Asustor AS-5102T NAS review

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NAS Explained

Network Attached Storage

Times have changed and our storage requirements have moved from kilobytes, to megabytes, to Gigabytes and now even Terabytes of storage. And sure, it won't be long until we reach Petabytes either. Oh and after that there's Exabyte and then Zettabyte.

File Storage Capacity by Bits and Bytes
  byte Kilobyte Megabyte Gigabyte
Kilobyte 1,024 1 1,024 1,048,576
Megabyte 1,048,576 1,024 1 1,024
Gigabyte 1,073,741,824 1,048,576 1,024 1
Terabyte 1,099,511,627,776 1,073,741,824 1,048,576 1,024
Petabyte 1,125,899,906,842,620 1,099,511,627,776 1,073,741,824 1,048,576
Exabyte 1,152,921,504,606,850,000 1,125,899,906,842,620 1,099,511,627,776 1,073,741,824
Zettabyte 1,180,591,620,717,410,000,000 1,152,921,504,606,850,000 1,125,899,906,842,620 1,099,511,627,776

So we passed the Terabyte marker. With our hefty demand in storage capabilities, the industry had to constantly adapt and introduce new features in hardware. Storage units got much bigger in volume over the year, 6 TB HDDs have just been introduced onto the market with 10TB already in the pipeline. In that line of storage solutions there is one product series growing fast and now reaching SOHO and consumer based markets. They are called NAS units, network attached storage. And there has been a lot of development in these nifty little boxes. Pretty much they are little servers that you can hook onto your network and then function as file-server.

The NAS units are often small, do not use a lot of power compared to say your PC, but they are highly configurable, offer redundancy as some models can even handle RAID internally. Network Attachable Units are among the most advanced home servers available on the market today. Products feature multiple HDDs setups, partitions, RAID, USER and USERGROUP based access, FTP, web server, MySQL, hot swappable drives; these are just some of the features that a NAS unit can handle. And though expensive, a product like this is just too darn handy when it comes to file-storage and management over your network. 

NAS / DAS -- What's it all about ?

The key aspect of NAS is that it is storing data on a server connecting through the Ethernet towards a PC, your NAS unit is in fact acting as the server, your PC is a client. A DAS storage device is not networked. In other words, it's not using a storage area network (SAN), network-attached storage (NAS), Ethernet or Fibre Channel switches. The storage has a direct connect to a server/PC. So that's the main difference, each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. DAS units connect directly to a PC and often are a little cheaper. NAS units can be accessed by any PC (client) within the network with proper security of course.

The Asustor AS5102T

The Asustor AS5102T can house up to two hard drives or SSDs.  The unit is tied to a Gigabit Ethernet jack, meaning 1000 / 8 minus QOS and overhead is roughly a maximum of 100 to 125 MB/sec. You can install two storage units in today's tested device NAS, these can be set up a RAID mirror array or for the 4-bay model with hot-swap (remove/insert) capability on the hard drives. The RAID functionality of unit supports RAID 0,1 or with the 4+ HDD models RAID 5. Once you have installed your hardware, you'll need to bind the NAS towards your Ethernet with a CAT5e/6e cable to a switch, the Asustor AS5102T offers more connectors though, you may also make use of eSATA or USB 2.0/3.0 making this NAS unit really a bit of a DAS unit as well. When you have your HDDs installed, and the device connected through your PC you'll need to start-up a software suite to bind and setup your configuration. Please look at the install CD for that. Or if you have a smartphone, simply use an app like FING and scan the network, Asustor will show up with a corresponding IP. Type in the IP into your browser and you can start seting up the unit. 

The Asustor AS5102T Hardware

The Asustor AS5102T based upon an Intel Celeron 2.0GHz quad-core processor that can boost towards 2.41 GHz. Factory installed is a 2GB SO-DIMM DDR3L memory module, but you may expand to a maximum of 8GB (single channel) spread out over two modules (on slot is free). The Asustor AS5102T can eat two 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch SSDs or HDDs and also supports hot-swapping. You will notice lots of connection options including three USB 3.0 (two at the back one in the front), two USB 2.0, and two eSATA ports. The unit sports two Gigabit Ethernet ports to support fail-over and dual-IP setups. Very interesting to see is that at the backside you will also spot an HDMI 1.4a and S/PDIF connector, yes the unit can function as HTPC as well. You can playback videos from your NAS directly to your HDTV and or audio system. This functionality is controlled via the web interface, or alternatively a smartphone app or you can simply attach a keyboard and mouse to the units USB ports, that actually works. 

Operating system compatibility wise the AS5102T supports file sharing across Linux, UNIX, Mac, and Windows platforms. We will be testing with Windows 7 and 8.1. Also for the more advanced among you, windows AD (Active Directory) is supported to help create an easy-to-access environment. SSH login and web page SSL login enables users to transfer, store, and share data securely. Since this product acts as a server ALL PC's within your network can connect to it. With or without access rights. You can manage it from any client as you simply log into the web-interface and configure it.

But let's dive into a more detailed photo shoot.
 

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