Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T) NAS Review - Asustor Introduction

Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 AS6704t NAS (2x 2.5 GigE/ 4x M.2. NVMe) 
A powerful and very feature-rich NAS unit

There are two trends regarding NAS units: multi-gigabit Ethernet and, of course, a shift toward NAND-based flash storage. Asustor introduced the Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T) NAS server. This SOHO NAS is one of the most intriguing NAS systems we have analyzed to date since it is speedy, feature-rich, and has two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet connections and an amazing four NVMe M.2 slots next to ist four SATA3 slots.

The new Lockerstor is refitted with ASUSTOR aesthetics and has a more professional appearance. The AS6704T has four 2.5"/3.5" HDD/SSD trays and four M.2. slots is equipped with an Intel 10 nm Celeron N5105 CPU, a quad-core with 2 GHz base speeds, and a maximum turbo of 2.9 GHz. This new model is designed with a professional consumer in mind. However, we believe that every family should have a NAS device. This series is based on the premise that digital data storage and capabilities such as streaming are becoming more crucial. The AS6704T comes into play if you demand rapid and huge capacity storage for movies transmitted to several devices. In addition to its four 3.5" and compatible 2.5" slots (which thus can accommodate SATA3 HDDs and SSDs), this LockerStor also has quadruple M2 slots. These are NVMe-compatible. Thus, they are also rather fast. If you have a Multi-GigE Ethernet infrastructure, you can achieve 300 MB/sec across a single Ethernet connection, and the CPU is more than quick enough to keep that file stream locked and loaded. These essential qualities alone make this a very effective NAS, period. It contains all the features of Asustor, plus more.

• Two 2.5 GbE ports with up to 5 Gbps under Link Aggregation
• Quad M.2 NVMe (PCIe Gen 3) SSD ports for fast caching / Storage
• 4K HDMI output
• Quad-Core Intel Celeron N5105 2.0 Ghz - 2.9 Ghz turbo
• 4GB DDR4-2933/3200 
• Supports Wake on LAN and Wake on WAN

Asustor gave this AS6704T NAS series a fitting processor; it is a 10W TDP Intel Celeron N5105 (Jasper Lake; 10nm). The four CPU cores of the Tremont-based processor architecture operate between 2 and 2.9 GHz (single-core Burst) but lack HyperThreading (SMT). The N5105 has 1.5 MB of L2 cache and 4 MB of L3 cache. Intel manufactures the chip at 10nm. Tremont is a redesigned CPU architecture compared to the Golmont Plus cores of its predecessor. 

It has a 4K enabled iGPU with embedded graphics support (mostly used as a transcoding engine for NAS). That means that both the native media applications from Asustor and Plex Media Server will support transcoding (Plex does require a premium subscription to activate that, though). So that offers plenty of performance while remaining energy efficient as well. A NAS is, in fact, a server, so it'll need some system memory as well. Included is 4GB of DDR4 (SO-DIMM) memory; however, you can drop in another 4GB through the extension port to reach a total of 8GB. The OS that manages it all is ADM, now at revision 4.0. And I have seen this software grow to something particularly impressive, stable, and secure over the years. ADM is coupled with an intuitive desktop GUI (graphics interface). A recent addition is support for the btrfs file system, which enables snapshots of storage volumes for simplified backups, as well as a docker application, Plex, and room server for multimedia apps. You will also note that the Lockerstor AS 67604T supports on-device video streaming so you may view high-quality videos from YouTube and Twitch as soon as the NAS device's HDMI 2.0a output is activated. The software included with your purchase of an Asustor NAS includes many first-party media management, file management, backup, and system utilities. There is also support for the more recent docker/container program for operating smaller virtual environments; VirtualBox is supported for larger VMs and features ClamAV Protection for protection against intrusion, malware, viruses, and more.

We evaluate the 4-bay model, which is packed with capabilities and a wealth of software that enables anything from a basic FTP server to VM-aware solutions and an abundance of media functions. In addition, these devices come with a generous three-year guarantee, often reserved for premium NAS servers from other manufacturers.

The issue with NAS devices and reviews is that they are so loaded with features that a single review cannot adequately convey all of the capabilities. But believe me when I say that ASUSTOR offers the most comprehensive services. Before we begin the review, I want to repeat that the Jasper Lake refresh design makes this NAS energy-efficient. The active system with one three M.2 NVMe SSD uses around 15 Watts, and that's all. Today's tested NAS device has four hot-swappable RAID-compatible HDD slots. It provides users with NVMe M.2 slots, 2x full-duplex 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet connectors, and two USB 3.2 (Gen2, 10Gb/s) ports. Yes, this NAS may be an excellent low-power alternative while giving the functionality of a tiny server. Check out the product, and we'll get a little more into the evaluation.