Asustor AS4004T NAS Review
Every month we see a greater demand for faster file sharing devices that can support higher capacities. Letâs face it, 1Gbps connectivity inside of your house is slowly dying. The next step up from 1Gbps speeds is 10Gbps. I remember a few years ago 10Gbe networking wasnât affordable for your average household and only enterprise companies were able to afford them. Today we can buy a 10Gbps switch for just a few hundred bucks and if you already have a 10Gbps network ready then you probably looking for a new NAS device. NAS manufacturers acknowledge the change in the small offices and household and so they release newer devices with 10Gbps capabilities. My test subject comes from Asustor, AS4004T. AS4004T is a four-bay Network Attached Storage device that is 10Gbps ready and backward compatible with 1Gbps networks. This NAS is powered by Marvel Armada 7K Dual-Core Processor and has 2GB of DDR4 RAM by Toshiba. Review Sample Provided by:Â ASUSTOR Product Name: AS4004T Price at time of review: $ 359.00 USD MSRP Product was given in exchange for work done to produce this review. Packaging The sample arrived in a plain shipping box however actual product packaging is similar to other Assistorâs NAS products. Asustor signature packaging is mostly white with blue images and detailed descriptions. Check out our other Asustor reviews if you are curious. Inside of the shipping box AS4004T is securely packaged in the protective foam and actual device has a plastic bag around it to prevent any accidental scratches.
 Hardware & Packaging
Hardware Specifications CPU: Marvell ARMADA-7020 1.6GHz (Dual-Core) Processor Hardware encryption engine integrated Memory: 2GB DDR4 Memory Expandable up to: not expandable Flash Memory: 512MB DOM HDD: 4 x SATA3 6Gb/s; 3.5"/2.5" HDD/SSDš Compatibility Maximum Internal Raw Capacity: 56 TB  (14 TB HDD X 4, Capacity may vary by RAID types) Maximum Drive Bays with Expansion Unit: 12 Maximum Raw Capacity with Expansion Units: 168 TB  (14 TB HDD X 12, Capacity may vary by RAID types) Expansion: USB 3.1 Gen-1 x2 Network: Gigabit Ethernet x 2; 10Gigabit Ethernet x1 Output: N/A System Fan: 120mm x 1 Power Supply Unit / Adapter: 90W x1 Input Power Voltage: 100V to 240V AC Certification: FCC, CE, VCCI, BSMI, C-TICK
Operation Power Consumption: 31.5W (Operation); 17.1W (Disk Hibernation); ² Noise Level: 19.7dB (HDD idle) Operation Temperature: 5°C~35°C (40°F~95°F) Humidity: 5% to 95% RH ASUSTOR Hightlight System Migration EZ Connect Dr.ASUSTOR 2-way Backup Task Monitor Eco-Friendly Design Auto-Standby for Both Internal and External Disks Auto Fan Control LED Night Mode Power Schedule: On, Off, Restart.
Size and Weight
Size: 170(H) x 174(W) x 230(D) mm Weight: 2.2 kg / 4.85 lbsPackage Contents
Software & Features
Operating System
ADM 3.1 Onwards Supports Online Firmware Updates Supported OS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2012 Mac OS X 10.6 Onwards UNIX, Linux, and BSD
  Supported Languages Deutsch, English, Français, Italiano, Nederlands,Đ ŃŃŃкиК, ćĽćŹčŞ, íę¸, çŽä˝ä¸ć, çšéŤä¸ć, ÄeskĂĄ,Polski, Svenska, Dansk, Norsk, Suomi, PortuguĂŞs,TĂźrkçe, EspaĂąol, Magyar Supported Browsers Internet Explore 11 Onwards FireFox Chrome Safari Microsoft Edge Network Protocols CIFS / SMB, SMB 2.0 / 3.0, AFP, NFS, FTP (Unicode Supported), TFTP, WebDAV, Rsync, SSH, SFTP, iSCSI/IP-SAN, HTTP, HTTPS, Proxy, SNMP, Syslog File System Internal Disk: EXT4 ,Btrfs External Disk: FAT32, NTFS, EXT3, EXT4, HFS+, exFAT ,Btrfs File Explorer Web-based File Management ISO File Mounting Share Links Task Monitor Browse Files on Local PC Thumbnail Previews Data Access via External Optical Drive Supports video playbackšⰠStorage Management Support Multiple Volumes with Spare Disks Volume Type: Single disk, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10 Support for Online RAID Level Migration MyArchive Insert Hard Disk & Immediately Access Files Transfer or Exchange Terabytes of Data via the Internal Hot-Swap