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Asustor AS5202T Review

editors choice horizontal
4.0
Excellent
By John R. Delaney

The Bottom Line

The Asustor AS5202T may be pricey, but this two-bay NAS delivers fast performance and is equipped with top-shelf hardware and loads of apps.

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Pros

  • Solid file-transfer performance.
  • Up to 5GbE speeds with link aggregation.
  • Tool-less chassis.
  • 4k video decoding.
  • Good selection of apps.

Cons

  • Drives not included.
  • Mobile app has limited management options.

Best of the year 2019 Bug The Asustor AS5202T ($329) is a two-bay network-attached storage device designed for home power users requiring a network storage device with a powerful 4K video transcoding engine and speedy LAN connectivity. This slick-looking NAS offers dual tool-free, hot-swap drive bays, 5GbE with link aggregation, and a generous catalog of Asustor and third-party apps. It's a solid performer and comes with an easy-to-use, game-inspired user interface and a nice selection of I/O ports. All of these perks earn it our Editors' Choice.

Packed With Apps

The AS5202T's black enclosure looks almost identical to the one used on the AS4002T, but this time around the Asustor badge is red instead of gold. It measures 6.6 by 4.4 by 9.0 inches (HWD) and has a removable magnetic panel on the front that covers the dual hot-swappable drive bays. Also up front are five LED indicators (power, hard drive activity, system status, network status, USB activity), a power switch, a One-Touch Backup button, and a USB 3.2 port.

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Asustor AS5202T front view

Around back are two 2.5Gb LAN ports that when configured for link aggregation can bring 5Gb Ethernet connectivity, assuming you have a router or switch that supports link aggregation. Also located on the back panel are two additional USB 3.2 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a reset button, and a single 70mm cooling fan.

Asustor AS5202T rear view

The AS5202T is powered by a 2.0GHz Intel Celeron J4005 CPU, 2GB of DDR4 RAM (expandable to 8GB), and 4GB of flash memory. It uses Intel's Advanced Encryption Standard engine to help protect your data and has a built-in 10-bit 4K video-transcoding engine for smooth video streaming via the HDMI port when used with one of the many available media server apps. This NAS uses two tool-free drive sleds that can accommodate 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives, has a total internal storage capacity of up to 28TB, and supports Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1 configurations and EXT4 and Btrfs file extensions.

Asustor AS5202T app screen

As with other Asustor NAS devices, the AS5202T can be managed with the AIMaster mobile app. However, you get many more management options with the web-based Asustor Data Master (ADM) operating system, which is newly redesigned and offers a game-inspired desktop theme featuring red highlights over a black background.

Asustor AS5202T all apps

When you first install ADM, you can choose to load a handful of Home or Business apps, or you can skip that and install them later using App Central. I selected the Home option, which added several apps to the desktop, including SoundsGood, an Asustor audio player app; LooksGood, which streams video directly from the NAS to your web browser; iTunes Server; and a couple of UPnP media server apps. As with earlier versions of ADM that come with the AS4002T and the AS3202T, this version uses a Windows-like desktop with large, colorful icons that make it easy to configure RAID volumes, download apps, back up data, and more.

The Storage Manager is where you go to create and delete RAID volumes, check disk health, and create and configure iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) targets. Here, you can also access the Snapshot Center, where backup images, called Snapshots, are stored (you must be using the Btrfs files system for this feature). Use the Access Control icon to add and remove users, create user groups, create shared folders, and assign access rights to folders and apps. The App Central icon takes you to a screen populated with links to more than 280 downloadable Asustor and third-party apps that let you configure the NAS to function as a VPN server, a mail server, a cloud server, an IP camera surveillance station, a media server, a web host, and much more. To view CPU, memory, network traffic, and disk usage stats, click the Activity Monitor icon. This also lets you see which services are running and how much memory they are using.

Snapshot Center

The Backup and Restore icon takes you to a screen where you can configure and schedule local and cloud backups, restore a backup set, and configure remote syncing. Use the File Explorer icon to manage files and folders on the internal drives and any connected external drives and to mount CIFS (Common Internet file system) folders, and use the Services icon to join a network workgroup, enable SAMBA, CFIS, and Mac file services, enable SNMP network monitoring, and enable Web Server functionality. Finally, tap the Settings icon to configure network settings, control fan speeds (Auto, Low, Medium, High), and configure energy-saving settings.

Asustor AS5202T one touch backup

Fast Performance

You can install the AS5202T using a PC and the web console or with a mobile device using the mobile app. I installed two Seagate Ironwolf 10TB drives, connected the NAS to the same router as my desktop PC, and powered it up. Next, I opened a browser on my PC, typed start.asustor.com in the address bar, and followed the on-screen instructions to download the Asustor Control Center software.

Once the software was installed, I launched it and the AS5202T was immediately recognized. I clicked the Uninitialized button to initialize the drives and upload the latest version of ADM, then waited a minute or two for the system to restart, at which point a screen opened with options to perform a one-click setup or a custom setup. I used the custom setup and proceeded to create an administrative password, choose a time zone, and configure network settings. Next, I chose a RAID level (RAID 1) and a file extension (ext4) and waited several hours for the drives to sync before performing our file-transfer tests.

Related Story See How We Test NAS

We measure NAS performance by timing read and write speeds while transferring a 4.9GB folder containing a mix of music, video, photo, and office document files between the NAS and a desktop PC connected to the same network. The AS5202T turned in very good scores on these tests: Its write speed of 90 MBps was 28MBps faster than the TerraMaster F2-221 and 11MBps faster than the Synology DS718+, but it trailed the QNAP-TS251B-4G by 10MBps. On the read test, the AS5202T scored 87Mbps, again beating both the TerraMaster F2-221 (62MBps) and the Synology DS718+ (67MBps), but coming up short of the QNAP-TS251B-4G (90MBps).

Asustor AS5202T file transfer performance

Strong and Speedy

If you're looking for a two-bay network-attached storage device for your home that offers beefy hardware specs and speedy performance, the Asustor AS5202T is an excellent choice. Its dual 2.5Gb LAN ports (5Gb with link aggregation) and powerful 4K video-transcoding hardware provide plenty of muscle for 4K video streaming, and its tool-less enclosure and user-friendly ADM operating system make this NAS easy to install and manage. It also offers numerous apps that let you use it for multiple applications such as a media server, a surveillance station to manage your IP camera network, a cloud server, and more. Moreover, it's a fast performer, and earns our Editors' Choice.

Asustor AS5202T
4.0
Editors' Choice
Pros
  • Solid file-transfer performance.
  • Up to 5GbE speeds with link aggregation.
  • Tool-less chassis.
  • 4k video decoding.
  • Good selection of apps.
View More
Cons
  • Drives not included.
  • Mobile app has limited management options.
The Bottom Line

The Asustor AS5202T may be pricey, but this two-bay NAS delivers fast performance and is equipped with top-shelf hardware and loads of apps.

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About John R. Delaney

Contributing Editor

John R. Delaney

I’ve been working with computers for ages, starting with a multi-year stint in purchasing for a major IBM reseller in New York City before eventually landing at PCMag (back when it was still in print as PC Magazine). I spent more than 14 years on staff, most recently as the director of operations for PC Labs, before hitting the freelance circuit as a contributing editor. 

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Asustor AS5202T $299.99 at Newegg
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