The NAS for Everybody - Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2

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0:00 Intro
1:00 Specs
1:45 Ekster Wallets
2:45 More Specs
4:46 Software/Setup
5:48 Sharing
7:04 Snapshots/Backups
9:06 EZ Sync
9:48 Settings
11:31 Asustor Portal
12:23 Docker/Portainer
14:07 Virtualbox
15:02 Dr Asustor
16:01 Vaultwarden Password Manager
16:30 VPN Server
17:25 Plex
18:33 Handbrake
19:06 Asustor Live
20:15 Overall Thoughts
21:20 Conclusion

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hey Everyone! Thanks so much to Raid Owl for taking a look at our NAS. We love listening to feedback, be it comments, questions, praise and criticism! Hit me up! I swear, I had no idea about the monopoly money inside the NAS. Thanks again!

[@pasan.]

NAS units are over priced these days and unattractive. Better to build a low powered PC.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@pasan. Hi there! I can see how one might look at PC components and come to a conclusion like that, but we have found that we can provide units across a wide variety of different pricepoints with many of the same features! Our lowest-priced unit is $179 US and it barely sips power at 9 watts when the hard drives fall asleep. I don't think it gets much lower than that. On a similar note, we strive towards overengineering the product to achieve our 0.6% failure rate within the RMA period, maintaining our trust, while also putting the resources we have in ensuring our software runs efficiently on low power hardware to save you money, ensuring every update is well-tested, adding quality of life improvements to make things easier than ever and supporting your purchase for years to come! All of this costs money and unfortunately, we could not maintain trust if we simply sold the hardware at cost. Hope this helps!

[@OldNorsebrewery]

@@ASUSTOR_YT what brings me to DIY is the fact that shipping is almost the same as the item to Scandinavia. And on top we have to pay 25% VAT

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@OldNorsebrewery That's insane! I can't do much about VAT but let me see if there's anything I can do. Which country in particular?

[@OldNorsebrewery]

@@ASUSTOR_YT Norway. Customs and tax rules are crazy up here

[@JeffGeerling]

9:30 - I'll have you know I go upstairs every now and then.

[@RaidOwl]

That’s what they all say, Jeff

[@NightHawkATL]

I like seeing the pre-built NAS solutions out there to decide what I could get if I have to move to something more power-friendly. Great video as always!

[@BrianJilgMusic]

Great video. I liked your pacing, not trying to rush through everything. It makes for a much better viewing experience for me at least! I already have an asustor nas which I use to host my music catalog. Only problem is if anything gets doinked..well the snapshots are lifesaver!

[@bett0diaz]

Awesome video! The humor is getting better and better man! Kudos!

[@NonyaDamnbusiness]

I've got one of the 2x NVMe drive Asustor4 models. I hacked it to run 32GB of RAM and self-upgraded the internal Docker and Portainer apps to the latest versions since the "official" ones are always lagging behind the official ones for months at a time. VirtualBox works just fine on this thing once you upgrade the RAM. I use it to run a couple of Ubuntu virtual machines just fine, such as AdGuard (better than the docker version since running AdGuard in a VM allows it to self-upgrade), a VM hosting my ZeroTier Controller, another VM hosting my Defined Networks controller, etc. Anything really heavy runs in a VM on my XCP-NG cluster or in a container in my Docker Swarm on that same XCP-NG cluster. All in all, it's not a bad device it just needs a little more oomph in the RAM department as well as working around Asustor's "app store" to upgrade certain apps to their very latest versions such as Docker, Portainer, and Zerotier. I have mine joined to 2 different Zerotier networks (cloud and self-hosted) as well as to a Defined Networks network. Works just fine. Where this falls flat is joining it to an existing Docker Swarm. Just don't. Build your NFS shares and share those out to an existing Docker Swarm running on VMs on an XCP-NG/VMware/ProxmoxVE cluster instead.

[@CalBru]

Thank you for confirming N5105 addresses 32Gb! :)

[@crimsionCoder42]

You have to admit he kills it with the dad jokes. Should’ve written them all down and published a book called RAIDisms. Lol!!

[@Edsel76]

Great video, and cool little device. I'm using an old HP PC for my NAS and Plex media server running OMV6 for os

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Thank you for the compliments!

[@tglenn3121]

Hello, and thank you for the review. I am looking to buy a new cloud drive for home use, so your review is helpful. I do have a couple of questions for you. Firstly, how is the cooling on this machine? Does it have a good fan / ventilation? And if a NAS drive is installed (say, 8TB), can this be used to store media (movies) to stream to a tv over the same network (or remotely)?? Thanks.

[@jrseda1]

Which one would you pick if you had the chance between this one and the Synology RS422+?

