Asustor AS-202TE

[testman78]

Introduction

A new brand emerged on the network attached storage market at the end of 2012. It is ASUSTOR and it made its debut with products based on the x86 platform. Such NASes are known to deliver high performance, yet at a high price, so ASUSTOR now comes to compete with well-known brands in the low budget market segment.With the AS-202TE, Asustor presents a NAS which aims at demanding home users or small businesses. By using an Intel Atom Dual Core processor, running at 1.20 GHz, the AS-202TE promises to be fast and the use of a Linux kernel grants enormous flexibility regarding the configuration options. Furthermore Asustor implemented their own App store, which lets you install additional apps with a simple click.



Has the AS-202TE got what it takes to challenge the likes of other brands?




Packaging,Contents & Bundle

The 2-bay AS-202TE ships in business-formal packaging, providing a professional feel at first glance.A sticker shows you a photo of the product, its name, specs and accessories.




The sides of the box list a few features.




Opening up the box we found two containers one housing the accessories and one the Nas unit.



Inside the box, besides the NAS you'll find one Ethernet cable, a software and driver disc, screws, power brick and power cable.So i haven't encountered anything unusual so far. Everything's just as with other NASes available on the market.




The Nas

Forget the high gloss, cheap looking plastics of the past the design team have created a device that you'll be happy to show off in your home or office.



The box is metal and not plastic like others out there. Plastic is nice yes, it's durable and it makes it lighter in weight. I personally like metal better because I think it keeps things cooler.



A gun-metal, brushed steel surround gives a premium feel and protects against unsightly fingerprints whilst the front panel materials and build quality deliver a great fit and finish.



On the left side you'll see the Asustor logo, under that is the power button with power indicator, then under that is the hard drive activity indicator.Towards the bottom you'll find one more LED indicator for network activity. On the very bottom is a USB 3.0 port for instant backups or other uses.



Meanwhile, around the back you can expect to see a power socket, two USB 2,0 ports, one usb 3.0 port,one Ethernet socket and one HDMI port. Unusually for a a NAS device, each of the back panel ports are labelled a nice additional touch.



On the bottom you'll find rubber feet.



Overall, it's a highly polished specification great design, decent expandability and strong connectivity.




Installation

The AS-202TE is a 2 bay NAS and you’ll find two removable trays.To remove the trays you just push the button on the bottom and the handle will pop out.Like all good NAS devices the AS-202TE allow drives to be hot-swapped during operation.



The trays, which have a very solid mechanism and are cast in a combination of steel with a plastic surround – they feel very sturdy, unlike the flimsy trays you'll find in other products.




Installing the drives is easy, just use the provided screws and secure them to the drive trays and then just slide them into place.




All you then need to do is hook up the Ethernet, power and HDMI cable (if required – note that ASUSTOR do not ship a HDMI cable in the box, which is a miss on such a premium priced package) and power on.




Internal

Here’s what it looks like inside of the drive bays:



The cover of the AS-202TE can be easily removed, but you can’t really access much until you take it apart a lot more.



A closer look at Asustor's hardware choice shows that the AS-202TE equipped the with an Intel Atom Dual Core CPU which operates at 1.20 GHz. Furthermore there is 1 Gigabyte memory. This configuration offers plenty of performance for a NAS and makes sure that you'll be able to get high transfer speeds.



The DDR3 modules are directly soldered to the mainboard, so you cannot upgrade the RAM. Four K4B2G1646E-BCK0 Samsung ICs total up to 1 GB of RAM.



An Entrontech EJ188H controller for the USB 3.0 ports is used.



The 70mm fan is provided by YS Tech(FD127025HB) 4000 RPM,33 cfm,34.5db.




Software

Besides hardware, the software aspect is important for that purpose since software components account for the larger share of a mid NAS’s price. It is no easy task to find a place on such a highly competitive market, but ASUSTOR has one advantage in the way of its close relationships with ASUSTeK Computer, a leader of the IT industry. We will also see that the product design and some software features aren’t exactly original and may be familiar to users of other NASes.



