the processor into account, the dual-core ARmv7 processor remains plenty fast and combined with 512MB memory it simple did not run into any performance issues. Then one thing that was slow was the file-sytem buildup. Just after first use HDD partitioning and formatting you can already use the HDD, but the EXT4 formatting needed two hours for 8TB. Hey even so, I heard about Marvell based Synology NAS units that took two days. But yeah that was the one thing that was a little slow. Other than that on the GUI and OS side of things we can say that the NAS is responsive and very fast. The usage of this processor also makes your applications fast enough, anything Apache and MySQL related for home usage will function fine as well. Yeah for a unit that draws roughly 5 to 12 Watts I am still a little surprised.

Flexibility

Here we land at the rest of the features and functions. You'll have your FTP server, you can upload images and music, make slideshows out of it and show it on the web server of the device or watch photos and videos with the help of a software suite on your smartphone. You can stream DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) and this NAS can be automatically discovered by Digital Media Players (DMP), Digital Media Renders (DMR) and Digital Media Controllers (DMC) allowing Pictures, Music and Video to be shared instantly at any time at home. All DLNA Certified Devices are capable of streaming content instantly from this NAS. The NAS can act as an iTunes server, with your mobile or say Apple iPod Touch you can stream music over Wifi. You can share files over the internet if you wanted to, and the list goes on and on. Keep in mind though that everything on this box is targeted at consumers and small business users (SOHO). Though you can access the WEB directory and make your own website, control and configuration over say the MySQL server we do warn you to take security measures. Make sure you secure your public files with proper Unix/Linux permissions. Thus at least a CHMOD 755 on Directories and preferable 644 on files. You can login to the box through SSH.

The application list you can use on this machine is ginormous. Who even thinks of making a torrent download server inside the NAS box ? You insert a .torrent file in the software option and all of the sudden the NAS is downloading content from the internet. It's nearly crazy to witness, how nice is that.

Energy Efficiency

We tested this unit with an SSD so that we are certain that the storage unit can never be a bottleneck in terms of measuring storage performance. This SSD uses roughly 3.5 Watts. The traditional HDD these days uses roughly 5 to 8 Watts. So if you'd use one 8TB HDD for example, this unit would still hover in or at the 10 Watt range, an amazing number TBH. That said in idle and low usage circumstances the NAS unit uses roughly 5 Watt. We assume you will add two HDDs thus add another 7 Watts. However, if your HDD is not used for say 30 minutes (or your own configured sleep time), it'll go into sleep mode and thus does not use any extravagant power (5W). We have to admit that this NAS unit is very energy efficient. Especially considering the performance and server like applications it houses.

Final words and verdict

ASUSTOR is on full frontal attack in terms of price and performance, the AS1002T is simply a terrific product that easily outclasses any NAS in this price range. The performance is extremely good for a processor of this class. Combined with the ADM software suite and applications this low power unit will be a terrific choice for a home server. File-sharing, usenet, file-server, streaming you name it this AS1002T offers it all. And even with the ARMv7 dual-core processor and 512MB RAM it still manages to be really fast. There are so many more options and features available that we have not been able to discuss. The problem is that a NAS is not just a file-server anymore, these are fully fledged file serving servers with a plethora of applications and functionality. The ASUSTOR AS1002T (or four HDD capable AS1004T) with the new updated software definitely is one of the most versatile NAS units we have tested. So yeah, this is a fully fletched Gigabyte Ethernet compatible NAS at under 200 EURO / 189 USD, tremendous value for what it offers really.

The ASUSTOR AS1002T is easily if not the best performing NAS in this price range with all whistles and bells available. It offers more than plenty features for the consumer side of the market with excellent performance and extensive software suite that you may expect from a NAS unit anno 2015. Seriously, 199 EURO covered with a three year warranty ... that's worthy of our hard to earned Storage Sweetness award.