[@OldNorsebrewery]

the best part is that I believe that you can install truenas core and get all the benefits of zfs

[@praetorxyn]

I have a Synology DS918+ with four WD Red 12 TB drives in RAID 10. I'm thinking about getting another NAS (or buying a Super Micro chassis and building an actual machine in it for TrueNAS Scale) to upgrade the storage / processing power, and then I could re-initialize the DS918+ in RAID 5 and use it as an on-site backup. Asustor is one of the ones I'm looking at, mostly for the hardware, and it seems like it might be more up my alley software wise. The "apps" in any non-Arch Linux distribution - all the NAS ones included - tend to lag way behind, so on my Synology I wrote a little Bash script to backup three .mustache files that set ports 80 / 443, use sed to change the ports to 81 / 444, and restart Synology's nginx, this frees me up to use 80/443, and I run a bunch of containers from LSIO, including their swag container as my main nginx on 80/443. So anything I really want to install, I just spin it up using docker-compose. I've never heard of Portainer, I will have to look into that. Right now, I just SSH in and manage my containers via the command line. I have an alias for docker-compose that will grab my compose YAML file and let me run it as just "dcp" no matter what directory I'm in, and I have a Scheduled Task that runs a Bash script to upgrade all my containers that runs daily at 4:00 PM (as this would make sure they were upgraded before I got home from work, but since I work from home now that's not really relevant and I should probably change that).

[@sushanpatil1]

Does is allow using drives of different sizes for one Raid 5 configuration. Eg. If I were to start with Two 4 Tb drive for Raid 5 and few months later were to add a 8 tb drive. Would it work without any issues. Or is there a software restriction on needing to use drive of same size.

[@daveg4417]

I am currently running a Synology 2-bay NAS as one of four file backup systems for my small business computers. I have about 14TB of data. I don't run any of the apps on it. It is strictly a single centralized backup of all of my data from every workstation. I back up to Robocopy drives in each workstation, the NAS, external USB drives, and the cloud. I have been looking for a 4-bay ITX Server system for TrueNAS for a year now and there is nothing out there for 2x to 3x the price. A full tower case server is not what I want. I have been considering this Asustor for a few weeks now to run a 4x16TB RAID-10 pool for 32TB of storage. I don't leave anything on, even the NAS gets shut down when not in use.

[@teezee1000]

I’ve had this NAS for a few months and it’s been great so far. I’m still scared to run fulltime EZ connect lol. But I run it when I know I’m gonna need access to my data. This is my 1st NAS and it’s been great so far. I wanted something small factor and complete so a DIY option wasn’t for me.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We definitely recommend to keep backups. It doesn't need to be a second NAS device. It can be external hard drives or cloud backups or both. But especially when running it online, we cannot emphasise it enough to keep backups.

[@teezee1000]

@@ASUSTOR_YT I actually use the external drives it replaced for backups! Just waiting for that combo nvme/10gbe card to come out!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@teezee1000 That's great! It'll be out soon! Data security is number one. Thank you for your support!

[@exploremarketingllc]

Just asked about having to choose between the 10 Gbe and Nvme…so is this getting rectified so we can use both in this unit, or what’s the plan?

[@CharlieMartorelli]

Thanks

[@AlinST220]

As a owner of Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2, I tell you that is another experience with 16 RAM all together

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hey there! Your support is appreciated!

[@exploremarketingllc]

Great to know, thanks! 👍🏽

[@daveg4417]

Do you run a lot of apps? Or is it just a file server?

[@Morfoz13]

Asustor really invested a lot in making the nas almost perfect in hardware and software. I would like to see AiFoto to incorporate AI like google photos 😁. However, asustor nas have made my life a lot easier and as far as I can tell after testing other brands it is the best overall nas in the market

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Thank you for your support! We hear you loud and clear and we're doing our best!

[@vollhorst140]

I’m running a deskmini a300 with openmediavault as my nas. Hardware wise this looks very appealing. Software wise not sure about it, synology has a pretty good software stack available.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I think we have great software. We're not perfect but we're always getting better! Did you have any questions or is there anything you wanted to know? Are there features you'd like to see? All answers will be honest and straight forward. No marketing fluff.

[@forsaken1776]

you mentioned SSH if you SSH in and set the external NAS in the ftab or fstab can't remember which it is to auto mount would that let you pick it as a back location?

[@RaidOwl]

Unforgivably not. It’s auto mounted if you set it up via the GUI but still won’t let you access it in their ‘Backup’ app :/

[@TheWarwick1982]

Is this NAS worth buying to use as a PLEX server ?

