As more and more businesses found the need for networking, they also found the need to reliably share files. During that time, network attached storage was banished to a network closet or a server room and except for a few extreme users was mostly used for business. However, like a lot of technology it eventually filters down from the business environment into the hands of the home user. Not many home users want an industrial piece of equipment sitting out in their homes. Over the last few years, manufacturers have found ways to make Network Attached Storage Devices (NAS Or NASD) more compact, stylish, and add features that appeal to home users. The Asustor AS32204T NAS is a 4-bay device that offers a stylish look while providing shared storage services, network storage services as well as providing a platform for a home media server. Packaging The Asustor AS3204T packaging includes a wealth of information about the product. The actual product is featured on the front of the box as well as extra information about the NAS capabilities and hardware specifications. The side of the box gives a very brief overview of what the NAS does for those that do not know and gives some information on the media center capabilities of the AS3204T. Internally the AS3204T is protected from damage by two foam end caps and further protected by scratches and scrapes by a plastic bag. Included in the kit is the AS3204T NAS, a Delta 90w 12V power supply and power cable, quick start guide, and software CD. Specifications CPU Intel Celeron 1.6GHz Quad Core (burst up to 2.24 GHz) Processorl Memory 2GB DDR3L (not expandable) Hard Drive 3.5" SATA II/III x 4 Expansion USB 3.0 x3 Network Gigabit Ethernet x1 Output HDMI 1.4b x1 System Fan 120mm x1 Input Voltage 100v to 240v AC Power Consumption 27W (Operation) 11.4W (Disk Hibernation) 0.79W (Sleep Mode) Noise Level 19.7 dB (HDD idle) Operation Temperature 0°C - 40°C (32°F - 104°F) Humidity 5% to 95% RH Size 165(H) x 164(W) x 218(D) mm Weight 1.6 kg / 3.53 lb A Closer Look at the Asustor AS3204T The Asustro AS3204T balks at the traditional look of a NAS as there are no drive trays. Instead, Asustor chose a look that is more suited for a home entertainment center rather than a network room. The front of the AS204T has a diamond style texture with the Asustor logo emblazoned in gold on the upper right. Size wise, the NAS is just slightly larger than the 4 drives it houses and measures in at 165x164x218 mm (6.5x6.45x8.5 in.) There is a single USB 3. 0 port as well as an IR receiver, and LED status indicators for power, system status, network and drives. On the back of the AS3204T the most prominent feature is the 80MM PWM fan. Also on the rear of the NAS is the power button, recessed reset switch, 2x USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.4B port, a gigabit ethernet port, and a power port. Externally the Asustor AS3204T is extremely simple. Asustor states the installation of the hard drives does not require any tools. The drives are installed inside the housing. The first step is to remove the four thumbscrews on the rear of the NAS. Next you'll need to slide the two sections of the NAS apart and then remove the larger section. The internal structure of the NAS is made from a steel frame. The frame has slots for 4 SATA drives. To install the drives, simply slide the drives in place and secure using the included thumbscrews. Drive connectivity is proved by a daughter card that plugs into the PCIe 1x slot on the motherboard. The motherboard is tucked neatly away inside the left side of the case. The most prominent feature on the board is the passive heatsink that helps keeps the Intel CPU cool. The system is designed to use the fan at the back to keep the CPU and hard drives cool. The Asustor 3204T has 2 gigabytes of RAM which cannot be expanded due to the fact the memory is soldiered on to the motherboard. The NAS uses 8 Samsung K4B2G1646!-BIK0 memory ICs that are spec'd to run at DDR3-1600 (11-11-11) An ADATA IUM01 USB DOM (Disk on Module) supplies the storage for the NAS firmware. A Texas Instruments DP139 DP to TDMS driver is responsible for the HDMI 1.4b output on the Asustor AS3204T. Networking is controlled by a Broadcom BCM57781 Ethernet controller. The controller is capable of 10/100/1000 network speeds. This is the same chip that's used on many desktop motherbards as well as discreet network cards. The ITE IT8728F takes care of the super I/O which includes temperature monitoring on the AS3204T. Initial Setup After you've installed the hard drive, the next step is to perform the initial set up. First, you will need to plug in and power up the NAS. Then you can use the software on the CD or an IP scanner to get the IP address of the NAS. Either way, set up happens in a web browser. Once the IP Address of the Asustor 3204T