ASUSTOR AS-302T 2 bay NAS Review

welshdragon · 5 Sep 2013 at 17:17

For those that might be interested I've been testing the new ASUSTOR AS_302T. It's one of the few nas units available at the moment that uses the new Intel Atom CE5335 SoC with enhanced hardware support for transcoding and streaming HD content.

I love this NAS. Price is fantastic on it too.

My review

R3X · 6 Sep 2013 at 00:13

thanks for the review, its still tempting me !

chippy08 · 6 Sep 2013 at 13:34

I am thinking of a 5 bay Nas or the 5D drobo or the Thecus N5550, i know i can attache the Drobo to my pc but can you do the same with the synology and Thecus models ?

Nice review site Welshdragon.

welshdragon · 6 Sep 2013 at 17:08

A NAS connect via your router. That way everything on the network has access. You can then map your shares/drives to the pc if need be.

daz.rathbone · 11 Sep 2013 at 09:04

Great review, thank you.

Am thinking of replacing my HP Microserver, running WHS2011 w/4x1TB drives.
Was looking at various NAS units, as I really want something v.quiet - I now have one of these and 2x4TB WD Reds in an online basket, while I debate hitting the "buy" button

Sh4rkie · 11 Sep 2013 at 09:57

Great review

welshdragon · 11 Sep 2013 at 12:27

daz.rathbone said:
Great review, thank you.

Am thinking of replacing my HP Microserver, running WHS2011 w/4x1TB drives.
Was looking at various NAS units, as I really want something v.quiet - I now have one of these and 2x4TB WD Reds in an online basket, while I debate hitting the "buy" button

It's a great nas and fantastic value. I've been running plex on it and it handles it all very well. I have 2x 3tb reds which are great. The is is great but there isn't as many smartphone apps as Synology yet but they are heading n the right direction.

welshdragon · 11 Sep 2013 at 12:28

Sh4rkie said:
Great review

Thank you very much

daz.rathbone · 11 Sep 2013 at 13:16

welshdragon said:
It's a great nas and fantastic value. I've been running plex on it and it handles it all very well. I have 2x 3tb reds which are great. The is is great but there isn't as many smartphone apps as Synology yet but they are heading n the right direction.

Cheers welshy - I just ordered. Hopefully brownie points from the Mrs as well, as the HP server can be decommissioned from the bedroom

welshdragon · 11 Sep 2013 at 13:52

Are you planning on running it in the bedroom? As quiet as it is I probably wouldn't have it, or any other nas in there as their not silent?

It's a great unit though. Their AiRemote app is currently being updated to be compatible with the xbmc media player that's built in so hopefully shouldn't be too long

daz.rathbone · 11 Sep 2013 at 15:06

Nope, planning on putting it behind the tv unit in the lounge, and possibly making use of the hdmi and xbmc on there - no more need to stream, and no noise at night. Looks to be a little smaller than the microserver, so should fit fine.

Currently the microserver is in the bedroom (over cabled Gb) - it was reasonably quiet when I had it configured using raidz on zfs, as I manually controlled the drive spin downs, but under whs2011 it's noisy as hell, and often decides to crunch the drive at 3-4am.

gmoorc · 28 Nov 2013 at 09:43

I'm trying to decide between this and the 602.
XBMC is a key app for me but I will also install some download apps as well as using it as a photo gallery / web server.

I assume the 302 would be better for XBMC with its SOC but when I start loading up lots of apps I'm not sure whether RAM would become a limitation?

Which way should I go?? :confused:

Django x2 · 28 Nov 2013 at 11:03

Picked up a AS-202TE for a friend back in October (with HDMI) and they are excellent. I think the torrent app is a bit lame and doesn't have a large amount of choice, but hopefully that will improve.

Richdog · 12 Dec 2013 at 17:41

Wow, I have been searching for NAS solutions for ages that do everything I want them to do, and this really seems like it fits the bill. Amazing spec... Atom 5335 thyat can transcode, 2x USB 3.0, great looking UI that will only improve... pretty damn epic actually!

Thus, my Googling of reviews lead me to this thread...

welshdragon said:
For those that might be interested I've been testing the new ASUSTOR AS_302T. It's one of the few nas units available at the moment that uses the new Intel Atom CE5335 SoC with enhanced hardware support for transcoding and streaming HD content.

I love this NAS. Price is fantastic on it too.

My review

Great review Welshie, looks like a great unit indeed.

Only question is... 2 bay of 4 bay? I guess a 2 bay with 2x 3TB would be enough... but 4x 1.5TB would also be pretty nice. Hmm...

Richdog · 12 Jan 2014 at 16:33

welshie, reply to your own thread please.

Also, can this NAS really function as a true HTPC replacement for browsing and streaming? Can you get Netflix etc via the browser?

welshdragon · 13 Jan 2014 at 14:59

lol my bad sorry Richdog

I would go for the four bay if budget not an issue and still get the 2x3tb drives for room to expand.

The Atom is fantastic in this model but at the moment is largely unsupported which is a shame. Plex are working on an update to utilise it, I think the Synology Video station makes use of it.

The portal is very slick and xbmc works very well in my experience. I've not used Netflix but it struggled to playback a trailer on blinkbox through chrome on a 42" sony, that said I don't find Blinkbox very good for streaming so it may be my network/connection.