Introduction

We would like to thank Asustor for supplying the review sample.



Asustor is a newer NAS players on the market, but they have, truth be told, taken huge steps toward catching up with the really tough and highly experienced competition only to take the lead in some areas. Since NAS devices lately tend to work as media players or even HTPCs (Home Theater PCs), more and more manufacturers equip their offerings with HDMI ports, which allows these servers to reproduce HD multimedia content. As we see it, the term media player and all its relevant devices will soon become irrelevant as NAS servers and storage centers will be transformed into a combination of entertainment and storage instead. Asustor was one of the first NAS companies to fully utilize the multimedia capabilities of their products and has now released the AS-204TE. Asustor says the unit to be compatible with the popular XBMC player and1080p HD multimedia content. They also included a remote control to make controlling XBMC a breeze.

The AS-20x is currently Asustor's lowest product line. It mostly addresses home environments since demands won't be as high there as they are in a business. The hardware we come across in the AS-204TE isn't top of the line, although it is definitely enough to cope with the typical home user's needs. This specific NAS can also take up to four HDDs and, like all Asustor units, runs their ADM operating system, which is highly intuitive and richly featured.