has been entered in the browser, you'll need to perform the 1st time set up. These steps include downloading the latest ADM (Asustor Data Master operating system) as well as choosing which RAID level you'd like to choose. As long as the NAS can connect to the internet, the wizard will download and install the latest DSM. If internet access is not available, you can choose to initialize the NAS with the ADM that the NAS shipped with or, you can upload the ADM manually if you previously downloaded the latest version. Once download or upload process is complete, the NAS will unpack and install the firmware and reboot the NAS. After the reboot, you will be asked to select a RAID level and complete the set up. You'll have the choice to have a 1-click set up or you can choose to customize the rest of the installation. The 1-Click set up limits the options you can choose and is designed to get you up and running as quick as possible. Here you will be asked to enter the name of your NAS, the administrator password and the storage requirements. The options presented are Maximum Capacity, Superior data protection, and balanced. You'll need to click on the box that states you've read and understand that all data on the drives will be lost and cannot be recovered. The last step is just watching your NAS apply the settings that you chose. During my testing, it took about 15 minutes to apply the settings and get the the desktop of the NAS. If you choose the custom option, you'll be presented with more pages with more questions to answer. The 1st page of the custom setup allows you to set the NAS name and the administrator password. The second page asks you to fill out the Time and Date settings. On the third page you will fill out the network settings. You can choose to use DHCP (automatic) Ip addressing or set the IP address of the AS3204T manually. The next page allows you to set the RAID level you'd like to run. Unlike the 1-Click set up, the custom options allows you to be more granular. First you'll need to select the number of hard drives in the Array and then the RAID level. The choices are Single, JBOD (Just a bunch of disks), RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. Again, you'll have to confirm that you understand that all data will be erased and not recoverable. After you've chosen the RAID level, you'll be asked to register the NAS. Asustor ADM Overview ADM is the management interface that you will use to manage and monitor the Asustor AS3204T. The management interface is presented as a web page and is accessed through a web browser using the IP Address of the NAS. When you log in for the 1st time, you'll be presented with a users guide that will introduce you to the functions of the NAS. Once you've logged in, you'll be presented with the desktop. The desktop functions similarly as it does in Windows. There are icons on the desktop that represent different applications or accesses settings of the NAS. The first icon on the desktop is access control. In access control, you can create users and groups as well as assign those users and groups access permissions to shared folders. Activity monitor allows you to monitor the CPU, memory, network, and disk utilization of the NAS. The process tab is very similar to task manager in Windows and you can kill or end processes if they are hung up or not responding. App Central is where you can install additional applications. Think of it like the store on modern smart phones. Simply find the application that you want to install and click on install. There are applications that may have prerequisites. If so, the description of the application will list which additional applications are required. If you're stuck or are having issues with your NAS, online help can be utilized. Here you can find help on what each section or setting of the NAS does and how it can be configured. Just relying on the NAS and its RAID level is a recipe for disaster. You should at least perform a back up. In Back up and restore, you can choose how you want to back the NAS up as well as restore previously backed up items. Remote Sync (RSync) allows you to back up from one network device to another. Such as NAS to NAS. You can also use FTP or cloud back up to keep your data safe. You can manage the devices that are plugged into the USB ports by using the External Devices icon. External devices can be a USB hard drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optical drives or a UPS. File explorer allows you to create and manage files and folders on the NAS. You can choose to have a local folder on the NAS as well as share that folder. You can also connect to other network shares as well as access files and folders on external drives. In the Services you can enable/disable network services such as Windows and Mac file sharing, FTP