ASUSTOR AS3104T 4-Bay SOHO NAS Review

Setup – Users, Groups, Shares, and Services

Up until now we only made our drive setup and got our administrator user, and that is something we need to change. The logical next step would be to create more users, some user groups, and some shared folders for all our file. All three of these settings are found in the Access Control which should be one of the first icons on your ADM desktop.

User Accounts

We only need to supply two pieces of information to create a new user, but we can add more. The mandatory information is naturally the username and password, but we can also set the user id manually, assign an email address to the account and set expiration date.

More options include that we can add the user to a new group. We haven’t created any new groups, so we only have the normal general user pool and our administrator group.

We can also assign access rights to our shared folders and set disk usage quota for each user.

Multiple users can be created with ease too, either by importing a text file or using the add multiple users function.

Creating a lot of users take some time, so sit back and wait and once it’s done, you’ll have a list similar to the one below, if you used similar input as seen above.

User Groups

Micro managing a lot of users can be a time-consuming process and that is where user groups come into play. By assigning users to groups, you can quickly set access rights for all included users at once rather than have to do it all manually for each single user.

Once you have entered a name, you can select from all the existing users and add them to the new group right away. The same way, you can add more users to this new group directly when you create more.

Shared Folders

The shared folders are the backbone of your NAS. These are what you’ll see in your network environment and what you easily can mount as network drives within your workstations. There will be some default folders created by the system and apps you chose to install, but you can also create your own here.

You can enable the network recycle bin for each share individually and you can also opt for encryption of each share. Encryption will take some performance, but this NAS is built with a hardware encryption engine that will aid this process a lot.

Access rights can be set per user, per group, and as general rules. You can also edit all this later on after you created the share, so no worries if you make any errors.

Application Privileges

With so many different apps available as you have, you also need a way to control which users have access to which apps. You can do this by app or by user, depending on which is most convenient for your current edit.

Services

ADM’s design has put all similar functions into groups, making them easy to find. The same goes for all the network and connection services. The first point covers Windows (Samba) and Active Directory connection which most likely will be the most common. After all, there are more Windows based systems than anything else among users.

Mac OS X users will find the corresponding network service too called AFP. Time Machine is also supported here for the users utilizing that feature.

Linux and Unix users will naturally also find NFS here. There isn’t much to say to this as it is like it is on any other *nix based system.

The built-in FTP server looks simple at first, but it supports the most vital features.

Features include encrypted connections and FXP as well as user and bandwidth limitations. You can also set the passive port range and external IP manually.

WebDAV service is also supported and naturally that includes SSL connections.

The built-in web server can be used for your own websites too. A virtual host setup is also included here, making it easy to assign your domains to the proper folders.

The built-in database system is MariaDB and you can find apps for visual editing in the app store.

Secure connections are important, not just for enterprises but also for home users. SSH is also among the supported connection methods, but you won’t find the basic telnet anymore.

Using a NAS for content backup is a common function and ADM can run as a Rsync server right out of the box.

Last but not least, we find the TFTP server, an older protocol but one that’s still alive and kicking in some areas, and the SNMP service trap.

Network Configuration

With just one network port, we don’t have that many options within this section – but the important ones are all here. We can change the name of the server and the DNS and IPv6 settings on the first page.

The second tab contains the interface settings such as DHCP or manual IP settings. You can also change the packet size here.

There’s only one advanced setting available despite the button and that is VLAN tagging (IEEE 802.1Q)

You can also connect the NAS to wireless networks with an optional USB dongle. Once connected it will work the same way it does on any other system with wireless. Set the mode, search for networks, and connect to your selection.

Should you need custom proxy settings, then that isn’t a problem either. I don’t think this is a feature that is used that often, but it’s important to have when needed.

The VPN configuration is outside the network settings and within its own category, but it kind of still belongs to the network settings. Here you can add all your VPN connections. You can also download the VPN server app from the App central should you need more than what ADM in itself can offer.