Asustor AS6302T 2-Bay Consumer NAS Review

1. Introduction
2. Asustor AS6302T NAS Appliance
3. Test System Setup and Web Management
4. Benchmarks - Single Client Throughput, Sequential and Workloads
5. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 88%

The Bottom Line

The AS6302T is a very competitive feature rich platform for those wanting home or small office storage.

Introduction

There is no doubt the NAS platform has evolved immensely in the last ten years. Asustor has grown rapidly in this same time frame coming into the market mid-2011. Back then NAS systems were simple, Marvell powered solutions designed as pure storage platforms for the entire home. Since then, Synology, Qnap, and Asustor have pushed each other in the consumer space to the point where we now have full app ecosystems, extremely powerful platforms with legit x86-64 processors and 4-8GB of memory has become standard.

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The AS6302T is an Intel Apollo Lake platform. This unit takes advantage of the Celeron J3355 SoC that operates at 2.0GHz with burst capabilities to 2.5GHz. Memory is preinstalled at 2GB, upgradable to 8GB with SO-DIMM slots and the two-bay design allows for 28TB of raw storage capacity with IronWolf 14TB drives. Asustor does support drive expansion over USB 3.0, and the 6302T offers three Type-C ports and one USB-C. Gigabit Ethernet is the backbone of connectivity for this unit with two ports available while a single HDMI 2.0 port allows connectivity to your 4K TV.

Asustor AS6302T NAS Appliance

Packaging and a Closer Look

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Packaging for the 6302T falls in line with what we have seen in the past. The front of the box offers an image of the NAS, a few logos across the bottom and the model number top left.

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On the spine of the box, you will find the specifications and package contents listed along the bottom.

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The scope of delivery includes the power adapter, ethernet cables, and accessories.

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The 6302T again follows suit with the same enclosure design we have seen in the past. This includes Asustor branding blue and green LEDS top left for power and activity and one-touch copy mounted on the front. The drive bays each have their own LEDs as well with no drive locks on consumer platforms.

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The back of the unit houses a large cooling fan followed by USB-C, HDMI and 2x USB 3.0 ports. Gigabit ethernet is followed by optical audio and power input.

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The drive trays are metal coated in plastic to minimize sharp edges, they are not a toolless tray but do have screws included.

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Memory upgrades are made easy by removing the outer shell and exposing two SO-DIMM slots.

Test System Setup and Web Management

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z370 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i3 8350K (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 4x8GB DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Air 540 (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)
• Wi-Fi NIC: ASUS PCE-AC88 (buy from Amazon)
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C (buy from Amazon)
• Thunderbolt 3: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)

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ACC has always been the preferred method for setting up your AS6302T. The software will search for your NAS within the network and aide in initializing.

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Pushing through initialization, we start by setting up ADM, the underlying OS for Asustor NAS. The 6302T uses ADM 3.1.

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It does take a few minutes to get through setup, each step gets a check once complete.

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ADM 3.1 offers the same desktop we have seen in the past. Icons separate the OS into categories.

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Access Control allows you to setup users, groups along with managing LDAP and shared folders.

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Activity Monitor allows you to check in on system usage.

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App Central gives access to tons of applications, the most popular being Plex, Web Browser and Download Center.

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Backup and Restore houses all your options for replication, external backup, and cloud options.

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The external device manager allows you to setup drives, printers, Wi-Fi dongles even optical drives.

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Moving to services, we have support for CIFS, AFP, and NFS. Further, we have FTP, WebDAV, and Bonjour support.

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Settings goes a bit deeper with everything from network, to hardware and energy options.

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Storage manager allows you to check in on your drive health along with capacity. If you use IronWolf drives, you get a higher level of detail on the drive health.

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System info gives detail on the components along with Dr Asustor if you have an issue with the NAS.

Benchmarks - Single Client Throughput, Sequential and Workloads

Single Client Throughput

HD Video Play - 720p HD stream from Windows Media Player, 256kB reads

2HD Video Play - 2x playback

4HD Video Play - 4x playback

HD Video Record - 720p HD stream, 256kB writes

File Copy from NAS - 4GB file copy, 64kB reads

File Copy to NAS - 64kB writes

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I tested RAID 0 and 1 for each scenario. With Single client, we found solid performance in playback and record reaching 111 MB/s at4x while file copy topped out at 120 MB/s to the NAS.

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Sequential read showed solid performance scaling from 30 MB/s at QD1 to 120MB/s at QD32 within RAID 0. RAID 1 started slightly higher at 70 MB/s and scaled to the same 120 MB/s at QD16.

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Sequential write was similar with RAID 0 peaking at 117 MB/s and RAID 1 at 119 MB/s.

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RAID 0 has amazing performance within Web Server, scaling from 400 IOPs at QD1 to a peak of 1250 IOPs at QD32.

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With RAID 1, all workloads were much more consistent all hovering just below 400 IOPS, with QD not having any bearing on results.

Final Thoughts

As we found in testing, the 6302T certainly has its place in the market as a pure storage appliance. Along with this, ADM has quickly become a solid platform for its own app ecosystem.

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Build quality is solid and on par with expectations for a consumer unit. The 6302T comes apart quite easily allowing you access to the internal components including easy access to memory. The drive trays while metal are covered in plastic eliminating any potential harmonics from being transferred throughout the chassis and are stout enough to handle the weight of any 3.5" hard drive.

The performance was good and what was expected of this unit. While SoC based platforms are few and far between these days they do have a place in the storage market and as we found today can perform quite well with the right drives. Sequential read and write topped 100 MB/s in all three of the tested RAID modes while write performance too was able to hit the same performance level. Workload testing showed how strong this unit was with Web Server as it was at the top of the charts in both IOPS and latency.

With all the extras that go with NAS appliances today, the AS6302T is setup to handle the workload of a typical home or office. For those wanting the flexibility in accessing their data anywhere, you can take advantage of cloud storage options while the NAS itself can easily become your home media hub with its direct HDMI connection. MSRP of the Asustor AS6302T comes in at $369.99 but the price has come down slightly since its introduction. You can find current pricing below. Warranty is listed at three-years.