Three years ago, we already had a NAS server from Asus, and then he left an extremely positive impression. And now a new, more powerful model arrived at the editorial office Asustor nimbustor 4 (AS5304T) In Russia, they ask for 32 500 rubles for a gadget.
Recently, the ASUS lineup has replenished with several interesting devices. Office version of NAS with support for 10GbE speed and home multimedia center with more powerful hardware and speed 2.5GbE. It was the second one that came to our review.
The home server comes complete with one Ethernet cable and power supply. Warranty – 3 years. Drivers are not included.
The manufacturer describes the design of AS5304T as a “processed diamond. The front door covers the hard drives, it is made of glossy black plastic. This design solution gives the NAS a more aesthetic appearance. It is more pleasant to put such a device in the bedside table under the TV than previous ASUSTOR models with bare HDD trays.
The case is painted in matt black and made of aluminum. From the interfaces at the back next to the 120mm cooler you will find HDMI 2.0, two Ethernet outputs, two USB 3.0 and a connector for the power supply. At the bottom there is a cutout for the Kensington lock, and the caps of the cross screws that must be unscrewed to open the case are also visible. On the front side there are only LEDs and a power button. Dismantling the device for cleaning from dust is not difficult.
The NAS runs silently, the cooler is not audible even under load.
NAS has a good hardware for this type of device. It allows you to use the multitasking operating system of the device to the maximum, as well as solve resource-intensive tasks.
AS5304T has a quad-core processor Intel Celeron J4105 with a base frequency of 1.5 GHz and a Boost frequency of up to 2.5 GHz. However, it is not hot at all and the heat dissipation is only 10 watts. A feature of this stone is the support of a dual-channel DDR4 memory mode with a capacity of up to 4 GB per channel.
This NAS can be called primarily a media device, as the chip has an integrated graphics core Intel UHD-600which provides HDMI 2.0a output. It supports 10-bit hardware decoding 4K, decoding HEVC and VP9 10bit Profile2.
Four bays allow you to install both 3.5 ”and 2.5” HDD- or SSD-drives. 2.5 ”hard drives are mounted on plastic latches, and 3.5” are bolted.
When you turn on the NAS, we need to login to the local IP address. Next we see the shell ADM, which immediately suggests downloading the latest updates to the device. ADM can be called an operating system, it provides access to your files from a browser, has an application store and allows you to flexibly configure the device using a simple visual interface.
The initial setup of ASUSTOR is quick and without any problems. When the NAS sees your hard drives, it will offer to create a RAID array from them. Here it’s convenient for you – either you make one common storage of all hard drives using all available disk space, or cut off half of all memory, but protect the system from failure of any one HDD / SSD.
The visual interface is a desktop with icons and turning pages. Out of the box, NAS offers a wide range of options, for example, differentiation of access rights of different users, storage management, online help and others.
Up to 512 users can connect to the NAS simultaneously; 4096 accounts will be able to store the server locally. Folders common to users can be created both public and with encryption. ASUSTOR also provides statistics on user activity in the Activity Monitor application.
In the settings we can control the data transfer protocols SMB, AFP and NFS. To regulate the speed of rotation of the cooler and the power consumption of the drives, configure the connected external devices via USB. Also manage backup options.
For backup you can use Rsync, FTP backup, internal backup, external backup, cloud backup Amazon. You can also customize the appearance of the operating system by choosing wallpapers and application icons, a screensaver and screen resolution.
The NAS immediately connects to the Internet, and if you create your online account in the ADM shell, you can access your storage from anywhere in the world from any device thanks to a proprietary application for smartphones and tablets.
The ADM shell has a good list of applications to download. There are several types of torrents (you can download files directly to the NAS, bypassing the PC), various bootloaders, utilities for creating media servers, ftp-servers, creating system backups, synchronization with Google-drive and many other very useful tools.
Nimbustor 4 supports advanced streaming and video recording in up to 4K from HDR over a local network without compromising game performance.
NAS can automatically download video from YouTube and Twitch from the channels you have specified using the application Takeasy.
Also on the NAS, you can install some undemanding games for organizing LAN-matches.
There are really many scenarios for using a home server. From the banal creation of storage for your media library, for example, to connect directly to XBOX ONE and watch movies. Before professional tasks, using the NAS as a local version control system when programming various projects simultaneously from different devices.
When connecting the NAS directly to the TV via HDMI 2.0, there are no problems with playing a variety of content. Everything is intuitive, convenient and fast thanks to hardware decoding and four gigabytes of DDR4 in conjunction with a quad-core processor.
We tried to load the NAS to the maximum – wirelessly play a large 4K file on XBOX ONE X. We did it, but several pitfalls arose. We will give some tips for those who want to do the same.
We faced two problems – the weight of the file and its playback. Throwing it to the NAS took a very long time and I had to go through several media servers on the NAS and video players on the XBOX ONE X to find the optimal connection that would work quickly and comfortably. As a result, it became clear that it is best to download such resource-intensive content directly to the NAS, so as not to waste extra time transferring it from a desktop computer. The NAS store can provide the necessary tools in the form of various file managers or torrents.
On the Xbox One from the local network, almost no player wanted to play content without any crap, except for PLEX. A free service that helps organize your library with a very convenient interface. The only thing you need is to install PLEX on both the XBOX ONE X and the NAS, login, and even 4K content will play without problems.
On the PS4 Pro watch 4K content failed. The console rustled with coolers, puffed and heated. As a result, I was able to render only one frame of the video file, after which the PLEX video player crashed with an error.
Asustor nimbustor 4 (AS5304T) is an excellent home server solution that, thanks to its powerful hardware, makes NAS usage scenarios even more comfortable. Now you can watch 4K content without any restrictions, not only directly from the NAS, but also with the XBOX ONE X. A rich assortment of tools from the internal application store will turn the NAS into any tool you need. A true masthead for creating a home media network.
Posted by AsarafanovEditing – ACE and Skyerist.
