Asustor Lockerstor Gen3 NAS - ULTIMATE HYBRID NAS?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

10:34 - Our intention is to support the AS-T10G3 in our PCI Express socket.

[@MlkeT]

Hey :) is there a 12-bay version also coming?

[@Mae-nr7wr]

any support for btrfs yet? or zfs

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@Mae-nr7wr Btrfs is standard on all x86 ASUSTOR NAS devices. ZFS not yet.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@MlkeT The twelve bay one is standard at the moment. We're not sure of a six bay model.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

2:14 Our 5GbE ports are blue! Cause everyone knows blue stars are hotter than red stars ;)

[@rael_gc]

It'd be nice single 10GbE port on entry model, 2x 10GbE on top level.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@rael_gc The lockerstor Gen3 series all have the same number and type of Ethernet ports.

[@wagnonforcolorado]

Good to see that Asustor and some other "new" players have pushed the HW capabilities on NAS units. Looking at so much of the competition that was based on generations old Celerons, 1G ethernet, and in many cases limited or non-existent RAM upgrade options were less than exciting. NAS units have potential to be used for so much more than raw storage. Synology and QNAP need to up their game. Thanks Capitalism!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We're back for more! Which Synology video did I bump this time? As always, ask me anything!

[@nascompares]

If you must know, you delayed a video on whether you can run a NAS powered by a power bank and another video on a pocket sized Thunderbolt 4 docking station...and it's fine... PERFECTLY FINE! *sulks profusely*

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@nascompares Don't worry. Lockerstor's USB4 more than makes up for it.

[@davelamont]

Once you go ZFS, you never go back. BTRFS is okay, but ZFS is awesome.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I'm pushing hard for the company to open a ZFS feasibility study.

[@Fluffy2Buffy]

​@@ASUSTOR_YT Your hardware with the Best NAS os on the planet would melt faces..

[@jodajackson4489]

Nice one. Looking forward to the Asustor Q&A

[@praetorxyn]

Yeah. I have a MS-01 (still waiting on the RAM and SSDs to come in) for QuickSync, so I am thinking it makes more and more sense to have an Intel mini PC for Docker containers to host Jellyfin / Emby / Plex, and a separate NAS (preferably TrueNAS Scale with ECC support) for storage,as Intel is just too limiting. To have an Intel platform with features that compete with AMD and still have hardware transcoding, they'd need to use the W680 chipset, which is very expensive motherboard wise.

[@fwiler]

I hope you can bring this out soon. There is pent up demand for fast affordable storage.

[@xellaz]

I still have no regrets backing UGreen's 8-bay and 6-bay NAS after watching this video. 🤪

[@BigBoxLittleBox]

One future test I would like to see is running Plex on these and testing CPU-based transcoding - maybe a couple of transcoding sessions will be supported with raw CPU power?

[@blizbiggy]

As a Gen 2 user, this is promising.

[@robertj1138]

Thank you. Have a great day!

[@davemckewan4450]

I replaced my Synology DS918+ with a 6704T Gen 2. Not sure I agree with the OS not being as good as DSM but it's a learning curve for sure. My use case might be a little different from others as I don't use Plex, containers etc and I mainly use it for storage. I added memory, an SSD cache and 4x14TB WD Reds (in RAID 5) and big files are a breeze (2.5Gbps to my PC). I was able to both add a new drive and upgrade from R1 to R5 (took about 50 hours though). Bringing on the 4th drive 'only' took about 36 hours... All in all, I doubt I'll go back to Synology and when my dj220 eventually dies it'll be replaced with either one of these (in 2 bay) or a Terramaster 2 bay.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Thank you for your support!

[@x8Ball]

Will it be worth waiting for or will i do just fine with as6704t? 🤔🤔

[@Fluffy2Buffy]

can this run TrueNAS and thus ZFS? it seems like the ultimate TrueNAS box..