server, Web server, and Rsync services. Storage Manager is where you can make changes to your RAID array and enable iSCSI. If you change RAID levels, the array will be destroyed and all data will be lost. It will take some time for the array to fully synchronize but storage should be usable after about 20% synchronization. System information give you detailed information on the NAS hardware and network configuration. You can also view the NAS logs. For troubleshooting there is Dr. Asustor. Dr. Asustor allows you to execute diagnostics that can be sent to support for troubleshooting. HDMI Out- The Asustor AS3204T comes with an HDMI output that allows you to connect the NAS to a TV or monitor. This provides an interface to allow you to use the NAS as a media center or as a light weight desktop for web browsing. For control and optional IR remote can be purchased or you can connect a keyboard and mouse via USB. In order to get HDMI to display, you will need to install X.org and the prerequisite software from App Central. The applications that display via HDMI are different than the applications on the web browser desktop. Items like Chrome, Netflix, and KODI will need to be installed via the web browser (App Central) before they can be accessed through HDMI. Testing Methodology System Configuration Case Cooler Master Cosmos II SE CPU Intel i7 4770K Motherboard MSI Z97m Gaming Ram 2 GB G.Skill F3-12800CL9q DDR3-1600 GPU MSI GTX 970 OC Hard Drives Samsung 840 EVO 256gb SSD Western Digital black 500 gb 7200 RPM HDD Power Supply NXZT Hale v2 1000 Watt power supply 4 Seagate 4 TB 7200 RPM desktop drives were installed and used in the NAS tests. A dual port Intel network card was installed in the test system. The QNAP TS-563 in all RAID arrays used a Single Static Volume. In our testing I used the Thecus N5550, QNAP TS-451, & the Seagate DP-6 to get comparison numbers against the QNAP TS-563. The QNAP TS-563 shipped with 8 gb of RAM. The Seagate DP-6 used 4 drives and 2 GB of RAM. The other NAS devices use 4 GB of ram and the same Seagate NAS hard drives. Network Layout For all tests the NAS was configured to use the a single network interface. One CAT 6 cable was connected to the Cisco 2960 from the NAS and one CAT 6 cable was connected to the workstation from the switch. Testing was done on the PC with only 1 network card active; the Killer network card and the corresponding software were disabled for the testing. The switch was cleared of any configuration and left in a unconfigured state. Jumbo frames was not enabled and no changes to the network interfaces was made. Software All testing is done based off of a single client accessing the NAS. We are currently working on a multi-client testing solution. Stay tuned. To test NAS Performance I used The Intel NAS Performance toolkit and Atto Storage benchmark. The Intel NAS Performance toolkit simulates various tasks for storage devices such as video streaming, copying files and folders to and from the NAS as well as creatingcontent directly on the NAS. To limit caching, a 2GB G.Skill memory module was used in all tests. All options in the Performance toolkit were left that the defaults. The NAS performance test is free to download. You can pick up a copy for yourself here. All tests were run a total of three times then averaged to get the final result. RAID 0, RAID 10, and RAID 5 are all tested. Tests were run after all the RAID arrays were fully synchronized. For real world testing, I copied a 4.3 gigabyte ISO file from the SSD in the test PC to the shared folder on the NAS. 4.3 gigabytes of MP3 files were copied over as well. RAID Information Images courtesy of Wikipedia JOBD or Just a Bunch Of Disks is exactly what the name describes. The hard drives have no actual raid functionality and are spanned at random data is written at random. RAID 0 is a stripe set and data is written across the disks evenly. The advantage of RAID 0 is speed and increased capacity. With RAID 0 there is no redundancy and data loss is very possible. RAID 1 is a mirrored set and data is mirrored from one drive to another. The advantage of RAID 1 is data redundancy as each piece of data is written to both disks. The disadvantage of RAID 1 is write speed is decreased as compared to RAID 0 due to the write operation is performed on both disks. RAID 1 capacity is that of the smallest disk. RAID 10 combines the 1st two raid levels and is a mirror of a stripe set. This allows for better speed of a RAID 0 array but the data integrity of a RAID 1 array. RAID 5 is a stripe set with parity. RAID 5 requires at least 3 disks. Data is striped across each disk, and each disk has a parity block. RAID 5 allows the loss of one drive without losing data. The advantage to RAID 5 is read speeds increase as the number of drives increase but the disadvantage