Initial Setup

You will have to load the bundled software disc into the drive of a client PC after installing the HDDs and connecting all cables (power and network). You should also take a look at the Quick Start Guide. You will find the User's Guide on the bundled disc should you require even more information than can be found in Asustor's Quick Start Guide.


Asustor's Control Center is essential since it will not only find the NAS on your network, but will also allow for its effortless and quick configuration.


As has already been mentioned, Asustor's Control Center will allow you to easily initialize the NAS through Web Setup. The first step of the initialization process prompts you to select either a 1-click setup or custom option. The latter option, which we picked, is for more experienced users.


The next steps ask you to enter the server's name and set a new administrator's password. You can configure all time and date options and set all network settings afterward. We also made a point of exploiting both Ethernet ports since we have a switch that supports port trunking for increased transfer speeds.


You can pick the RAID configuration that best suits your needs in these menus. There are several RAID levels, but you can also configure your disks in JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) or run everything off a single disk if you cannot afford to install an HDD into every tray. After all is finished and done, you will have to wait for the NAS to apply all of your setup settings before registering your product to obtain an Asustor ID, which is must-have if you want to use Asustor's application center.

ADM (ASUSTOR Data Master) Operating System

After the initialization process is done, you will be redirected to the login page where you have to input your credentials to proceed to the administration interface of the ADM OS.


The ASUSTOR Data Master Operating System, ADM for short, is a Linux-based operating system Asustor developed exclusively for their NAS servers. They did a great job with it, and although its development period is significantly shorter than QNAP's and Synology's offerings, it can meet both in terms of reliability and usability; it comes with all the features and options one would expect to find in an OS for such a modern NAS.

Asustor provides frequent OS updates that fix problems or add new features. Some of ADM's interesting features include the Searchlight search engine, the ability to pin frequently used applications to the menu bar, customizable desktop wallpapers, two-way transfer support, Mission Mode backup, FTP Explorer, XBMC player support, etc. The only serious omissions are the fact that you cannot re-size windows and the lack of widgets, which both Qnap's and Synology's operating systems include. We mentioned both of these omissions in all of our previous Asustor product reviews, but Asustor still hasn't made a point of fixing either. We do hope they are open to such constructive criticism to finally fix the omissions we mentioned above.


The Searchlight box and all administrative options through which you can shutdown, reset, or put the NAS to sleep are in the top-right corner.


These settings allow you to change the administrator's password, ADM's language, or provide the administrator's email address. You can also optimize your wallpaper here.


A notification about a firmware upgrade was waiting for us right after we logged into ADM for the first time. We instantly proceeded with the firmware upgrade, and it was a rather straightforward affair.


A welcome message will greet you in ADM, offering you a tour of the web interface. We strongly advise you to follow through on this guide at least once since it will show you all the basic steps you need to take to correctly set the NAS up. The paragraphs below will also take you through those steps since we took the tour.