[@ololow]

Hi mate. What do you think is it good odea to use DIY NAS build on the mini PC? I don't need 4 drives and 1 or 2 drives will enough for me. Is it possible to install ADM or Xpenology OS on mini PC? And how will work Smartphone apps with this DIY NAS... Before I had old asustor on intel atom core and now I need media server similar NAS with HDMI

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hi! It's not possible to install ADM on a miniPC. I appreciate the support though! If you are looking for a new ASUSTOR, feel free to ask questions if needed!

[@wilsmith7173]

If my Synology DS918+ were to fail this would be a definite contender. Out of the box, the 2.5gb nics and hardware transcoding beat Synology's new DS923+ offerring.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I can assure you that if you reply to this reply for questions you might have even years later, I will be thrilled to answer your questions. Thank you for your (future) support.

[@VikingDudee]

Man, I would love to have a NAS box like this but they are so expensive without drives, Had to resort to just custom building one lol

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

We have great options in the $200 price range as well with 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet. They support most of the features of our higher end models too!

[@daveg4417]

What did you build? For the past year I have been pricing out ITX Server hardware for TrueNAS and I can't get anywhere near the features and price of this NAS. I have looked all over the Internet in Canada at what is available, and the best that I can get for new ITX Server hardware is $1400 to $2000 with fewer features (1x Gigabit NIC, 1x NVMe, etc). I would honestly be interested to know if you built a small form factor TrueNAS box for a better price than this. I'm not looking to use old spare parts and used eBay parts since I want a reliable system for my data.

[@fitlikeaglove7396]

Can really appreciate @ASUSTORTV answers to a lot of these questions in the community. The hardware pricing looks very competitive, but the software support and feature set look concerning. @RaidOwl would love to see you try and get TrueNAS software on this thing. @ASUSTORTV why fight supporting open soruce software with greater support and feature sets, and vulnerability patching capabilities? Maybe a licensing a thing so it can't be an out-of-the-box thing, But maybe don't make things obtuse for people wanting to run alternative software like TrueNAS?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

And I can really appreciate this kind of commenting! I'm Marco and I am putting that out there for full transparency and throwing myself under the bus. We're not fighting open source software. We love open source! Open source made this possible! We incorporate open source software in almost all of our components and even have the source for those open source components of our NAS available. We have tonnes of third party apps and components all based on open source projects. When it comes to supporting other OSs, we're not set up for that in a few ways. Our support team is not prepared for the extra work that will go into this. I want to deliver an experience nothing short of FANTASTIC. But we're not ready for the increase in support requests because people accidentally wipe the software built into the NAS. That can eat into our resources in bettering our software development, and, the way the NAS was designed. We've stuck to a very similar design over the years because it's worked for us to keep the product development efficient and trust with our customers high. We don't reinvent the wheel every time if it's working for us. Adding official unofficial support for alternative operating systems requires different thinking. I love freedom! I love having more control over my devices. I personally have fought tooth and nail as a marketing rep to reinvigorate our innovation. I love every single one of the comments I get and I genuinely bring every single idea to the top dog at this company, which is really easy because the entire thing is 80 very smart and talented individuals. I have less red tape to deal with at this company. Several of my ideas and ideas commentors asked for over the years became real features. I want to open the NAS and re-engineer it in a way that people can _safely, and I mean SAFELY_ install an alternative OS if they want with it being very easy to revert and bring back to factory settings so we can properly support it. Product development is complicated and I need time to fight for you. But I have to work hard to convince my peers of the advantages of this. We're not ready right now to support it so, I can't support it right now. I can promise one thing. That I hear you, that I listen to you, and that I will do my best to work for you. Every single comment I get is a treat. Even if they're negative. These opinions are my own - Marco.

[@mdd1963]

Perhaps just a simple disclaimer that support for other OS options w/ accompanying problems/bugs/issues will not be provided...@@ASUSTOR_YT

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@mdd1963 We do say this in our videos guiding people how to install third party OSs into our NAS.

[@mdd1963]

Sounds good; I have a 6 Bay Gen2 6706T inbound, and am eager to play with it!!@@ASUSTOR_YT

[@MakerOfMead]

You said that EZ Sync is available on all platforms, but I can only find the one for Windows. Can you point me at the other platforms? I'm looking for MacOS specifically, because I already have one of their NAS systems, and assumed that EZ Sync just doesn't exist for my Macs

[@RaidOwl]

I misspoke. There are future plans for other platforms but as of right now it’s just Windows. You could run Syncthing in Docker on the Asustor and get the same results (works with MacOS). Sorry about that!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hey! Thanks for your support! That's right, EZ Sync is not available for mac devices right now, but we're looking at ways to fix that! MacOS is a different beast in the way files are accessed so we need to find the right solution. However, Time Machine absolutely loves working with the NAS. We recommend that for sure. New features come all the time! Stay tuned!