is write speeds are slower as the number of drives is increased. There is overhead with RAID 5 as the parity bit needs to be calculated and with software RAID 5 there is more of a performance hit. RAID 6 expands on RAID 5 by adding an additional parity block to the array that is distributed across all the disks. Since there are two parity blocks in the array more overhead is used with a RAID 6 array. For a full breakdown of RAID levels, take a look at the Wikipedia article here. RAID configurations are a highly debated topic. RAID has been around for a very long time. Hard drives have changed, but the technology behind RAID really hasn’t. So what may have been considered ideal a few years ago may not be ideal today. If you are solely relying on multiple hard drives as a safety measure to prevent data loss, you are in for a disaster. Ideally you will use a mutli-drive array for an increase in speed and lower access times and have a backup of your data elsewhere. I have seen arrays with hot spares that had multiple drives fail and the data was gone. Do yourself a favor and read up on the different types of RAID arrays and plan accordingly. Personally, I use a RAID 10 array with an automated backup to the cloud. I feel with that setup, I’ve done what I can to keep my data safe. Network Test Results Network Results - Real World Testing Crystal Disk Mark Windows File Copy - Files copied from PC to the NAS. Windows File Copy - Files copied from the NAS to the PC. Transcoding Performance. To measure CPU utilization while the NAS trascoded video, I used a 4K video file and performed on the fly transcoding using the video player that opens with the File Explorer application. Hardware transcoding was enabled prior to this test. Final Thoughts From an aesthetics stand point, the Asustor AS3204T does fit in more with home entertainment than other NAS I have tested in the past. The small box has generated the question "What is that?" from family and friend when they've come over. I've been using the Asustor AS3204T more of a media center than a network storage device. That doesn't however mean that it can't do both duties. It performs well as a media center. During playback, the CPU utilization was <40% when playing videos through KODI. HD videos were played back at their native resolution. During testing I never saw the temperature rise above 55°C and at that I didn't hear the fan. Even while the AS3204T was transcoding, I didn't notice any signs of latency or sluggishness. Priced at $359.00 USD, the Asustor AS3204T is priced in the same range as other NAS devices that also include HDMI out and media center functionality. Asustor's DSM is easy to set up and manage. DSM makes it quick and easy to get set up and running or you can set up the NAS as you so desire. Management is easy and I appreciate the fact that DSM doesn't bury the advanced options in menu after menu and puts the advance features on the same menu level as basic configurations. My one gripe about DSM is the App Center. It doesn't feel as polished as other NAS devices. For example, installing X.org requires the user to manually install the prerequisite software before installing X.org whereas other NAS devices install all the software required to output video over HDMI. From a hardware standpoint, the internals of the Asustor AS3204T are perfectly adequate. The CPU is an Intel Celeron Quad Core running at 1.60 GHz and 2 GB of ram. The second "complaint" that I have with the AS3204T is the fact that the memory is not user replaceable nor can it be upgraded as it is soldiered onto the motherboard. Performance wise the AS3204T falls right in the middle of the pack. The only two 4+ bay NAS devices that I have on hand to test against fall into a slightly higher category of SOHO/Business use. But considering that, I think the AS3204T performs well. With synthetic testing, the AS3204T falls behind in some of the tests but, synthetic testing isn't always representative of of perception. With the copy tests, I didn't notice if the AS3204T was any faster or slower than the two comparison NAS. My perception was they were all about the same. Overall, I feel the AS3204T performs well enough in a home environment despite some of the gripe and/or complaints that I have of which, there were two. During and after testing usage I experienced no issues with the AS3204T and it worked flawlessly. The price of the AS3204T put it right in the middle of the home market. The HDMI out works well however, it would have been nice if the remote control was included considering that it is billed as a media center with no way to control it. However, for those that have a Logitech Harmony remote, you can control the NAS with it. If you're looking to dress up your media center with an unobtrusive device, the AS3204T could fit the bill.