SATA Interface Up to N-1 Bays Reserved for MyArchive Docking Purposes iSCSI/IP-SAN Maximum Targets: 64 Maximum LUNs: 64 Maximum Snapshot Versions of a Single LUN: 256 Target Masking LUN Mapping ISO File Mounting Supports MPIO Persistent (SCSI-3) Reservations Customized Sign In Page 2 Different Template Choices Customizable Title, Image and Background Image Import Function Disk Management Scheduled Bad Block Scans Scheduled S.M.A.R.T Scans Energy Control Configurable Disk Hibernation Wait Time Network TCP/IP (IPv4 & IPv6) Link Aggregation: Supports 802.3ad and Six Other Modes for Load Balancing and/or Network Failover Jumbo Frame (MTU) VLAN EZ Connect Wireless NetworkÂł DDNS and EZ-RouterCompatibility Supports Wake-on-LAN (WOL) Backup Solutions Rsync (Remote Sync) Backup Cloud Backup FTP Backup External Backup EZ Sync Snapshots Btrfs Snapshots 256 snapshots iSCSI LUNs Support model: AS31/32/40/50/51/52/53/61/62/63/64/70. Snapshot Center will not display Volume snapshots information in other models. System Administration Log Type: System Log, Connection Log, File Access Log Real-time Online User Monitor Real-time System Monitor User Quota Virtual Drive (ISO Mounting, Maximum 16) UPS SupportCompatibility Network Recycle Bin Share folder-based Maintains original directory structure and file permission One-click restore Supports scheduled emptying Filtering rules File size File extension Access Control Maximum Number of Users: 4096 Maximum Number of Groups: 512 Maximum Number of Shared Folders: 512 Maximum Number of Concurrent Connections: 512 Supports Windows Active Directory Supports Windows Active Directory / LDAP ACL Provides both Windows ACL and Linux ACL permission configuration methods Can enable Windows ACL for specific shared folders Comprehensive support for Windowsâ 13 types of advanced permission settings Can view Windows ACL permission settings from within ADM Supports local users and groups Exclusive permission reset function allows users to quickly restore default permissions Security AES 256-Bit Encryption Firewall: Prevent Unauthorized Access Alert Notifications: E-mail, SMS Encrypted Connections: HTTPS, FTP over SSL/TLS, SSH, SFTP, Rsync over SSH Built-in Hardware Encryption Engine: AS10/31/32/40/53/54/6/61/62/63/64/70 Series RAID Scrubbing: detects the integrity and consistency of RAID 5 and RAID 6 drive data. Network Defender Auto blacklist Trusted list Black/White list Supports IP/IP range/geolocation External Devices Compatibility Supports USB External Storage Devices USB Wi-Fi Dongle Support Bluetooth Dongle/Speaker Support USB Printer Support USB DAC Support CD ROM Drive/DVD ROM Drive/Blu-Ray ROM
Featured Apps
Download Center Supports BT(Torrent & Magnet Link), HTTP and FTP Downloads Torrent Search Choose Files Before a BT Task Starts Customizable Download Schedule Bandwidth Control RSS Subscription and Automatic Downloading (Broadcatching) ASUSTOR Download Assistant for Windows & Mac AiDownload for Android with Push Notification Smart Download Function DataSync for Microsoft OneDrive Each ADM account is able to individually log into a OneDrive account Supports file filter and bandwidth limitation Supported backup methods: Sync Directly upload files to OneDrive from NAS Directly download files from OneDrive to NAS DropBox Each ADM Account is Able to Individually Log into One Dropbox Account Supported Backup Methods: Sync Dropbox to NAS NAS to Dropbox FTP Explorer Directory Structure View with Drag & Drop Transfers Task Monitor Stopping of Transmission Task & Resumption of Connection Encrypted Connections: Explicit over TLS, Implicit over TLS FTP Site Manager Bandwidth Control Maximum Simultaneous Transfer Control Google Drive Each ADM Account is Able to Individually Log in to One Google Account Supported Backup Methods: Sync Directly Upload Files to Google Drive from NAS Directly Download Files from Google Drive to NAS HiDrive Support OneDrive and OneDrive Business Each ADM Account is Able to Individually