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Today we are checking out the flagship model of the Asustor 3 series which is designed for home and power users. The series features just two products, the 2-bay AS-302T and the 4-bay model that we will be looking at called the AS-304T. Armed with an Intel Atom processor and 1GB of DDR3 memory the AS-304T isn’t that dissimilar to that of the expensive AS-604T...
Already 5 months has passed since we checked out the 6-bay AS-606T which gave us our first look at an Asustor NAS product. Backed by the ADM 1.0 operating system and a wealth of hardware features the AS-606T supported Link Aggregation, USB 3.0 and much more.
As impressive as all that is we were shocked by the price (for a good reason) as the AS-606T cost just $700. That might sound like a lot but considering the QNAP TS-669L costs $860 and the Synology DS1512+ $780, it really isn’t. Obviously as the newest contender in the desktop NAS arena it makes sense for Asustor to be competitive on pricing, that said we didn’t expect them to undercut QNAP by almost 20%. Still if Asustor’s 6 series wasn’t already cheap enough, they have introduced the 3 series featuring a slightly slower Atom processor. A few other features have also been sacrificed to save on costs such as the LCD panel, eSATA is no longer and one of the Gigabit Ethernet ports is gone and along with it features such as Link Aggregation. Nevertheless for home users this all makes a lot of sense and at $520 the AS-304T is reasonably priced for a high performance 4-bay NAS. Even so, at this price it faces some seriously stiff competition, as Synology’s own DS413 currently costs $520. Furthermore the recently reviewed QNAP TS-420 and TS-421 cost just $430 and $500 respectively, though their Atom powered TS-469L does cost $650. This means that the Asustor AS-304T could potentially be the cheapest Intel Atom powered 4-bay NAS on the market. That being the case let’s check it out in more detail... |
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mike |
Posted on: 09/25/2013 01:28 PM
hi nice review, could you specify what the resolution of the bluray rips you used to test with. ie 720p or 1080p? |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 09/25/2013 09:27 PM
Full resolution rips. 1920x1080(x264 @ 23.976fps) Encoding Type: 2 Pass - High@L4.1 Video Bitrate: 16 Mbit Frame Rate: 23.976 FPS Total file size 16GB |
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gdesign |
Posted on: 09/26/2013 12:32 AM
Thanks for the review. I have had my eye on the AS-304T since it was announced. Seems like a better alternative to Thecus model. Not sure what I should get still, this of the DS413... hmm |
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SphinctOr |
Posted on: 09/29/2013 06:58 PM
Nice Review. This makes it hard for those of us looking to enter the home NAS market! What's even harder is Syology's new lineup coming out "Any Day Now". I'm hoping you can get you hands on one of these to review: http://www.actn.fr/commun/pdf/DS214PLAY.pdf (It can transcode!) http://www.actn.fr/commun/pdf/DS214+.pdf http://www.actn.fr/commun/pdf/DS414.pdf |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 09/29/2013 10:48 PM
Thank you for the feedback. As for the upcoming DSx14 units we might already have them  You are probably looking at a month from now before they are announced though. |
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Sphinctor |
Posted on: 10/01/2013 08:48 PM
LegionHardware.com Supreme Value Award. $10 off SY-AS304T w/code: AMY2315 ends 10/07 at http://www.superbiiz.com/query.php?s=asustor $439.00. seriously?! Now it's an easier decision. Thanks for the fantastic review, it saved me $10!! |
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ProX |
Posted on: 10/01/2013 10:41 PM
Great review once again, love keeping up with the NAS reviews here. I too am excited for the next gen Synology reviews. |
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Bottom |
Posted on: 10/17/2013 01:53 PM
I am tossing up between this and the TS-469L and even after reading the review I am still not quite sure which way to go. |