ASUSTOR AS-304T Multi Media Storage Server Review

 Some of what makes the ASUSTOR AS-304T special cannot be seen directly in the specs but by looking at the device itself.  The front of the device shows the four vertical hot-swap drive bays which are locked in place with plastic levers.  Red and green indicator lights across the top show when drives are powered, are active or may need service.

Much to our disappointment the shiny plastic panel across the top does not hide a LED readout or fancy light show.  Instead it is purely decoration but does cover a single infrared receiver located in the lower left corner.  To the left of the blank screen is the power switch and indicator LEDs followed by a front accessible USB 3.0 port for easy data transfers.

Turning the device around you’ll find a relativity small power supply above an extremely large cooling fan.  To the right is a single 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 3.0 port, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet and two USB 2.0 ports.

You might be thinking that a HDMI and headphone jack seem out of place on a NAS device since they are typically accessed over the network.  In a way you are right however, a feature found on all Asustor devices is the ability to provide local area media streaming to devices that otherwise inaccessible over the network.

One of the distinctions between NAS units is storage capacity.  The 304T is a three series device supporting four hard drives either 3.5” rotational or any of the 2.5” varieties.  (SSD, Laptop etc.)  Each of the drives sits in a removable hotswap bay with ventilation holes for cooling and multiple mounting points for the different form factors.

Storage support should be a deciding factor when choosing a NAS device.  Two drive units typically support RAID Levels 0 (stripe) and 1 (mirror) or could be configured as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives).  Each configuration has their own benefits and limitations depending on how you configure the NAS.  If you move up to a four drive NAS you not only double your storage capacity but also increase storage configurations. 

The AS-304T supports Single disk, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10 with options to migrate RAID levels and expand your array with different size drives or by adding more drives.  Of course the only real limitation is cost as the four drive units are more expensive and cost more to populate with drives.

Per the norm you will get a network cable and approperate documentation.  The driver disk has some software used to setup the Asustor AS-304T for the first time along with a copy of the required firmware.  All of the documentation and software can be downloaded from the Asustor website so be sure to check there for the latest versions and any beta revisions.

As we mentioned before the AS-304T does come with an HDMI port and will output video to any HDMI panel.  This remote allows you to control certain aspects of the NAS from across the room and works like any other remote in your arsenal.  Of course, the remote is only useful when you have a video display hooked up but the power button works in either configuration.