Log into One HiDrive Account Supported Backup Methods: Directly Upload Files to HiDrive from NAS Directly Download Files from HiDrive to NAS Supported Protocols: Rsync FTP FTPS SFTP Rsync + SSH hubiC Each ADM Account is Able to Individually Log into One hubiC Account Supported Backup Methods: Sync Directly Upload Files to hubiC from NAS Directly Download Files from hubiC to NAS Yandex Each ADM Account is Able to Individually Log in to One Yandex Account Supported Backup Methods: Sync Directly Upload Files to Yandex from NAS Directly Download Files from Yandex to NAS LooksGood Transcoding Capabilities Built-in three main video library categories (Movies, TV Shows, Home Movies) and smart video sorting management Efficient Global Search function allows for searches by keywords followed by the execution of more detailed searches according to the Movies, TV Shows, Home Movies categories and parameters such as actors, director, year, genre, writer, and title Attractive poster wall and thumbnail display Automatic production of video poster thumbnails Centralized management and ability to configure the order of favorites and playlist history System administrator can configure video library and editing permissions according to user Can configure access permissions to share with friends and family Multimedia conversion function Self-defined smart folder for video conversions Supports digital TV recordings via digital TV dongles Easy streaming with Chromecast and DLNA Support to watch videos in Apple TV via AiVideos tvOS version iTunes Server For iTunes on Mac & Windows Supports AirPlay Supports iOS Remote Pairing Supported Audio Formats: AIFâľ, M4A (AAC & Apple Lossless), M4P, M4R, MP3, WAVâľ Supported Video Formats: M4V, MOV, MP4 Supported Playlist Formats: M3U, WPL Mail Server Each ADM Account can Become an Independent Email Account Email Activity Monitor (Over 1 Week, 1/3/6 Months) Provides SMTP, IMAP, and POP3 Mail Protocols Supports SMTP Relay and Verification SMTP-SSL Secure Connections Spam Filter and Black List Settings Email Alias Creation and Mapping Monitoring of Mail Queue Mail Service Activity Log Exclusive Email Backup Mechanism Auto-Forwarding and Auto-Response Protocols Photo Gallery âAlbumâ and âBrowseâ Viewing Modes Manage Photo Album Access Rights: Public Access, Restricted to Certain Accounts, Album Password Multi-level Folder Structure Support Supports Tagging of Photos Intuitive Sorting and Comprehensive Search Function Adjustable Photo Wall Browsing Scales Automatic Image Rotation One-click Sharing to Social Media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Plurk, email) Intuitive Drag and Drop Management Slideshow Viewing Mode Provides Comment Function for Users to Interact with Each Other. Supports a Wide Range of Image Formats: JPG/JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, RAW Supports Video Playback Surveillance Center Compatibility Up to 16 channels in 720p on single live view display On-screen camera controls including camera PTZ, manual recordings, take snapshots, configure camera settings and open Maps Up to 4 channels of synchronous and non-synchronous playback with audio Intelligent video analytics including motion detection and foreign object detection Supported Browsers: Windows Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Mac Safari, Mac Firefox ESR Event notification supports SMS, E-mail, and mobile push notification Automated event action rules Role-based access control RTSP streaming server (video and audio) AiSecure mobile app for iOS and Android with Push notification ONVIF⢠2.4, Profile S certified CMS Lite supports connect up to 128 IP Cameras from 32 NAS Two different camera license packages are offered: single channel and 4 channels. Maximum IP Cam (4 Free Licenses; Additional Licenses to be Purchased) Series Maximum IP cam Local display Note AS7 64 Yes With 8GB Memory AS63/64 36 Yes With 8GB Memory AS61/62 36 Yes With 8GB Memory AS50/51 30 Yes With 8GB Memory