Specifications

The AS-204TE is equipped with a low-clocked Intel Atom CPU (most likely the CE5315), which, however, has two cores, so it will cope just fine with the needs of a home user. Its energy consumption is also low, which is crucial to a home environment. The NAS comes with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM since it has to run the demanding XBMC application well, but its RAM total cannot be upgraded.

You can install up to four HDDs into the AS-204TE, and the disks can be configured in all popular RAID levels. The maximum capacity of the unit is 16 TB if you use 4 TB disks, which aren't that expensive any more, although you should make sure to take a good look at Asustor's HDD compatibility page before making your purchase to avoid any problems down the road.

The NAS only comes with one Ethernet port for networking since a home environment probably won't utilize the Link Aggregation Control Protocol because it requires an advanced, managed, network switch, which isn't cheap. Some could argue that a second Ethernet port could also be used as a fail safe, but it would increase the price, which meant that it had to go as the AS-204TE is not meant for SOHO or business environments. It comes with many USB ports, including two that are compatible with the latest and pretty fast USB 3.0 specification, and one USB 3.0 port has even been put into the front to make it easily accessible. That said, Asustor chose not to include even a single eSATA port, which seems a little strange.

The AS-204TE's dimensions are those typical for a 4-bay NAS, and its weight is a little on the high side since it uses an internal PSU, not an external power brick. As for power consumption, Asustor speaks of very few watts used; however, they only provide measurements with one disk installed. We will cover all possible HDD configurations to provide you with the energy consumption of each configuration. We also believe that the pretty large 120 mm fan used to cool the AS-204TE will feature a silent operation, which many home users will definitely appreciate.

The most significant general details of a product are its price and the provided warranty, and the AS-204TE does fare a little worse than the average in those areas as it isn't that affordable and comes with the 2-year warranty NAS manufacturers typically provide. We think that Asustor should at least support such an expensive NAS server with a 3-year warranty.