A Look Inside

It's time now to strip down the NAS to discover what components it hides inside its casing.


Removing the one-piece top and side panel is very easy since you only have to remove three screws, which makes upgrading the RAM total without voiding the warranty a breeze since Asustor meant users to be able to upgrade the RAM on their own. If you want to remove the mainboard, though, you will have to deal with a lot of screws; however, there is no reason at all for a normal user to do so, and it would most likely void the warranty.


The LCD screen utilizes a Weltrend WT69P3 IC.


The mainboard is small and the CPU is cooled passively by a small heatsink.


Here's a close look at the heatsink and the Braswell CPU. This NAS uses an Intel J3160 quad-core Celeron processor with 2MB of cache. The CPU boosts up to 2.24 GHz, is compatible with Intel's Virtualization Technology, and supports the AES-NI instructions set. This CPU belongs to the Braswell family, making it one of Bay Trail's successors. The J3160 includes a DirectX 11.2 compatible GPU and a DDR3L controller that supports up to 8 GB of memory and is manufactured on a 14 nanometer lithography process. With a TDP of only 6 W, it doesn't require active cooling. We should note here that the J3160 has the same TDP as the dual-core N3050 used in the AS3102T NAS.


In our sample, both RAM slots are occupied by DDR3L (1.35V) DIMMs with a capacity of 2 GB each.


The monitoring IC is the same as in Asustor's AS-60xT series, an ITE IT8728F.


The four Ethernet ports are controlled by an equal number of Broadcom BCM57781 controllers.


On the board are a couple ASMedia ASM1466 Serial ATA repeaters that can provide a bandwidth of up to 6 Gbps. These also handle the two eSATA ports. You can also see the audio codec IC by Realtek; its model number is ALC887. It supports 7.1 channel HD audio with up to two independent SPDIF outputs, but the AS6208T only has one. The last two controllers shown above are an ASM1182e and an ASM1061. The former is a PCI express packet switch while the latter is a SATA 6Gbps controller that supports up to two SATA ports.


Another packet switch, this time an ASM1184e IC, is installed right next to the mainboard's PCIe port. We also find two more ASM1182e ICs on the board.


The NAS server's flash memory is by ADATA.


Here is the mainboard's speaker.


A Texas Instruments SN75DP139 controller provides compatibility with the HDMI 1.4b standard. To put it simply, this IC takes the DisplayPort's input signal and transforms it into an HDMI output signal with support for up to 4K resolutions and 3D content.


Here is the USB 2.0 hub IC; its model number is LD3N748A16225.


The PCIe SATA expansion card hosts several ASM1061 PCI Express (1x) to two SATA converters. The polymer filtering caps on this board are provided by Apaq, which means they are of pretty good quality.


The PSU is by Delta Electronics, the largest PSU OEM today. Its model number is DPS-250AB, and it can provide up to 240 W of power on its main rails (+12V, 5V and 3.3V), which is a lot for this NAS. The 80 PLUS organization says this PSU to be 80 PLUS certified, which means it will save you some money on your electricity bills, although the standard 80 PLUS certification isn't much to go by nowadays. The DPS-250AB exploits a small 40 mm fan that is very quiet under normal conditions since the NAS doesn't consume much energy, utilizing only a fraction of the PSU's capacity.


The cooling fans are by Y.S Tech, and their model number is FD121225HB (120 mm, 12 V, 0.46 A, 2600 RPM, 106.1 CFM, 44 dBA). They utilize ball bearings for more longevity, and while they do rotate quite quickly when maxed out, they operate at very low RPM when the automatic fan speed or low fan speed option is picked in ADM.