AS31/32/31 v2/32 v2 25 Yes N/A AS40 16 N/A N/A AS-6 16 Yes N/A AS-2TE/AS-3 8 Yes N/A AS-2T 8 N/A N/A AS10/AS10 v2 8 N/A N/A Minimum PC Client Requirements CPU: i5/i7 or above RAM: DDR3 4G or above Operating system Windows 7 and onward, Mac OS X Windows browsers: Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Chrome, FireFox Mac browsers: Safari 7.0, Firefox Display resolution: 1280x800 pixels or higher for best user experience Network interface: Gigabit x1 Independent graphics card is highly recommend SoundsGood Import Personal/Public Music Collection Personal/Public Music Collection Permission Control Playlist Editor ID3 Tag Editor Local Speaker Support: USB Supported Audio Formats for Browser: MP3, WAV, Ogg Supported Audio Formats for Transcoding Through Browser: AIFF, Flac Supported Audio Formats for Local Speaker: MP3, WAV, Ogg, AIFF, Flac ASUS DAC Support Takeasy Download from YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, and More Selectable the Video Type and Quality Automatic Downloads with YouTube Subscriptions Preview Downloads in Progress Online Playback UPnP Media Server Supports PS3 and other Digital Media Player Capable Devices Supports On-The-Fly Transcoding for Most RAW Images and Audio(OGG, FLAC) Supported Image Formats: BMP, GIF, ICO, JPG, PNG, PSD, TIF, RAW Imageâ´ (3FR, ARW, CR2, CRW, DCR, DNG, ERF, KDC, MEF, MOS, MRW, NEF, NRW, ORF, PEF, RAF, RAW, RW2, SR2, X3F) VPN Client Supported VPN Protocols: PPTP, OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec Transmission Package Monitor PPTP Authentication: PAP, CHAP, MS-CHAP, MS CHAP2 PPTP Encryption: No MPPE, MPPE (40, 128 bit), Maximum MPPE (128 bit) OpenVPN Port Control OpenVPN Link Compression VPN Server Supported VPN Protocols: PPTP, OpenVPN, and L2TP/IPsec View Current Connections & Ability to Disconnect Suspicious Connections Comprehensive Connection Log RADIUS Server Centralized management of wireless network certification Using WPA-Enterprise or WPA2-Enterprise encryption Must be combined with a wireless router that supports RADIUS authentication SNMP Server Supports SNMP v1, v2c, v3, and trap ASUSTOR NAS MIB provided Syslog server Supports standard Syslog protocol Graphical log monitoring by time and device Supports TCP and UDP Auto log archiving User-defined email notification Note: š Hard disks not included. ² Test HDD: WD Red 3 TB HDD Âł USB Wi-Fi dongle not included. â´ You must first enable real-time transcoding for these files in order to play them. âľ Metadata (e.g. title) may not be able to displayed in iTunes. šⰠVideo playback is not supported in Chrome. Closer Look at the ASUSTOR AS4004T AS4004T is a 4-bay device that has ABS plastic shell with an aluminum frame on the inside. The color of the entire shell is black however the frame is painted silver. On the front of the device, there are two buttons, one for power and one for copying to the NAS from an external source. AS4004T also has a set of front-facing LEDs which show the hard drive and network activities. In addition to buttons and LEDs, there is a single USB 3.0 connection in the front for any external devices you may want to use. There are no ventilation holes on either side of the device. AS4004T is not completely square as it has a stylish pop-up design on both sides of the device. To gain access to the hard drives you would need to remove the front bezel which is magnetically attached to the case. To keep AS4004T on the flat surfaces Asustor glues four rubber pads on the bottom of the enclosure. At the bottom of the device there are air intake slots. AS4004T is actively cooled by a 120mm fan. On the back of the device, there is one USB 3.0 Connector, one 10GbE jack, 2 1Gbe jacks, a power connector, and a Kensington security port. To remove hard drive sleds, you need to operate a small lever in the front of the drive and pull it out. The drive sleds do not require any tools or screws to install drives in them. Hard drives are being held by a pair of clips.