[@anthonyspahr584]

Soooo, when are “I hate seagulls” t-shirts available for purchase? Get on it , Robby!😂

[@compudude]

Any updates on pricing or availability for this? My 4-bay Synology is starting to feel tight, but I'm not loving the stupid price jump on the 6+ bay models... this could be just the thing for storage. And then I can just keep my Synology for media transcoding and such only, perhaps.

[@sabraitis]

Nuub here. What I can’t seem to determine…. Can you set to RAID drives on this system. One for M.2 and one for the SATA drives?

[@hspank]

USB-C 3.2 adapters supporting IEEE standard 802.3bz (5GBASE-T) are being phased out and chipsets supporting NBASE-T PHYs such as Aquantia AQC111U, Realtek RTL8156 are in extremely short supply, as is USB-C 3.2 2x2 with 20GBit bandwidth beyond the limited use case of external SSD enclosures. The current power requirements and upgrade costs for 10Gbit infrastructure just to have an external storage option for larger HDD arrays cached with SDDs providing continuous 2.5GB/sec data streams is more than a niche for iSCSI and IP over USB solutions as a cost effective missing link from AV editing to minipc home servers & proxmox servers. (external hdd array and local ssd caching near to the docker containers)

[@alwin7086]

Only thing I'm worried about is transcoding with this. Im trying to create a media server and I'm in the market to buy my first NAS. I've been doing a lot of research and since media is my primary use case i want my whole family and a few friends (10 to 15 people) to be able to watch media on whatever devices they please without much of a fuss. I'd love to see a video exploring how this transcodes and if it can transcode multiple streams simultaneously (4k to 720p on mobile for example) when it comes out. I might have to go with the gen 2 depending on performance.

[@Nayef180]

I can see that they have been starting to show up on retail channels. Unfortunately other than DSM I don't trust other prebuilt NAS software. I am wondering if it uses an internal flash ;like QNAP cause I know that there's a workaround for QNAP devices without video output to replace the internal USB attached module after installing TrueNAS on it with a PC. I hope you show this method. the availability of 4 M.2 Slots and 10GbE + Thunderbolt makes this NAS exciting especially if the price is right!

[@hhuey5]

Does Asustor require ups that gives simulated sine wave power vs square wave from cheaper APC BE550

[@DragonDriftX]

I Think then it would be nice to wait for the Gen3 NAS as replacement for my DS218+? I was thinking about the Gen2, but even then maybe the Gen2 would be cheaper... I would use it for 4k Movie PLEX streaming and as Webserver,Backup Solution. What would you recommend? wait for the Gen3?(Im a bit an ASUS fanboy)

[@Ancipital_]

I don't care about integrated graphics if it has a serial port? Does it support ZFS or some custom Linux? I really *really* hope so.

[@luminaire7085]

Got my doubts about ZFS performance, QNAP has been working for almost a week now on my NAS as ZFS performance is down the drain for my media folder (5 TB of videos and photography), ZFS just choked!

[@Ancipital_]

@luminaire7085 it's a bit memory intensive, and CPU intensive too if you set it to compress beyond lz4 or zstd. You can try to set primarycache/secondarycache to none, see if that helps. I'm very happy with it but it's not on a QNAP.

[@luminaire7085]

@@Ancipital_ got 64GB of RAM but can't control lz4 or zstd as that is managed by QuTS

[@davelamont]

I had purchased a Gen 2 Locker store and was transferring my files from my Gen 1 Locker store. It kept freezing up, returned it to Amazon and got a replacement. The replacement was even worse. Done with Asustore, spent the $$$ on a Qnap TVS 874 I5. Thanks Robbie, you are killing my retirement fund. LOL.

[@Mae-nr7wr]

nice but do they support btrfs yet?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We have supported Btrfs for years.

[@stanislavtrifan96]

Is synology doomed this year?

[@GroundDwellerStudioS]

Depends on how good Qnap, Asustor, Terramaster, and now UGreen make their software. As I understand it (never having used Synology) software is the only thing going for them.