[@CarlosGomez-sd9ey]

Dang bro, hope you get that FAT CHECK ;).. I have an Asustor AS5304T and could use some help with all the features.. Good Luck

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hi there! What would you like to know?

[@jfkastner]

The N5105 has only 8 PCIe3 lanes, so even if you had bifurcation for the 10 Gbps adapter you would loose at least 2 NVMe. Maybe a better solution would be a USB to ETH adapter for the 10 Gbps, that might give you effective 5+ Gbps

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hey there! Since even 10-Gigabit Ethernet is a bottleneck for the insane speeds of NVMe drives, we instead gave our NVMe drives x1 PCIe lanes each to have more. PCIe 3.0 offers 980 MB/s per lane of sequential performance. This helps the NAS have even more functionality without wastage and all four SSDs can be used simultaneously. For those that want 10-Gigabit Ethernet AND SSDs, we will be coming out with a competitively priced combo card. We also can provide up to 5 Gbps of speed when combining the 2.5GbE adapters into one with SMB Multichannel.

[@DavidErato]

I’m struggling to decide which one is right for me: pre-built Celeron NAS vs DIY. I like the idea of power efficiency, and I probably wouldn’t use it to its fullest, I would probably still feel like I need something more powerful than the Celeron.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know! I don't respond with marketing fluff. I answer honestly.

[@daveg4417]

I have been pricing out DIY hardware for about a year now, to run TrueNAS, and I can't get an ITX Server for under $1400 to $2000 even going with the bottom tier parts. I won't trust my data to an old junker computer or eBay parts.

[@ke731]

I have this Nas with Celeron for around a year, near perfect, the only problem appears if you run more than 3 windows virtual machines at the same time.

[@maxdxs]

woould you recommend get this one, instead of building your own nas , for home usage? based on jonsbo n3 / b660i (minisforum) mb ??

[@RjTheTrigun]

Q. Is this good enough to run 1-3 4k Plex sessions? I want to build a Plex server for 4k over the home network. If not I can just run Plex server on a gaming laptop and use this as just a nas.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I'd say three is pushing the limits on the iGPU.

[@RaidOwl]

Unless it’s direct play without having to transcode the media, right? 🤔🤔

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@RaidOwl Shouldn't be an issue. Definitely check your network conditions though.

[@AdHdEntertainmentLLC]

I always like the looks of Asustor but they are pricey but I get it have to compete with the other NAS builders like QNAP & Synology

[@RaidOwl]

Luckily they’re getting more affordable. A few years ago they were hard to recommend.

[@AdHdEntertainmentLLC]

@@RaidOwl Yea I have seen the prices come down a bit. The use of after-pay also has made it easier to get your hands on some stuff. I plan on finally purchasing two more Black Magic Cinema 4k to replace the ones that were stolen 3 years ago. They were in my car which was stolen as I prepped for a location scouting event. I'm currently running a WD MyCloud Ex2 which I need to dive into the apps.

[@ochbad]

Great video! However, I don’t think nvme makes sense on this device. Nvme will easily saturate 2.5gbe; trying to force a fire hydrant through a drinking straw. However, sata ssd over a 10gb expansion card seems like a sweet spot!

[@RaidOwl]

Nvme is a good use case if you’re running plenty of services on your pool and doing constant random reads. Otherwise, yeah you aren’t gonna push 5000MBps over the network haha.

[@ochbad]

@@RaidOwl good point and you right! I didn’t think about that use case.

[@exploremarketingllc]

How about for editing large 4K quality videos and rendering to keep the editing process faster? What would you recommend here?

[@AdamHillikerLikesRobots]

I still have PTSD from the upkeep of spinning disk RAIDs; I like the NVME implementation here. Very cool.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Well then... You are gonna love our upcoming ALL-NVMe NAS. I can't say much more though ;)

[@jimcallahan448]

The RAM memory upgrade is only $30 on Amazon because its simple notebook memory and Intel limits the Celeron to 16GB. So the upgrade is just two 8GB RAM cards (2x8). I would order the RAM upgrade kit when ordering the NAS. The RAM cards are in different locations! One is easily accessible while the other requires considerable disassembly to reach as shown on the AsustorTV video. Upgrading the RAM on your Lockerstor Gen2 NAS kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2rUgY2HmN-ohqs

[@virtualink5]

Has Asustor finally gone and done it? They put the "Any" key on their NAS machines?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

I think we should. We should put an any key on the NAS. Then we can say it's Homer Simpson approved!

[@razorree]

any comparison to Synology or Qnap ?

[@RaidOwl]

I used QNAP once a few years ago for a video and wasn’t too impressed. Haven’t used it since.