AS4004T is very well packaged and grounded. As you can see from the pictures the entire shell is grounded in multiple places. I donât think I have ever seen this much grounding tape on a device like this. The motherboard is extremely clean and has no over fluxing spots or excess of soldering on the components. The CPU and 10GbE controllers are passively cooled by a pair of aluminum heatsinks. On the back of the board, I found a metal cage that is soldered on. Daughter board which connected the drives to the motherboard is extremely clean as well. Â Here are some of the chips I found on in AS4004T.
The CPU of this device is by Marvell, Armada 7K Dual-core ARMv8 Cortex-A72 Embedded Processor (88F7020-A2).
The 10GbE controller is also by Marvell, Alaska Single 10GBase-T/NBase-T Ethernet Controller (88x3310-BUS4).
AS4004T has 2 GB of RAM by Samsung, DDR4 Ram Modules (K4A8G16 5WB BCRC). These are soldered on and cannot be upgraded.
Marvell USB 3.0 Controller (RTS5412) supports the two USB 3.0 connectors in AS4004T.
The 1Gbps connection is supported by (2x) Marvell Energy Efficient Ethernet Controllers (88E1512-NNP2).
The Disk On Module (DOM) is supported by Toshiba Memory (QA3554).
The Disk On Module controller is by SiliconMotion, USB 2.0 Dual Channel Flash Controller (SM3252q BB). ASUSTOR Software ASUSTOR Start-up Wizard could be found in the previous review of AS1002Tv2 as it is identical. The detailed information on the Startup Wizard could be found here. ASUSTOR Data Master Overview also could be found in my previous review of AS1002Tv2 which could be found here. ADM 3.2.7 RRE3 offers some small improvements and bug fixes. A list of all of the changes could be found here. Testing Methodology System Configuration Case Open Test Table CPU Intel Core i7 8700K Motherboard Gigabyte AORUS Z370 ULTRA GAMING Ram (2) 8GB Corsair DDR4-3200 CMW16GX4M2C3200C16 GPU EVGA GTX 1080 (8Gb) Hard Drives Corsair Force MP510 NVMe Gen 3 x4 M.2 SSD (480Gb) Network Cards Dual Port Intel Pro/1000 PT Mellanox Connectx-2 PCI-Express x 8 10GbE Ethernet Network Server Adapter Switches MikroTik Cloud Router Switch CRS317-1G-16S+RM (SwitchOS) Version 2.9 Transceivers used: 10Gtek for Cisco Compatible GLC-T/SFP-GE-T Gigabit RJ45 Copper SFP Transceiver Module, 1000Base-T 10Gtek for Cisco SFP-10G-SR, 10Gb/s SFP+ Transceiver module, 10GBASE-SR, MMF, 850nm, 300-meter 10Gtek for Cisco SFP-10G-T-S 10GBase-T SFP+ 10 Gigabit RJ45 Copper Transceiver 30m Power Supply Thermal Take Tough Power RGB 80 Plus Gold 750W  4 Seagate IronWolf 8 TB NAS drives were installed and used in the NAS tests. A Single port Mellanox Connectx-2 PCI-Express x 8 10GbE Ethernet Network Server Adapter network card was installed in the test system. Asustor AS4004T in all RAID arrays used a Single Static Volume. SFP-10G-T-S (10GbE) adapter was used for all 10GbE benchmarks. Network Layout For all tests, the NAS was configured to use a single network interface. Network cards were used to test 1Gbps (copper) and 10 Gbps (SFP+) connections. For 1Gbps connection one CAT 6 cable was connected to the MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+RM from the NAS and one CAT 6 cable was connected to the workstation from the switch. Testing was done on the PC with only 1 network card active. For 10Gbps connection one Cat 6 cable was connected to MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+RM from the NAS and one Fiber 10Gb cable was connected to the workstation from the switch. The switch was cleared of any configuration. Jumbo frames were used (9000 MTU) on the workstation, NAS and the switch. Network drivers used on the workstation are 5.50.14643.1 by Mellanox Technologies. (Driver Date 8/26/2018) (10GbE adapter) and 9.15.11.0 by Intel (Driver Date 10/14/2011) Software All testing is done based off a single client accessing the NAS. Both of the software were installed on the RAM Drive by ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver. Crystal Disk Mark is an old favorite disk benchmarking software which we have used for many years. It provides us with useful information on read and write speeds of the targets. You can get your own free copy right here. ATTO Disk Benchmark gives a good insights on the read and write speeds of the drive. In our tests, we used it against the "share" on the NAS. ATTO Disk Benchmark could be download right here. All tests were run a total of three times then averaged to get the final result. RAID 0,5 and 10 were tested for 1GbE and 10GbE connections. Tests were run after all the RAID arrays were fully synchronized.  RAID Information