[@annebokma4637]

How many 10g ports and ssd options do they offer?

[@stanislavtrifan96]

@@annebokma4637 just incomparable in regards to what is presented in that video ( like 1g ethernet by default, with limited ssd options and other stuff, includinglocked hardware). The only pro side of synology is software, but wont matter soon if they stay the same.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

​​@@stanislavtrifan96and we're talking nas software only. Their client apps leave a lot to be desired, some are even not up to date...

[@1xXNimrodXx1]

This thing is amazing.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Thank you!

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

I tried, but no matter how many times I rewinded, I still hear "Intel Sauron processor" :)

[@nathanruben3372]

No graphic card is a deal breaker for me.... I will have to go again for custom servers I guess.

[@Dougsta]

I would def buy if I could add a cheap pcie intel GPU. Can anyone recommend such a product? Unless Asustor gonna include a pcie expansion slot.

[@EViL3666]

5GbE is a bizarre choice... as far as I'm aware, there is no switch that natively supports this.. But ASUSTOR are going to take QNAPs best-value hardware crown.. Only thing missing is a PCIe.

[@SnapshotJH]

I have a now-discontinued Netgear switch that has one SFP+, one 10GbE, two 5GbE, two 2.5GbE and four 1GbE ports. But I have to agree that it's a strange choice alongside 10GbE. The socket for the M.2 card on the Gen2 is standard PCIe but the back panel is far from it. Who knows what the Gen3 will be like.

[@slow_Jo]

at least they're not like synology or qnap and give you gbe ports 😂...i guess if you want to transcode, just buy a cheap intel n100 mini pc.

[@geraldh.8047]

Interesting choice to use a CPU without any integrated graphics. I would be very interested in this NAS if there will be a good way to install TrueNAS Scale… finally a modern Ryzen embedded cpu, all other NAS device use ancient Zen1 embedded AMD CPUs.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We can provide a guide on installing it, but after that, you are on your own.

[@geraldh.8047]

@@ASUSTOR_YT ❤️❤️❤️

[@sliceofmymind]

The prices for these will have to be highly competitive without an iGPU. Although, I wouldn't mind a device dedicated to just storage throughput and which allows other OS installs, but the price has to be competitive. In the meantime, I'll be waiting on both UGreen NAS's I've ordered. Time to retire both of my Synology NAS's.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I am pushing hard for eGPU support!

[@peteradshead2383]

unless they are using ZFS, what is the point of ECC memory ? , not too bothered about having a transcoding if you are using it at as a pure NAS.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

It's not like ecc is good only for zfs, or is it?

[@laserbait]

ECC is has far more reaching benefits for overall system stability. ZFS is only a small factor.

[@luminaire7085]

@@BoraHorzaGobuchul nope, every server has ECC and they are not running ZFS…

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

@@luminaire7085 it was kinda rhetorical, but yes

[@hhuey5]

Synology hdd compatibility list only their drives they stopped putting TP drives on the list in fact they removed them

[@luminaire7085]

@@hhuey5 That’s why I don’t recommend Synology due to vendor lock-in

[@hhuey5]

​@@luminaire7085Austor is very open ; I just use enterprise drives I'm sure red pro and seagate are acceptable

[@hhuey5]

​@@luminaire7085austor is fine ; it seems to accept enterprise or Red Pro or seagate drives with very little restrictions as long as they are on the list

[@slm5292]

If I had no idea what he was talking about, I would have no idea what he is talking about.

[@ThePaulpope]

So disappointing I was expecting some detailed hands on and full specs video on these from Computex but ....nothing

[@nascompares]

Sit tight, the computex editing continues

[@VividMac101]

Synology needs to get a clue and start releasing better hardware.

[@TimHunold]

Client bottleneck is still real. Gotta add 2 10gbe thunderbolt 4 and 2 5gbe adapters?

[@rickwiggeman6353]

why would they ditch the integrated graphics.... most people just want to store data and stream movies!