[@razorree]

@@RaidOwl I bought used Synology, works nice, but the only way to properly test it, is to own it (not just VM demo, unless demo allows you to do everything, in fact Qnap had great demo VM, you could even SSH there and open any port)

[@daves4026]

This looks just like the Qnap 419p chassis

[@Nur__]

do you personally use plex or jellyfin?

[@RaidOwl]

Plex

[@Nur__]

@@RaidOwl Cool. Thanks for answering. Might get myself one of these, it looks like it an AIO package.

[@MrWhereIsYourGodNow]

Be warned. Asustor does not update the firmware often. My Gen 1 Lockerstore runs on kernel 5.13 (the one without Wireguard build in!) and the last firmware update was end of September. My first and last Asustor device.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hi there! A few years ago, Windows users restarted their computers after the October 2018 update to find their files gone. Not just moved, but actually deleted. This caused swift and significant backlash. Microsoft is a big company with a lot of market power and thus, weathered the storm. We're not that big. We have to be careful as we're dealing with a device storing the irreplaceable data of customers. I understand that enthusiasts often want the latest and greatest and that it can be frustrating, but we need time to rigourously test out updates to the various open source components we put in the NAS and that includes kernels. A Microsoft-style event that deletes the irreplaceable files of our customers would ruin the trust we have built over the past ten years with our customers and sink us as a company. We're not that big at 80 people. So we are relatively conservative. Open source projects push out updates without being able to test on specific equipment and if something happens, you're on your own, you can definitely have a custom built NAS with the latest kernel, but if something breaks, there is not much more than forums of volunteers. We have a robust system of support that is ready to take care of customers and ensure that every update is as safe as possible. We support our products for as long as we feasibly can, that is often 7-10 years. And you'll be glad to know that kernel updates with Wireguard are coming this week.

[@CalBru]

@@ASUSTOR_YT I'm looking at a new NAS, and was unfamiliar with Asustor and TerraMaster so checking them out. FWIW I was impressed that TerraMaster has put some major effort into upgrading their software and security (WORM). I had (till this video) dismissed Asustor as was/am under the impression Asustor isn't doing as much on the software, though I loved the AS6706T Gen2, and that Asustor were using N5105. I can understand some delay in deploying a new kernel, but another 7 months have passed since original post and 5.15 was released a year ago, and it looks like Asustor is still on 5.13? Does Asustor have timelines that can be shared with respect to upgrades of software (and specifically kernel to 5.15)? I'd like to have a serious look, but software holds me back (and I would prefer not to take the TrueNAS route if Asustor can "just run").

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@CalBru Hey there! Your opinion is totally understandable. Personally, we believe that there is a trade off. We consistently bring new security updates to our software all the time, but at the same time, for those that might not find the software right for them, we do not lock the hardware or BIOS down and it is perfectly fine to use the NAS with other operating systems should they so choose. Hope this helps!

[@CalBru]

@@ASUSTOR_YT Appreciate that you're around for the Asustor community! :) I am now looking at Asustor - a lot to like in the units, and the Asustor University (especially for the 15 screws to replace internal memory!) appreciate :) Another deep dive :)

[@razorree]

VM with ubuntu core works quite nice on 2 core Celeron, just don't install/run GUI

Ok since this thing can run docker, I am kind of interested how it would handle a small agme server. Something like Terraria. Not that it would be a good way to hoste a server thisi way. But if you can, then why not.

[@RaidOwl]

I’m sure it could hold its own tbh.

[@DodgeHooker641]

Can TrueNAS be installed and used on this device instead of the OEM software?

[@DodgeHooker641]

@@RaidOwl could you do a video about that? With the OEM software, I'm concerned about security issues, whereas installing TrueNAS would be a better way to go, as long as the M.2 and other drives and connectivity are maintained

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

No, unfortunately. The Lockerstor does not support TrueNAS

[@DodgeHooker641]

@@RaidOwl well, now there's conflicting info about if TrueNAS can or can't be successfully installed and used on this device... Could you do a video to determine if true or not?

[@RaidOwl]

@@ASUSTOR_YT lmao oh...

[@RaidOwl]

@@DodgeHooker641 I will do my best

[@pieterrossouw8596]

If I'm paying what these tend to cost, especially in my region, I want Synology's excellent (arguably class leading) software.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

What kind of features would you like to see? I can't promise anything except that I am happy to listen.

[@GabrielMazzei01]

@@ASUSTOR_YT better price would be awesome!

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@GabrielMazzei01 Hi there! What country in particular?