Images courtesy of Wikipedia  JOBD or Just a Bunch Of Disks is exactly what the name describes. The hard drives have no actual raid functionality and are spanned at random data is written at random. RAID 0 is a stripe set and data is written across the disks evenly. The advantage of RAID 0 is speed and increased capacity. With RAID 0 there is no redundancy and data loss is very possible. RAID 1 is a mirrored set and data is mirrored from one drive to another. The advantage of RAID 1 is data redundancy as each piece of data is written to both disks. The disadvantage of RAID 1 is write speed is decreased as compared to RAID 0 due to the write operation is performed on both disks. RAID 1 capacity is that of the smallest disk. RAID 10 combines the 1st two raid levels and is a mirror of a stripe set. This allows for better speed of a RAID 0 array but the data integrity of a RAID 1 array. RAID 5 is a stripe set with parity. RAID 5 requires at least 3 disks. Data is striped across each disk, and each disk has a parity block. RAID 5 allows the loss of one drive without losing data. The advantage to RAID 5 is read speeds increase as the number of drives increase but the disadvantage is write speeds are slower as the number of drives is increased. There is overhead with RAID 5 as the parity bit needs to be calculated and with software
 RAID 5 there is more of a performance hit. RAID 6 expands on RAID 5 by adding an additional parity block to the array that is distributed across all the disks. Since there are two parity blocks in the array more overhead is used with a RAID 6 array. For a full breakdown of RAID levels, take a look at the Wikipedia article here. RAID configurations are a highly debated topic. RAID has been around for a very long time. Hard drives have changed, but the technology behind RAID really hasnât. So what may have been considered ideal a few years ago may not be ideal today. If you are solely relying on multiple hard drives as a safety measure to prevent data loss, you are in for a disaster. Ideally, you will use a multi-drive array for an increase in speed and lower access times and have a backup of your data elsewhere. I have seen arrays with hot spares that had multiple drives fail and the data was gone. Following Benchmarks were performed via 1GbE connectivity. Raid 0 1Gbps Raid 10 1Gbps Raid 5 1Gbps Following Benchmarks were performed via 10GbE connectivity. Raid 0 10Gbps Raid 10 10Gbps Raid 5 10Gbps Conclusion and Final Thoughts There is a lot to Asustor AS4004T than just a pretty outer shell. When we review hardware here at Modders-Inc we really get down into performance and statistics of a device and AS4004T treatment was no different. For the short time that I had with AS4004T, I have tested and used this device as I would any other NAS on my network. Moving large files and installing software from Asustor App Central was easy and straight forward. I have experience with ADM so it was easy for me to navigate. ADM is easy to work with as everything is intuitive and straight forward. Asustor AS4004T is powered by Marvell Armada 7K Dual Core Embedded processor and while using the device I have noticed CPU activity times in upper 70-80% while transferring large files across the network. Based on the benchmarks and the data they have produced AS4004T should be able to push data much faster while using 10GbE connectivity. At times it felt like the Armada 7K CPU had a difficult time keeping up with the Alaska 10GbE controller. Working with 1Gbps connection I saw no issues lag or choking.
ADM software which drives AS4004T is powerful and flexible and comes with App Central plugin through which you can install and manage a decent number of applications. Most of the applications are open sourced however, some are not such as Surveillance Center for your home IP Cam Security. Right now, Asustor AS4004T retails for about $ 360 USD and I think that is a fair price considering similar units sell for about the same. Asustor also has a two-bay unit, AS4002T for about $ 250 USD. So, if you are looking for a 10GbE NAS, AS4004T is a pretty good and affordable device to have around for your daily file sharing activities. While not quite as fast as other 10-gigabit NAS devices we've tested, it certainly gets the job done. And with the 3-year warranty how can you go wrong?   Read the full article
