Asustor AS-304T review

One of the key ways NAS makers can set themselves apart from the competition is with a populated and vibrant app ecosystem, something which many lack. Asustor’s App Central is one of the better NAS software stores, with a big variety of first- and third-party tools readily available to download. This gives you the ability to greatly extend the use of your NAS for no cost whatsoever.

Whether you’re looking for an app to run a media centre, to host a website or to access your Cloud storage provider, in all likelihood you’ll find it in App Central. One thing we aren’t so keen on is the amount of time it takes to download an app; trying to install the XBMC media centre application took half an hour on our high-speed connection, a pattern repeated with all over installations we’ve attempted on both the AS304T and the AS202TE.

We put the dual-core processor through its paces using the installed XBMC media centre application, playing an HD video via the HDMI port. The video played free of stutter, and we were also able to navigate XMBC’s various menus without delay. We also installed the Google Chrome web browser and surfed the web using a USB mouse and keyboard. Visiting image-heavy web pages did result in jerky performance, but web browsing is unlikely to be the primary use of the NAS.

Data transfer performance is very good, as you’d expect from a NAS of this price. Performance in both RAID 5 and 6 were more or less equal. We saw large file read and write speeds of around 82MB/s, while small file write speeds were completed at around 13.5MB/s. Small file read speeds, meanwhile, were around 18.5MB/s.

The Asustor AS304T is an excellent 4-bay NAS that has speedy performance as well as the ability to smoothly play back videos over HDMI. It also does all the things you’d expect of a NAS such as backup, sharing and also has mobile applications allowing you to access data while on the move. If you’re not planning on taking advantage of its raw performance, your money may be better spent on the cheaper – albeit more basic – Netgear RN10400.