[@pieteryts]

having a NAS would be great. especially for us storing hundreds of gigabyte or even terabyte of raw footage and also photos (raw, jpeg, edited jpeg, album, specific album, wife album, gah it never ends). in performance perspective, I kinda worried about CPU impact for having that many of NVMe drives as it only a celeron. not mentioning it also can run docker and many apps. I once tested a 2 bay NAS which running celeron. back then no apps are able to run in NAS. its just a NAS. nothing else. it was quite fast for storing data. but the story changes when I stream realtime cctv footage to it with around 110mbps of data per second. even the GUI isn't accessible anymore. lol but yeah.. if the NAS are able to running a full NVMe gen 4 in RAID would be very exciting to have. in my office, we went from 23 IOPS (in VM) to 15000 IOPS. yeah more than 650 times speed improvement by changing HDD SAN to NVMe SAN. lol. perhaps I need to change from coffee to computer hardware channel. hahahaha anyway, it was great video Brett. If possible, please view more the inside of the NAS, such as boards, PSU, etc.

[@RaidOwl]

Yeah I mean a Celeron can only carry you so far haha. You gotta find the sweet spot for performance, power consumption, and price so I think this cube does a good job at that.

[@pieteryts]

@@RaidOwl yes.. correct man. I still agree money doesn't lie. if you need a high performance, it would cost a lot more. and usually came with fancy high RPM fans. lol. but for the cost Asustor, it was a great spot. yes.. while a DIY NAS are great, prebuild NAS give a high flexibility, features, easy to use and reliability. I have saw many prebuild NAS surviving more than a decade of use without issue apart from disk and PSU problems.

[@daveg4417]

If you are doing more than file storage and minor apps use I would recommend some good hardware and TrueNAS, but the cost will be significantly more. I have been looking for an ITX Server that competes with these NAS's at a similar price, and I can only get down to about $1400 to $2000 for hardware with less features. I only use my NAS for file backup, so I am considering one of these Asustor models.

[@pieteryts]

@@daveg4417 the good thing using off the shelf NAS are easily manageble. drive labeling are very clear either by label, or LED indicator. while when we do DIY NAS using PC parts, we need to clearly document which port are numbered what in the OS/apps. this which I see many people failed to do. after some disk fail, they don't know which one to replace. my suggestions if you want to create a DIY NAS, go with the specs needed first. as you can upgrade the parts later on. if you need to store files, build it using a low end processors and upgrade them as the needs rises. but keep all the labeling in all places. whether its in the drive, mainboard, or even in the sata cable. keep all the inventory list clear and listed inside the case (either printed on paper or label) for easy future maintenance.

[@JeffGeerling]

20:21 Analyze

[@RaidOwl]

WHY DOES PREMIERE DO THAT OMG?!? IDC ITS STAYING AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR OTHER CREATORS.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Hello!

[@JeffGeerling]

@@RaidOwl Analyze

[@TheDuerden]

Could you explain why you have only 1tb of NVME drive for write caching, as the explanation you gave doesn't really make sense. If you are writing to your drive - then you are writing it from somewhere....so if power went out - you would just start the write process again - why lose half of it as a mirror - when you have to be writing it from somewhere, and unless you are insane and do cut and paste rather than copy and paste - having this flunk out on you - will never be a problem?

[@RaidOwl]

I meant more that if a drive dies then you lose your writes. I accidentally combined two issues in one statement. Always have your NAS connected to a UPS 👍🏼

[@TheDuerden]

@@RaidOwl Unless you have streaming data, that isn't stored anywhere, why reduce your cache? As long as you verify your writes before deleting data and copy rather than move. Look at it like this, A is your data, B is your cache, C is your NAS. If you write A to B - and B fails, you still have A, if you write A to B - which caches and then writes to C - and a NAS drive fails...you still have A. Reducing your caching by 50% only makes sense if you are recording data streamed to your machine by users, where that data cannot be replicated. For most NAS uses, which is copying/moving data from one place to another - doesn't really seem to provide much benefit for the loss of a 1tb NVME drive?

[@stevevuoso8411]

Nice hardware. 2.5GBe, Intel CPU, etc. Pay attention, Synology.

[@CalBru]

At 18:26 you suggest the Celeron isn't the most powerful so suggest not transcoding. WHAT?! The N5105 has a built in GPU so can do hardware transcoding - it should have no issues?!

[@mdd1963]

great video, as I have a 6-bay Asustor Gen2 inbound! (need a place to store my.... ANIME!:)

[@mdd1963]

Got it in yesterday, and had it set up and operating in short order! Thanks for the tutorial!

[@curtmayer1070]

not nearly enough RAM. i'd want 32GB minimum.