On first launch the centre will scan our network for any attached Asustor devices, if it finds one then it will display it along with the basic system information of the device.Before launching the web based ADM, Asustor Data Master, software we can configure some basic settings on the AS-202TE from the control centre. These include the server name as it appears on our network, the administration password, date and time along with some network settings.To access the ADM software we need to log in using the pre-set administrator user name and password. We can change these once we have been logged in.Helpfully Asustor have provided a quick getting started guide when ADM first loads up. This gives up a very quick overview of what the ADM software provides.
Software.




A new user may find the rows of icons initially intimidating, so Asustor have configured a first time popup to offer some guidelines as to how to proceed. This can be permanently disabled via a checkbox.It is worth pointing out now that multiple windows can be opened at the same time, and scaled to fit inside the main browser window.Like other NAS software operating systems ADM uses a graphical web based interface. It is pre-installed with all the Asustor devices, and support multi-tasking and provides access to a wide range of applications. The default apps include a media server, Boxee / XBMC, surveillance centre and a download centre. However the ADM software also gives us access to Asustor's App Centre, where we can access and download a multitude of apps for our device.




Although it may not seem like a big deal, I really like the activity monitor on this unit.Even though the "Desktop-like" interface took a while to get used to, the smoothness and graphical appeal of it can not be denied.




The download center is a very handy application that comes built-in to the AS-202TE. This allows you to add Torrent files, FTP downloads and pretty much any HTTP download as well. You can add, pause, stop and resume downloads until your heart is content. I use this often for large downloads as it allows me to use my system without fear of dropping the download.



Surveillance Center is one of ASUSTOR’s in-house developed Apps that allows users to easily setup their own surveillance system. Users need only enable the App in App Central to receive 4 free IP camera channels with which to set up their system with. Surveillance center features a web-based interface that allows users to easily monitor cameras, execute real-time recordings, schedule recordings and playback video.



The system can be backed up and restored via this self explanatory panel. You can use USB drives, FTP or the Cloud.



External devices can be monitored directly via this panel.



If you run into issues, or are just naturally curious, you can view all the files on your drive(s) by exploring the drives directly from the browser window.



[SIZE=4]The services panel will be very important, especially if you have a mixture of devices on your network. There is direct support for Mac OS X here as well as NFS, FTP and even WebDav./SIZE]



The settings Menu will be commonly accessed as there are a plethora of options for configuring the hardware. You can control the LED lighting and FAN speeds for instance.



The online help menu may be useful for people who are running into a problem as you can read up on any aspect of the interface.



Another useful feature is the HDMI port. There is the possibility to connect this device directly to your TV. If you now install the Boxee app on the NAS you can access all your media files and display them on your big TV screen. With Boxee it's even possible to install an iOS or Android App on your tablet or smartphone to then use this device as remote control.




One of the great things about Boxee when used with ASUSTOR products was the ability to use an iOS or Android device as a remote control. XBMC doesn't have that function, at least not released by ASUSTOR at the time of writing. The company still wanted to give users an easy way to control the multimedia functions and came up with a physical remote control to handle media navigation.




You can control XBMC with a keyboard and mouse attached to the NAS, but that defeats the purpose of having a media center to start with.




The ASUSTOR Remote Control works with new 3-Series and some 2-Series products with HDMI capabilities. Not all 2-Seres ASUSTOR NAS products have HDMI capability, but you can recognize them by the E at the end of the model number, AS-204TE. All 3-Series NAS have HDMI.There are 10 buttons total and the remote doesn't light up like your fancy flagship receiver remote.The buttons are easy to press and after a few minutes, you instinctively remember each button's location.



ASUSTOR Portal is an App that provides a local output platform for ASUSTOR NAS devices. When installing Boxee or XBMC multimedia player Apps on the NAS, ASUSTOR Portal will also be automatically installed. Users also have the option of manually installing ASUSTOR Portal through ASUSTOR's App Central. ASUSTOR Portal's thumbnail shortcuts allow users to access Websites such as the ADM desktop or YouTube conveniently and without having to use a PC. Additionally, ASUSTOR Portal supports customized settings such as the uploading of wallpaper, saving Web pages as favorites and configuring the order of the thumbnail shortcuts in the portal which allows each and every user to create a customized portal desktop for themselves. Furthermore, ASUSTOR Portal supports the real-time monitoring of surveillance feeds from ASUSTOR's Surveillance Center. After installing Surveillance Center, users will be able to view 4 different feeds on their local display without having to go through a PC. Users can also further use AiRemote or a USB mouse to control all functionality.




