Asustor Lockerstor Gen 2 4K Plex NAS Tests

[@Smyveee]

I have this 2 bay Nas, admittedly I have 16mb of ram, 500gb of nvme read/write cache and 250gb nvme boot drive. I also have both network ports plugged into a 2.5gbe switch with adaptive load balancing being utilised. The main hdd's are 2 ironwolf 8tb drives and is where the media is streamed from. I have no issues what so ever playing any type of media file even a h265 file with a bit rate of around 60mb sec. I use jellyfin to stream my media.

[@matthewbodish6133]

Which NVME drives are you using?

[@Smyveee]

@@matthewbodish6133 2x WD red sn700 250gb for the boot drive and 2x WD red sn700 500gb for read/write caching

[@sakumisan]

You did not set up your NAS correctly for this test. You need to enable Media Mode via Settings -> General -> Media Mode, which disables S3 sleep. This will then allow transcoding via GPU. You also must use Plex Pass to use hardware encoding. After doing both of these you should barely see any CPU usage as the GPU will be doing the work. ASUSTOR has a video about this on their KZbin.

[@nascompares]

You are correct and this has since been addressed in later Asustor plex videos. I hope to make a new follow up test on this

[@WhereIsTheSpartan]

I know this video isn't new but I have one important question: I'am looking for a cheap NAS. My requirements are, affordable price, mainly used for storage, storage needs are 10 TB and should have the capability to handle my DVD and BluRay collection which I complety transcoded and stored in HEVC (H.265). What I did not understand is, why Plex do need to convert H.265 media for a playback? Right now I'm using Kodi with an external 5 TB HDD. Kodi has no issue to playback H.265 media so does not VLC. As Plex is a solution I have to pay for I would expect native playback of H.265 as well. Thank you for any answer and thank you for this really good and deep review of Asustor NAS!!! It already helped me by a lot!

[@thethirdman225]

The biggest problem I have is with subtitles. I have a Nimbus 5304T and I watch a lot of foreign films (French, Japanese, etc..). Even with .srt subtitles - supposedly the smallest - the Asustor struggles with Plex (I'm using the freebie). Asustor have told me that Plex lacks the power to run these things effectively and even given the spec of the Nimbus, I'm inclined to agree. Yep; it's not a Lockerstor but it still has 4GB of RAM and a quad core Celeron, which puts it in the same category as the equivalent Synology. Furthermore, Plex has been the cause of a lot of my troubles and I'm currently trying to find out why I can no longer see the NAS through it and why launching with the IP address results in the webpage failing to load.

[@RedMarsupial]

Safe to say that this blows Synology DS720+ out of the water as a Plex server?

[@clarkanton9183]

Do you cover what your transcoder quality setting is at? Seemed like it was capping at 50%. Guessing it's not set to Make My CPU Hurt

[@DevonDekhran]

I don't really care about 4k on the NAS, but all my videos are HEVC 1080p, it should be alright on this one right?

[@thenetpagan]

It shouldn't have any problem. This test was poorly executed. You should always make sure your client direct plays everything. I made a very long post in the comment above yours but if you want zero issues use an Apple TV 4k 128GB for your playback, it direct plays anything. And if you want to AI upscale your 1080p content to 4k and make it look really good use a Nividia Shield TV pro (latest version). I own both, the Nvidia Shield should've have been the number 1 but has a nasty bug where it doesn't hardware decode EAC3 audio tracks but it supports it. Nvidia has refused to patch this bugs in 3 years.

[@praetorxyn]

If you're going to buy a 2-6 bay NAS like this and you know how to use Docker Compose and swag and properly configure a network (thus meaning you don't really need to care what the UI is like and what applications are available in the package center as you're going to use something better anyway), I think Asustor is the way to go, as I feel like Synology gets in my way too much on this front and their hardware is garbage now. QNAP has other problems, like refusing to support btrfs (and most of the cheaper models aren't going to support ZFS, which is better than btrfs but isn't normally used for such small arrays).

[@LakedaimonII]

Agree. Syno fans here but its time to move on. DSM Is great but as you said not anymore so deal breaker.

[@JustPassingByBaby]

can you provide more info ?

[@elcuboderubik]

👍

[@Itsjustanopinionchill]

I'm confused why my raspberry pi is able to deliver original 4k HEVC 80mbps+ via web better than this can.... something is wrong here.

[@sakumisan]

Yes, they have their NAS configured incorrectly. That's why it's having so many issues.

[@km3481]

Interesting the 453E with slightly less hardware, absolutely spanks those HEVC files and the better hardware of the Asustor doesn't...

[@dv34567]

Seems like it had issues with almost all the tests. Sucks that all the NASes use the same crappy Celeron chip (or worse), unless you pay like 3x more. For what these cost I'd want something more futureproof for different 4k formats. What do we do, wait for the next gen of overpriced compromises? Right now there are really no compelling options..

[@tama47_]

And what’s preventing you from direct playing and skipping all of these problems? I don’t understand why people are trying to transcode on a low power NAS and then complain about it. Like what did you expect? Get a powerful pc for that job then.

[@dv34567]

​@@tama47_ For the price I expect something that can at least handle current video formats. These aren't cheap. I'm already looking to upgrade because my last device is obsolete. Like, I don't care about 8k, but in the future these HEVC x265 formats might be the norm and render this unit another paperweight. Why can't any of the competitors put something better than a hamster-powered Celeron, while retaining the hdmi and remote control ability, without quadrupling the price? I'd like to use this in part to play media directly on a 4k dumb tv. Their actual marginal costs of including a better chip would probably be very low. Something I didn't get from the video: why does it force you to transcode the HEVC x265 files? Is there a license they're missing, and if so is that just Qnap that doesn't have it?

[@tama47_]

@@dv34567 The reason for transcoding was because the web player only supports H264. It's not practical to expect everyone to use a web player all the time. If you're on a mobile device, you’re going to use the app. And If you're on a computer, you’ll get a better experience by using the client app anyway. Trying to play on a "dumb TV" is the only issue here. Why not just get an Apple TV 4K for $129. This way, you won't have to transcode again. Even the lowest-powered NAS, like the DS120j, can handle 4K HEVC files because the Apple TV can play them directly.

[@dv34567]

@@tama47_ Good info to know, thank you!

[@km3481]

Celeron can do a very respectable job in most available media (I'm starting to see that some brands perform better than others with similar processors- like this device reviewed struggled with content that QNAP doesn't). I have lots of higher 4k files and the Celeron in my 453E plays and transcodes them perfectly. If you are looking for really dense 4k and getting into 8k, you need to get the beast and have the ultimate in future proofing.

[@BassBoost81]

Great Video but what do you think about the Kickstarter NAS Storaxa for 222€ (Linux OS | Max 142TB Storage | 5xHDD | 4xSSD | TrueNAS | WiFi 6 | 4x 2.5GbE | Intel CPU | SD+MicroSD Card Reader | 4x 10Gbps USB Ports)

[@bluesquadron593]

Go away storaxa. You are clearly posting an advertisement for them here. You already have enough people lined up for your scam.

[@ToldYouSo18]

I just bought a Asustor gen 2 NAS.... what a piece of garbage!!! will bring it back later this week. My cheap asus router can play 4k better via SMB then this device with plex.