[@moonshot1149]

After all this time of Asustor hawking this same product (with only a minor update tweak to allow 4 M.2 slots instead of 2), I would think they would have dropped their priced down to $425 or even $395. After all, other than its measly 4GB onboard memory, its an empty "cube". There are no drives or SSDs. and for $600+ I would expected that. Because to fully outfit this thing, you'd easily be dropping another $400-$800 dollars or more for 4 HD or SSDs, 4 M.2's and upgrading the memory to 16GB. Every time I check back, the price has not budged. I Asustor is artificially holding the price of this unit sky high, much like Apple does with their products. Which is why I've still not pulled the trigger on getting one of these.

[@pingtime]

I quite shocked when it's using a celeron N5105 after the fact they have 2x 2.5Gbit networking and 4x NVMe slot, I guess Asustor is using some kind of PCIe switch/PLX chip inside, since it's natively only have 8 PCIe 3.0 lane and no integrated LAN PHY, and theres no way those M.2 running at full PCIe x4 gen 3.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Since even x1 gives almost 10 Gbps of performance, each M.2 slot is x1. We think it's better than having just one x4 slot in a box that can't take advantage of that much sequential speed. So we included four m.2 slots and it still brings the types of speed creators need, random IO performance.

[@pingtime]

@@ASUSTOR_YT ah I see, so atleast each NVMe drive twice as fast than it's SATA counterparts with more focusing on IOP than sequential R/W. About the carrier board, do yo guys putting some kind of PCIe bridge to split 1x4 to 4x1 or it's automatically handled via BIOS bifurcation? Since you guys have 10G networking adapter that works on PCIe x4 (I'm really sorry for this, since in your product website didn't contain these information nor providing a in-depth technical document)

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@pingtime It's handled by the BIOS, of which we have an app on App Central to switch between them. The card itself is passive. We are hoping to release a 10GbE combo card soon for those who want both.

[@pingtime]

@@ASUSTOR_YT I forgot to ask about the SATA port, Intel said there's only 2 built-in SATA3 port, so did you guys using additional SATA controller? These information It's really helping me to consider your product on my company that deploy IT equipment to SMBs and School/other organizations.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@pingtime No problem! I answer plainly with no marketing fluff for you! That's right. Intel provides two SATA ports. The backplane on the four and six bay models use an ASM1061 by ASMedia on one PCI Express lane for the extra SATA ports.

[@benjamin3044]

The uhhh KZbin logo in memory specs web page?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

It's a link to our installation guide if needed! But since it seemed to cause confusion, it will be changed to something clearer.

[@code8986]

I apologize if this is a dumb question, but was this sponsored by ASUS(TOR), too, or only by Ekster?

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

It was not sponsored by us. We only sent the product and asked him for _unbiased_ opinions so that we can do better and learn.

[@code8986]

@@ASUSTOR_YT OK; if there was no quid pro quo (or promise of it) -- no payment, no free hardware, etc. -- then I'd consider it a review.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@code8986 @Jeff Geerling actually published the email on the first video he made. I send the same terms to everyone. I want to hear what people really think and I am that confident our product can speak for itself and that we will listen and improve on their suggestions too whenever we fall short. I even worked hard to fix MS DOS support via a request from @Phil's Computer Lab. I'm really that nuts. Raid Owl is allowed to keep the device for further testing and comparison and continue to leave honest feedback, both publicly and privately. While he did not purchase the NAS, the terms explicitly stated in the email that he was free to criticise it and encouraged him to tell us how he really felt in this review. We do the same as what AMD would do when sending their GPUs to let's say @Gamers Nexus. If the product is hot garbage, it's hot garbage and we need to improve. I really do want to hear what @Raid Owl and you have to say and am absolutely thrilled to answer questions as best as I can and as candidly as I can with no marketing fluff or BS. Thanks for asking!

[@CaseyJMoore]

Commenting because someone on discord told me too.. definitely wasn't you. I mean, neat device.

[@chromerims]

Lockerstor Gen2 NAS cube 👍 A somewhat-rough comparable DIY using new parts would include case (at least $50), psu ($90), mobo ($140), and cpu w cooler ($100). Plus ram. Those costs go up rapidly, based on individual tastes. Kindest regards, neighbours and friends.

[@trustes89]

Your discord link has expired 🤣

[@RaidOwl]

Seems to be working fine to me. The invites panel is showing that this one doesn't have an expiration.

[@markdalbey]

Cool, but do you need a 610.00 NAS for your home. Putting 4 6tb disks in RAID 5 is 18tb of storage minus maybe 15% for overhead. Do you have any idea how much 18tb is. Unless you are doing 4k video it will take you 2 or 3 lifetimes to produce 18tb of data. Most people use a NAS for file storage. A NAS will do other cool things, but how many of those cool things will the average dad do? If you put two 8tb drives in your computer and mirror them in Windows you have enough redundant storage to last a large family for 20 years and you did not have to spend 610.00 for it. A NAS is a good thing for people that need a NAS, but only about 2% of the people that have a NAS need one. How many people that have a Rolls Royce need a Rolls Royce? They are nice to have, but at the end of the day most people don't need one.

