Asustor AS5304T - 4 Bay NAS, Intel Celeron Quad-Core, 2 2.5GbE Ports, 4GB RAM DDR4, Gaming Network Attached Storage, Personal Private Cloud (Diskless)

As someone who had been looking for a reliable home network storage solution, the Asustor AS5304T has thoroughly impressed me. Its compact size fits perfectly in my home office (tucked away under a sideboard), while delivering performance and features that went well beyond my expectations given the price point. The setup process could not have been easier - between the clear instructions and intuitive software, I had the NAS up and running with my drives configured in a RAID 5 array in less than 30 minutes. I really appreciated the tool-less drive trays. Once initialized, the AS5304T ran virtually silent despite putting in some serious work. The only sound you'll hear is a light clicking when it's doing transfers and such; nothing like the noise I've heard in other models. Transfer speeds have been solid thus far. Dual 2.5GbE ports are great, and large backup jobs and 4K video streaming goes smoothly. Where the Asustor really won me over was in its incredible feature set. In addition to simple file sharing with easy role management, I've been able to run my entire Plex media server off the NAS for silky smooth playback. The support for Docker containers and apps like Pi-Hole/AdGuard opened up even more use cases, letting me consolidate various services I previously had spread across different machines. The backup capabilities have been a game-changer compared to the subpar Windows options I previously relied on. Full system backups are so much faster and more reliable now. While modest in specs, the AS5304T juggles all these tasks without breaking a sweat. I did end up upgrading to 8GB of RAM after some high memory usage alerts, but that was a simple process. For my needs, the AS5304T has tackled everything I've thrown at it with ease. Overall, I'm absolutely delighted with my purchase of the Asustor AS5304T. It checks every box - performance, features, ease of use, and value. This versatile NAS has become the digital brain for my entire home network. If you're looking for network attached storage with a ton of power under the hood, I can't recommend it enough.

Bought this unit after doing loads of research into a new Plex server for all my movies. I had been prev using my Desktop PC combined with normal external HDD's, as the server host, which had worked great for many years. I wanted to make the switch to a NAS system and take the load off my main PC and that was expedited by the failure of a 8tb external HDD and losing ALL my content. Found this unit while comparing different brands. This brand was brought up multiple times on different websites as the best Cost alternative to name branded NAS systems. I chose the 4 bay configuration as I wanted the ability to expand the storage capacity as the plex library would grow. I installed a single Seagate Ironwolf 5600 6tb NAS HDD ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085Z4P89R?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details ) and also while setting up installed a second DIMM or ram ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019FRDKWI?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details ) After that was all done and installed it was time to setup the NAS system and configure it. Downloaded the ACC Control software to my main PC for the setup and access. Issue came with the install of the ACC software. I would get an HTTP / FTP error when the software would goto download prerequisites for ACC, which turned out to only be Net-frameworks X86. Manually installed that, and re-ran the install of ACC Control and it installed perfectly. Next was to open up ACC and initialize the NAS. It saw the new stick or ram and HDD installed and setup the NAS and I was ready to poke around the UI. Once ACC is open you will see the NAS detected on the network and you just double click it and it will open a web UI for navigation. Setting up plex was super simple, with just opening the APP downloaded, search for Plex, Download / Install and set up your server. I didnt aggregate the dual 2.5GBe lan ports as i wasnt sure if my ISP moden supported that, so I ran both the included Lan cables to the back of my main modem. Running this on just my home network, the machine barely even broke a sweat streaming a 1080 with 5.1 ATMOS. CPU stayed under 10% most times, Ram less that 8% and bandwidth was chuggin along at AVG 23 MB/s. I have not tested streaming with a 4k resolution movie yet. I will update when I do with data for CPU / Ram / Bandwidth. If you are looking for a decent in home NAS for a plex system, I feel this one is a great alternative to the ALOT more expensive Named branded one. The UI is easy to navigate and was super easy to set up also.

After about 3 weeks of research I settled on the Asustor AS5304T NAS because of the features and flexibility. I was looking to replace a now ancient HP Home Server where we store all of our media for distribution around the home to various iOS and Windows based devices. The AS5305T handles even 4k to the OLED TV and works great as a back-up device for PCs and laptops alike. PROS: Easy to set up - feature rich with lots of apps - can handle both SSD and HDDs but you will loose a drive slot if you want SSD caching - looks nice with the rest of the equipment - future proof Ethernet 2.5gb and USB 3.x ports - expandable RAM to 8gb - tons of tips and online documentation (Asustor College) online to help with set-up and customization - stays cool with large quiet fan - very good value when on sale. CONS: NO way to directly contact support by chat or phone - you have to submit a support ticket and wait however long for them to respond (typically referring you to back FAQs and online docs). If Asus is going to play in this league they MUST up their support game and have (easy-to-understand) US live support. - NOISY enclosure and all plastic disk trays that broadcast even small drive sounds out into the room. I've put this NAS on a foam base just to keep the noise down. TIPS: To get the best speed/response out of the various apps (PLEX and more), I installed a 1TB SSD in bay #1 first then installed all of the software, apps, (and frequently used media files) onto the SSD before installing any additional HDD drives. The NAS runs very fast and I didn't have to loose a drive slot to set up an additional SSD caching drive.