[@zMeul]

5gbe is not that standardized, not all 10gbe devices will down to 5gbe or even 2.5gbe it should've been equipped with 10gbe or SFP+ and allow the end-user to buy his own module

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

It does have 10GbE. Two of them.

[@user-th1fs3if6i]

5GbE is part of the NBASE-T standard. It's an electrical standard only. For optical you would go straight to 10Gb. I have MikroTik switches that support 10/5/2.5/1/100M/10M on some ports.

[@zMeul]

@@user-th1fs3if6i here's the issue: 10gbe is part of a very old standard, 802.3an, while 2.5&5gbe is part of a newer standard, 802.3bz There are 10gbe switches and 10gbe SFP+ modules that will not do 2.5 and 5, only 1 and 10 because they're part of the older standard Not everything in use is newer gen, I personally encountered this issue

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

It may look like ASUS is pretty new to this market but that's not really true. Thing is ASUS has made server products for a pretty long time and have a lot of experience with those kinds of products. These Asustore designs are basically designed using their professional server knowledge only simplified to save on costs. I say simplified as they don't have a lot of expansion slots and redundant hot swappable PSU's and fans. So what they are really "new" at is the UI and software stack. This is however something they can throw people at and get a huge improvement over a short time. As for support they do have a wide network covering just about the whole world. The quality of servis is however something I can't say I have any real opinion about. I used to use a lot of ASUS products but for the last decade or so I've worked with Tyan and Supermicro for all motherboards and Supermicro and Taiwanese manufacturers of server chassis hardware and storage servers, but nothing touched by ASUS.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We're actually not ASUS, we're ASUSTOR. We're a separate company spun off, but run entirely independently.

[@laserbait]

@@ASUSTOR_YT That's really good to hear, especially with the recent reporting on Asus's product warranty shenanigans.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@laserbait Absolutely. I push our management to be more right to repair friendly. We stopped putting warranty stickers on our NAS many many years ago. We create guides on how to open and replace components in your NAS. We allow (but not offer technical support) for third party OSs.

[@laserbait]

@@ASUSTOR_YT And that's why ASUSTOR will be my next NAS purchace. Need that 10 Bay Gen 3 when it comes out, and it'll displace 2 or 3 ReadyNAS devices.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@laserbait Thank you for your incredible support!

[@SrSilverstars]

Why oh why would you go Asustor AMD while having Synology in the same segment. I find this hubris extremely worrying thinking they can sway over Synology users. They will not... Why would they not use this chance to steal the media segment away from Synology and Qnap by going with a mid tier Intel cpu? They were better positioned than UGreen, but it seems they will somehow lose it.

[@phillee2814]

Why oh why? Probably because you want to use TrueNAS Scale or UNRaid without voiding your warranty. It's all about lanes, and to get this many lanes on Intel you have to go much further up the range in both price and power.

[@NatesRandomVideo]

The GN video on how badly Asus treats anyone with a warranty issue has killed all interest in anything Ausustore. Won’t buy from a company like that.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Yeah, that's a concern.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hi there! We are not ASUS. We are ASUSTOR. We are a completely separate company spun off many years ago and independently run. Our warranties for our NASes are independent and run only by us and I have specifically pushed us in the direction of pro right to repair friendliness. I always fight hard for the customer. Robbie can testify that one. We also have a positive relationship with Gamers Nexus.