[@RaidOwl]

Nowhere in this video did I even remotely infer that the average person needs this.

[@markdalbey]

@@RaidOwl Yes. When you when you suggested that it be used in the home at the beginning of this video. People that do need a NAS live in homes, but a much larger percentage of average people live in homes. This whole video is aimed at the home owner, which is more or less the average person. If you want a NAS because you are into tech or you need one, get one. Most people that get a NAS for their home don't need one though, but there are exceptions to that.

[@markdalbey]

@@RaidOwl I have hobbies too that I spend money on that I don't need to. The difference is that I don't tell myself or anyone else that they are not a hobby and that I need to spend the money.

[@exploremarketingllc]

I fill up 20TB almost every year with the 4K videos I take, edit and store…20TB isn’t enough actually for me…😂

[@ILoveTheAllCreator]

​@@exploremarketingllcexactly 😂 If you have remuxes, those add up real quick

[@GotWire]

Best BANG for YOUR BUCK NAS is to build it your self!

[@RaidOwl]

Lol yeah but that’s 2 spooky for a lot of people.

[@daveg4417]

I have been looking for ITX Server hardware for a year now trying to get anywhere near the features and price of this NAS and the best I can get is $1400 to $2000 CAD. Or are you using old rot recycled hardware and eBay deals? :)

[@meitelis]

Unless you're an IT geek, I do not recommend Asustor. While hardware looks impressive, but software is far from optimized. If your're just a regular user, get Synology, if you want hassle free setup/apps installation. You will face problems/incompatibilities/errors in every step... There is minimal info online regarding Docker/portainer usage for Asustor. I had Synology NAS and never faced any problems setting up almost anything just following guidelines.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

FIRST!

[@ezjose1]

Can't you build something better cheaper?

[@RaidOwl]

Hardware-wise? Absolutely. But there are plenty of people out there that don’t want to build their own stuff.

[@bett0diaz]

I think you can... But these NAS are also so power efficient.

[@daveg4417]

I have been pricing out ITX Server hardware for at least a year, trying to get anywhere near the price of a NAS like this with its feature list, and I simply cannot do it. The closest that I can get with ITX Server hardware is about $1400 CAD and that is 4-Bay, 1x NVMe, Gigabit LAN, 4-Core, 16GB ECC, running TrueNAS. The Asustor is $750 CAD. If I want the same number of features as this NAS in a TrueNAS box, then I have to go for a tower server and multiple add-in PCIe cards, and the price is closer to $1600+. If you want to go with used parts or have an old computer laying around, you "might" be able to recycle it as a NAS, but you will probably need to buy an Intel NIC (TrueNAS doesn't like other brands), and a dual 2.5GBe one to compete with this NAS, and a multi-slot NVMe adapter if you want the four NVMe equivalent, etc. And then with an old junker you won't meet the requirements of TrueNAS anyway as it recommends server motherboards and ECC RAM. But why would anyone trust their data to an old junker used computer or bottom of the line parts, that I simply don't understand, is your data worth an old used parts computer that you can't trust will run for very long?

[@KastanDay]

Love you man, but this feels like an ad. I'm not interested in Synology knockoffs. Take inspo from Wendal at Level1Tech/Linux.

[@RaidOwl]

Imagine if all KZbinrs only did videos on the same stuff...

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

Synology wishes they were us.

[@RaidOwl]

Sheeeeeesh 🔥

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@RaidOwl What can I say? We're a company that has managed to punch above our weight and get our products into the hands of customers worldwide in a company that has hired 80 talented and very smart individuals. We're lean, yet not overworked. We're so lean, I can take all of the comments I get and bring them directly to the big boss and steer this lean ship easily. Big boss knows everyone's name, to the point that I walk in and the _Cheers_ theme plays because everybody knows your name. I'm kidding about that last part. We have innovated to the point where we have been at the forefront of several features, including cost-effective and efficient 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, SMB Multichannel to give people free performance boosts without specialised equipment, support for retro gamers, M.2 SSD storage that ISN'T limited to one NAS and one set of drives and we continue to ensure and test a wide variety of third party drives, RAM, and equipment because we want you to enjoy your NAS the way you want as much as we possibly can. We have a 0.6% failure rate in our RMA because we believe in the ASUS quality standards we were given when this joint venture was set up. We can always improve, but we are innovators and it's a lot easier when the company gives me very little red tape to work with when suggesting new features.

[@GrishTech]

I would spent 100 bucks more and buy a synology over this just because of the synology software. Just my opinion. I know synology hardware is not as good on paper as some of the competition.