Asustor AS6202T NAS Review - Asustor Introduction

ASUSTOR AS6202T - NAS Server
More Performance With A Flagship NAS Unit

In this review we test the Asustor AS6202T NAS. The AS6202T is more powerful in the sense that it comes with a much stronger processor, more memory and a plethora of features. The 2 in that product name means we'll be testing the 2-bay version of this quad-core processor based NAS with 4 GB of internal RAM memory.

Over the years we have been testing quite a number of Asustor NAS units, and admittedly every single one of the has been exemplary within its product position in the market. A quality build in terms of hardware combined with a very strong and efficient software suite are the two key words here. 

The AS6202T as tested today is for the intended ones that that need that little extra in their NAS, a bit more power and a SDRAM buffer on their NAS perhaps for their WEB related hosting which you can manage on this product. So lets us call the AS6202T a pro-sumer and SOHO targeted product. The AS6 range can in this respect compared a little to what Intel is doing with the Core i3, i5 and i7 naming schema. The Asustor AS6 product line as they offer AS1, AS2, AS3, AS5 and this AS6 series of NAS server, and yes that means the AS6 or the AS6202T falls within their flagship line of products. 

Priced at €389,- the product still is price competitive, especially for the small business owner and heavy consumer. Basically the AS6202T  is an energy friendly server offering a wide range of features including file-sharing, usenet download, web applications, download systems, security center and so on. Yes, years ago a NAS unit had the sole function to serve files. These days however they have become easy to manage servers with select-able applications you can install. Combined with the right amount of security and options a NAS can be a very powerful solution on your LAN or SOHO environment. Being the flagship series the AS6202T also can be used as media center, Kodi can be installed and it can even manage playback of Ultra HD movies over a HDMI 1.4b connection and if you'd prefer it, audio over an Optical SPDIF output. Your LAN needs are well served also, you can output towards LAN Link Aggregation with the two gigabit Ethernet jacks (albeit that is a hard thing to achieve Windows software wise).

As stated, the AS6202T will come with a proper 4 GB of DDR3 memory, expandable towards 8 GB. And then the processor, this Asustor is housing a proper Intel Celeron 1.6 GHz Quad-Core (burst up to 2.08 ~ 2.24 GHz). Combined with the latest and advanced Asustor management software and app suite this product is bound to impress. This immediately feels fast in its file transfers, it simply is a very capable server. Key usability for this product would be centralized storage, professional grade backup availability though. Armed with the latest firmware and an updated GUI + priced competitive against the big guns in the industry like Qnap, Thecus, Synology and Netgear a year or three ago Asustor entered the market.

Today's tested model NAS unit has two HDD bays (hot-swappable), RAID 0/1, 2x eSATA, 2x Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0/3.0 connectors and then a heap of software functionality that remains to be really impressive. You can install 10 TB HDDs and depending on how you configure them reach a 20 Terabyte NAS storage solution. You could use all that storage to download torrents or usenet content (sickbeard, nzbget, couch-potato and other popular software is supported), it has its own FTP server, a MySQL compatible MariaDB server, a WEB server including support for virtual hosts, built-in Kodi media center and well anything you could wish for on a low power server. You can use Android and IOS Apps to control or monitor the NAS and next to all that luxury, it remains a user and group based management based proper NAS as well. Basically whatever you need is ticked in some sort of way on a list of necessities anno 2016 for a modern age NAS, and it's doing so with an powerful 1.60 GHz Quad-Core Processor  and 4 GB of memory.  It does all that while remaining completely silent, well as silent as your HDD is really. Next to that by using that Intel Celeron 1.60 GHz Quad-Core Processor processor, this NAS unit in IDLE consumes fairly low amounts of power. 

Power consumption with one HDD sits at roughly ~20 Watts with one active HDD. So this NAS might be a terrific choice for many. Have a peek and then let's head into the review, armed with the lates ADM firmware. Have a peek at the product after which we'll dive into the full review.