UPDATE 7 May, 2024: I missed the SHR (Hybrid RAID) so much, I swapped the drives. Now the new Asustor has the four 12 TB Iron Wolf's and the Synology has two 10 TB Exos drives and two 6 TB Exos drives. Instead of a 13 TB RAID (in the Asustor), the Synology was able to create a 20 TB RAID out of them! And now the New Asustor AS5304T, with the 12 TB drives, has a 32.5 TB RAID, still synchronizing at 67% after 24 hours. The Asustor is still my favorite NAS, but not by much! That Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) is nothing to laugh at! But the Asusor is just... clean! The hardware and the ADM (Asustor Data Master - operating system) are just really clean and nice and fast! (And it looks nice.) _________________________________________________________________ HISTORY: I have an ancient TerraMaster - not in use anymore, right now, I still have A Synology DS-420+, And I already have a 2 bay Asustor (AS5202T) and a 4 Bay Asustor (AS5204T), just like the one I just bought. The TerraMaster was the worst. Of course, it's very old by now. TerraMaster totally blew it with the updates. One of the updates caused the drive lights to stay on, red all the time. Some really smart guy figured it all out and you have to follow it around and very carefully skip one of the updates and do other updates instead, in the correct order (kinda like running a maze.) I did that, fixing the drive lights, and the TerraMaster which was always pretty slow, got REALLY slow. The Synology is nice and works fine and pretty much has the most, best App's available. I can''t say anything bad about it other than that it still only has gigabit Ethernet connections (but has two of them). Both Asustor's have been working flawlessly for years. They have Iron Wolf's and Exos' in them. Never any kind of problem. ________________________________________________ I had some trouble with this one I just bought! It was probably self-inflicted. I put two 10 TB Iron Wolf's in it right away and turned it on. I couldn't get at it! Even Advanced IP scanner couldn't get at it. Meanwhile, it had started going to work on the 10 TB drives. I'm not positive where they were before that, but I'm pretty sure they used to be in the 2 Bay Asustor, which now has 14 TB Exos hdd's in it. So it ended up with a hard IP address that conflicted with another unit's hard IP address on the LAN. At this point, I had no choice but to let it finish with the drives. I got up this morning and it was done. What finally did it was Asustor's "Control Center". As soon as I could, I went from the "Control Center" to the NAS's webpage using Firefox. I'm pretty sure that it was the ports, too. Default is port 8000 - ie: 192.168.0.40:8000/Portal. I have those set to something else on all my NAS's for security. Pretty sure it got that config off the 10 gb drives. No NAS is all that user friendly. The fact that the "Control Center" finally "dug it out" is worth mentioning! (Note: By that time I'd already had it completely separated from the rest of the network.) Right now, it's synchronizing two 6 tb Exos hard drives I put in there after all that, into a RAID 6. It's working perfectly and it's almost 13% done. I have to give Synology some credit here. They have that SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID), which I really like! I'm missing that right about now. VERY little wasted space if you use SHR! Now I have to mirror like drives instead of combining them all. Other than that, my choice is Asustor nowadays. Really nice looking, with a relatively small "footprint" and, best of all, TWO 2.5 GBe ports! This whole computer room is 2.5 GBe now, except the Synology. The Asustor also had a processor you just can't laugh at (by NAS standards). Hardware for the price! The Asustor is the best NAS, imo. I've had mostly bad luck with their tech support in the past, though. Synology, by far, has the best tech support! You could say, I got a better NAS because I saved by doing my own tech support. All in all, I pretty much love Asustor after spending years doing NAS's.

I've been debating a purpose made NAS for a while and even built a DIY one from some old PC parts and new hard drives within the last year. When that started to fail, I decided it was time to bite the bullet, spend the money and buy a dedicated NAS. My first look was a well-known competitor whose products I've used before in a professional environment, but their similar product was more expensive. The Asustor unit was a better value and I believe will meet all of my needs. Install was pretty easy, other than I had a small hiccup during initial volume creation which required me to do a factory reset. After that things went pretty smooth. The initialization of 3x4TB RAID 5 took quite a while (almost a full 24 hrs) though that was probably made worse because I was already trying to copy data to the NAS while it was still initializing (which is allowed, but not good for performance). I'm not sure how well it would do hosting many of the apps that are available, but as a NAS storage device it performs very well for my needs.