[@NatesRandomVideo]

@@ASUSTOR_YT great to hear!!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@NatesRandomVideo I can't influence anything at ASUS and they can't influence us. All I can do is promise that I will fight for you and help hold us accountable, and that our actions at ASUSTOR are our own. I can say with confidence we have never denied a warranty because of a microscopic imperfection on the chassis. We got rid of warranty stickers years ago and have changed many practises within the company. We allow, but can't offer tech support for third party OSs for true freedom and we publish guides on this channel on how to disassemble your NAS and replace components. Over the years we have changed our culture because I myself am a hardware enthusiast and self-taught repair technician. First computer I ever tore apart was my Pentium 166 I got in 1998 for my birthday. I love right to repair! And we have educated ourselves on the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act to steer our ship to the right waters. Unfortunately, Company Does Right Thing Of it's Own Will is not an easy thing to go viral with. But I still push for the right thing. It is unfortunate that ASUS not done the right thing as of late, but I assure you that I have done and will continue to use my position to push for consumer friendly policies and behaviour.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

@@ASUSTOR_YT good too know! Though the only way to be sure is too see the {compete} ownership structure of the companies in question which (a) noone is likely to show you and (b) too much work to do just for the lulz :)

[@JohnPob]

Why no intel options again? I don’t want AMD CPU’s.

[@reabstraction]

Why don't you want AMD?

[@LisaSamaritan]

Probably the same reason as with the previous review. Then it was about having enough PCIe lanes. The LAN is built in and because of that, they don't need to waste lanes for that. If they want something similar with ECC on Intel, they have to use a more expensive CPU.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

It's not like we're stopping sales on Intel-based NAS devices. But we also try to listen to all of our customers. Intel just doesn't have the same features AMD has in this generation. If we use a similar-classed embedded CPU from Intel, we lose: PCI Express 4.0 - Intel only supports PCIe 3.0. 11 PCI Express lanes - Intel's Nx00 series only have 9 lanes compared to Ryzen's 20. ECC RAM - Intel doesn't support ECC RAM outside of their Xeon lineup. The ability to add more than 16 GB of RAM - Intel's Nx00 series only support a maximum of 16 GB of RAM. USB4 - Intel's N series do not support USB4 with thunderbolt features. 10GbE - Intel's CPUs do not come with 10GbE built in. We'd have to waste precious PCIe lanes implementing that. For these powerhouses, especially as many customers want a good NAS for content creation that allows customers to directly wire up their NAS to their PC with USB4, it's a no brainer, AMD just has the value this time and we're certain you will like this too.

[@leito1996]

Very happy to see AMD here @ASUSTOR_YT

[@makatron]

​@@ASUSTOR_YT well that's a great response

[@klauskohlfuerst]

no hardware transcoding - no buy

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We're also working on transcoding support.

[@LisaSamaritan]

Who needs transcoding these days? Every phone/tablet (since many years back) have hardware support for video and audio codecs and 100+ Mbit Internet speed... Computers have been able to handle it, for even longer times. I pay $30 a month without any limits to how much Internet I can use on my phone and 100Mbit fiber connection is baked in to the rent of my home. And it also doesn't have any limits.

[@klauskohlfuerst]

​@@ASUSTOR_YT Hardware transcoding? Software transcoding is crap!? Only 4 simultaneously 4k-transcodings " kills" a CPU without internal graphics, isn't it?!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@klauskohlfuerst Not only do we have numerous NAS devices in our lineup with Intel hardware transcoding if you don't need the powerhouse features of the Lockerstor Gen3, we have USB4 on this NAS that allows you to install a GPU for hardware transcoding. I'm pushing hard for this feature to be implemented.

[@iainbradbury1463]

@@klauskohlfuerst This is why you don't use a NAS for transcoding. Also, local network transcoding is not required these days.

[@majicdude88]

All DDR5 is ECC Memory. DDR5 has on-die ECC that’s built into the RAM itself. A company selling a product with the feature of ECC on a DDR5 product is misleading, as they all support ECC natively. RAM sold as DDR5 ECC is just normal DDR5.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

No. All ddr5 has some ecc capability. But ddr5 ecc has full ecc capability, to put it in simple terms

[@laserbait]

Not quite. Unbuffered DDR5 can only _detect_ memory errors. Full DDR5 ECC can _correct_ those errors on the fly.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

No. We are using official ECC DDR5. With parity chips.

[@mrq332]

Nothing beter thans building your own nas