Available for both iOS and Android, AiRemote can be used to control functionality for Surveillance Center, multimedia playback and all Web pages found in the ASUSTOR Portal. Based on the application in use, AiRemote will provide an appropriate toolbar to allow users to control functionality. AiRemote can be used to control multimedia playback from both Boxee and XBMC. The newly added "Player Control" toolbar allows users to control the playback of videos with functions such as play, pause, stop, fast-forward, volume controls, etc. Additionally, can use the "Touchpad Mode" along with the Chrome Web browser in ASUSTOR Portal to surf the Web on their big screen. Users will be provided with a toolbar that gives them functions such as forward, back, search, zoom, etc. AiRemote allows users to turn their mobile device into a comprehensive and multifunctional remote control.





Test Setup & Methodology

I now begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you my test system and the software I used:

OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD
Mainboard X79 MSI GD65 - Intel SATA 6G controller in AHCI mode
Processor Core i7 3960X at default configuration
Graphics Cards GeForce GTX 580
Memory 16 GB (4x 4096 MB) DDR3 1600 MHZ
Power Supply Unit 1200 Watt
Monitor Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600
OS related Software Windows 7 64-bit SP1



The HDD's tested are 2 x 1.5TB Samsung F2 HD154UI.





Performance

Read performance is close to 100 MB/s and write performance is close to 70 MB/s.



For performing a more advanced test, the Atto was used. Here are the results:





Temperature

The system cools well, thanks to the active fan, both hard drives hover around 28/29c. Ambient room temperature was 23c.




Noise Level

The 70mm fan spins quite actively to ensure there is plenty of cool air circulating across the drives and components. It is audible when under extended heavy load, such as when copying files to two hard drives over a long period of time. Generally however, the fan isn’t that audible.




Power Consumption

Power consumption is much in line with what we would expect from an ATOM powered NAS system. At idle the NAS consumes around 19 watts of power, and this rises to around 28 watts under load. You can send the NAS to sleep by leaving it for a certain amount of time, or by holding down the power button for a few seconds. It drops to around 3 watts in this state.




Conclusion

The newly Asustor AS-202TE is a rather unique NAS in that it shows the direction the NAS market is heading. For the longest time, power users and enthusiasts have been building home servers catering to their own personal needs for storage outside the backup drive in the PC.Having a standalone option like the Asustor AS-202TE has its benefits in that it can serve up media through the onboard XBMC client straight to your television. Additionally, if you have media devices in rooms across your household, the Asustor AS-202TE has the internal power through its use of the Intel Atom SoC to stream video in HD quality to multiple devices.The Intel CE5315 is a dual-core SOC that will be used in the higher mid-range NAS devices. It's close to Marvell's more high-end chips in terms of performance, and Intel's new Atom is an interesting SOC.Performance across my network was commendable, rating at over 100 MB/s when reading large single files and dropping to around 70 MB/s when writing. The HDMI port on the CE5315 creates some interesting applications, and the SOC has reasonable performance. I was particularly impressed by the company's ADM operating system, which despite being in its infancy, provides stability, a wealth of features and ample scope for expansion through a built-in app repository.



The Asustor AS-202TE is a very attractively designed NAS which will appeal to the wide audience of media centric users. Playback is smooth . If you're looking for a NAS to double as a work-in-progress media player, the Asustor AS-202TE may fill that void.What made the Asustor AS-202TE such an attractive product for me was the price tag. You can pick up the bare bones Asustor AS-202TE for around 180 British Pounds inc vat right now.
I would like to remind you that four camera licenses are included in Surveillance Center for free,when other brands offer only one (so you will save about 120 British Pounds).Asustor also offers a 2 Year Warranty.