Asustor AS5404T Nimbustor 4 Gen2-4 Bay NAS Network Storage Enclosure, Quad-Core 2.0GHz CPU, 4xM.2 NVMe SSD Slots, 2x2.5GbE Ports, 4GB DDR4 RAM, Gaming-Inspired NAS

Great example of setup and forget gear. I had mine running in a few minutes and adding a media server was a doddle. It is responsive, quiet and so far very reliable. The way these devices should be.

Excellent system for my plex. Definitely better having m.2 storage. Noticed a big difference.

All I need and even more. I wish to know this device earlier. Multimedia player, smart options, safe storage, quality, home CCTV service, and more. With SSD disks it's quite and fast.

First impressions are this a compact NAS. The provision of a demo video online is extremely helpful in setting up this ASUSTOR AS5402T along with the comprehensive Knowledge Base. My previous NAS was a QNAP TS-253A which is now 5 years old and certainly not as easy to setup. I use them both for Home Surveillance purposes. Well worth it and certainly recommend this unit.

Buying a NAS in general is not a cheap experience (especially when adding the disks), so I knew what I was getting into.What I will say is that Asustor made it really easy to set up and get it working. Disk installation was easy. Installing th M.2storage needed a little dismantling, but was easy enough. Once the hardware was sorted, it was time to install the Software.Software installation was so easy, I was up and running in no time. The amount and types of apps available is pretty good.Overall a good ànd easy experience and the NAS is working well.

I've found the Asustor NAS really easy to set up and use. I have it configured with a 2tb NVME SSD as the OS and Volume 1 drive and two 4tb IronWolf drives in Raid 1 as Volume 2.The set up guide walks you through getting the drives ready and in the Raid version most applicable to you. If you want the OS on the SSD (recommended to make it snappy) then just install the SSD and no drives and go through the initial setup then add the HDDs later.I'm using it as a cold file store, hot file store for video editing and as a Jellyfin media server, but there's much more it can do.

This is a stupid oversight as on paper, the unit should be good, but why oh why does a NAS need 'toolless' installation for its M.2 drives, when you have to use a screwdriver to remove the top cover of the unit anyway?You already have a screwdriver, so what's the problem with fitting the drive with the screw (that all retail M.2 units come with anyway)? Why is using (clearly) unsuitable plastic clips preferred?As soon as I opened the unit I found that one of the clips had been snapped off. I like to think ASUStor didn't ship it like this, so I can only assume someone previously returned a unit after the clip snapped and it got sent back out without being checked. Probably just as well as I can return and avoid issues in future.

Update: June 2024: I've had no more file issues with the system so far and have managed to resolve the transcoding now using a combination of settings, but it seemed that the hardware transcoding options had defaulted back to defaults, so was not being utilised. So I've increased my rating up by 2 more stars.One other thing to watch out for is the HDD enclosures. These are very flimsy plastic and you always get the feeling you are going to snap them both in pulling them out and replacing them. I have just inserted 4 drives and I have to say the first time the enclosure with the HDD in did not slide in perfectly, so was 1mm out of alignment. I had to make 3 attempts to try and line this up again (not easy unless you are looking at it at eye level) before the enclosure engaged.Note to Asustor - come on guys, these are not cheap units and you could of spent a little more on a more robust enclosure system. Did I mention that the other flimsy part are the screwless plastic securing tabs that hold the HDDs into the enclosure: what a nightmare trying to get these off and on - again, the feeling they are going to break off at the slightest pressure is not very reassuring.Having done a lot of research before purchase, I took a chance on Asustor based on Hardware comparisons with Synology and QNAP.I have to say their instructions for disassembly to upgrade the memory and insert the M.2 modules using the so called user manual is terrible. The images bear no resemblance to how you get the cover off and it's near on impossible without using force.Next the setup - well that was relatively easy to do, but already I'm having major issues with ADM.I've lost my temper 3 days on the trot now and wasted countless hours of my life because of ADM software glitches. The File explorer is horrendous as it does not update files. I've wasted an afternoon today looking for missing files that are not showing up in the attached USB drive using the built in File Explorer in ADM.I thought the files were missing - a complete folder of converted video files just gone missing! Three times I thought I'd copied these over and still nothing - refreshed and nothing. So I checked the history of the conversion programme to get the path and this showed they had been moved to the NAS where they should be under the USB drive - but again nothing there!I finally restarted the NAS and unplugged the USB, plugged it in again and this time after refreshing the File Manager, the folders along with the missing folders and files magically appeared!This does not bode well for the future to be honest and I am very disappointed of what I've had to go through to get these back. I've lost all confidence in this unit and am deciding whether to return it back. These things are not cheap to buy and you expect the bloody software to work properly and not give you heart failure all the time when you think your data is missing.I also had some issues with Hardware transcoding using Jellyfin, but the lack of clear documentation as to the settings is a poor feature (the Jellyfin user manual is written for people with PhDs) and not with the home user / small office user in mind. I had to reset everything and switch settings on one by one to get it to work and stop buffering of videos.There are features that I want to explore at a later date like moving my Hyper V VM over, but am not too sure now given the 'disappearing data' issue. This is all without any HDDs installed so far - I only have 2 x 2TB SSDs installed with the ADM OS and the media I have so far copied over. I will be adding HDDs later on as needed for a second RAID volume. But I haven't 'moved' any critical data over yet until I'm satisfied it is going to be safe there and only after I have another backup outside of the NAS.I will update my review going forward.