ASUSTOR AS1002T 2-Bay Entry-Level NAS Review

Bohs Hansen / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

ASUSTOR’s AS1002T was only just released and it hasn’t reached its destinations all around the world yet. US customers can already get their hands on this NAS as some of the first and it is available there for just $199.99 on Amazon and NewEgg has a listing for it for $179.00. A very fair price for this awesome NAS.

Overview

ASUSTOR entered the ARM based NAS area with their new 10 series and the 2-bay AS1002T that I had the pleasure to review today doesn’t need to hide from its Intel-based brothers. The design of the AS1002T is simple yet elegant with its overall black case and diamond pattern on the front. It would look equally well besides the entertainment system as it would in your home office. The hard disk installation is a breeze thanks to thumb screws and once it’s running, you’ll barely hear it.

The Marvell ARMADA-385 1GHz dual-core processor might not sound like much in today’s GHz and core counts, but it does very well in an NAS environment. It comes with both hardware encryption engine that helps to keep the performance up when you need that extra layer of protection and also features a floating point unit that helps at tasks such as thumbnail creation. We saw a great performance from the AS1002T throughout the benchmarks and better than I had expected. ARM processors have come a long way over the past years and so have the NAS operating systems.

With a Gigabit Ethernet port to connect the NAS and the ability to connect WiFi and Bluetooth adapters through USB, the AS1002T features all the basic connectivity needed for most homes. The NAS has a total of two USB 3.0 ports where one of them is placed on the front for easy access. The NAS is great for multimedia streaming to DLNA compatible devices as well as Chromecast. There is a huge add-on library available with extra apps from download managers over CMS system to games and all sorts of other things.

Pros:

Good performance
Hardware encryption
Eco-friendly

Cons:

RAM not upgradeable

“The ASUSTOR AS1002T is a powerful entry level NAS that comes with a low power consumption, all basic features, a good performance, and a fair price.”