I had a basic 2-disk NAS prior to this one so upgrading to 4 disks was great for additional storage, but it's not just that. Being able to run Docker has allowed me to move my Unifi Controller off the home gaming PC. Same with my download process. Emby media server on the NAS combined with the Roku app eclipses the experience we had with simple file sharing of the old NAS and Kodi/Roku TVs. I also migrated Subsonic off the gaming PC, but with Emby that will likely be shut down. I've also been able to add Pi-Hole for whole-house ad blocking and added security by blocking malicious domains. Beyond that, the Asustor backup utility is far better than the legacy Windows 7 tool half-assed in Windows 10. I went from backing up 1.2TB from my primary workstation's 500TB drive (due to needless duplicate files) to 280GB. That eliminates wasted space and simplifies my restore process if needed. It has been a major relief to get everything setup on this NAS and just let it run without messing with it constantly. I can even VPN into my network through the NAS as needed now (or to block ads on my phone). The Asustor university pages have been a big help figuring out more advanced options as well. Even with all the apps I have running the CPU idles and there's RAM to spare so I haven't seen a need to upgrade to 8GB RAM yet. Update 8/31/2021: I ended up upgrading to 8GB of ram after infrequent 80%+ usage alerts came through. I think as more people in the house use Emby it started creeping up. Also setup weekly reboot tasks to flush the memory. I also wound up replacing Pi-Hole with AdGuard Home. AGH has been a MUCH simpler install and maintain process with more features and easier logging. NAS itself is still running great and essentially headache free outside those changes. Update 5/17/2024: While things were great for a while, a month after the warranty ran out I'm facing problems. For whatever reason, whenever I reboot my router the NAS locks up/stops responding. I have the NAS hard coded to an IP address and plugged into a separate switch that should maintain connection during a router reboot. Every time the router reboots I'm unable to access the NAS via web UI, phone app, SSH, or the built-in portal using directly attached HDMI monitor and keyboard. The 1.5s power button press does not gracefully shut down the NAS like it should. That forces me to hold the power button until it shuts down or yank the power cord. Both result in 12-14 hours of disk syncing which shut down all my docker containers (VPN, DNS ad blocker, etc). Even after the 12-14 hours the apps did not come back up without another reboot. I finally tried a reboot around 6 hours when disk synchronization was about 50% complete and the all the docker services finally came back up. If you need something reliable, this is not the NAS. I'm looking at $280 for a new motherboard and/or $90 for a new back plane hoping one or both solve the issue, or just put the money into a different NAS.

This was a upgrade from an AS6104T. In terms of hardware specification per dollar, its hard to beat the AS5304T. The only area where there could possibly be a complaint is a lack of slots for SSDs to improve network storage performance. As advertised by ASUSTOR, swapping drives from one unit to another resulted in all my settings and data being carried over without any issue. Since I'm not utilizing the 2.5 Gbe capability yet, there was no obvious improvement in network file handling performance over the AS6104T. For streaming or providing internet services, I suspect the AS5304T would do better than the AS6104T. Overall, its a great product so far. I'll be interested to see how much wired and wireless file speeds improve when I eventually switch to a router with 2.5 Gbe. April 4, 2020 UPDATE: I finally implemented multi-gigabit hardware on my network, and as hoped, the AS5304T provides substantially improved large file performance in 2.5 gbe mode. Small file performance is about the same, but that was expected. This is definitely a very capable NAS.

We have multiple computers in the household. Storage was becoming and issue and it was upgrade each machine or find a central storage device for the whole network. After much research, reading reviews, and watching YouTube videos I decided to get this Asustore NAS. I had the option to just roll my own NAS with the hardware that I have around the house but I was looking for a plug and play solution. I loaded it with four 4TB Ironwolf drives and set it to RAID 5. The setup was easy. Setting the individual accounts up was a snap. Now each person in the house has a place where they can store their music, pictures, and whatever else with ease. The apps that can be loaded surprised me. I did not expect them to be as useful as they turned out. It is a VERY low power (as in very little electricity) AND quiet device that I have yet to overload even with multiple people sending to and pulling from the device. So far I have absolutely no regrets in the purchase and find new ways to use it. Since it is essentially a low power PC you can expand on its capabilities in unexpected ways.. For the money I am incredibly satisfied.