The Asustor Lockerstor 4, or AS6604T, is an interesting product. It includes all of the modern features: 2.5 Gbit Ethernet ports, support for two NVMe drives, a fully capable CPU, and the ability to take up to 8 GB of RAM, which is more than enough for a home-oriented NAS. Because of the bundled HDMI 2.0a port and corresponding applications using it, the AS6604T can play the role of an advanced multimedia hub either through steaming or a direct connection to a 4K TV or monitor.

In terms of performance, it doe not set new records in single-client scenarios. On the other hand, it performs very well with multiple clients—a nice surprise was it handling up to six real clients simultaneously demanding high volumes of data. The CPU had a hard time, though, as its utilization was high; it also has a hard time with Plex when converting high bitrate files to a lower quality. I noticed up to 65% CPU utilization in such scenarios.

A very strong point is the surveillance capability, for two particular reasons. Firstly, you may directly connect it to a monitor, which means a client PC won't be necessary, and secondly, it supports up to 40 camera channels, of which four are included for free. Asustor keeps providing the most camera licenses for free with its products—other brands usually only include two of these for free.

The ADM OS has vastly improved, and it won't scare away novice users. It still has a long way to go before on par with QTS and DSM, QNAP's and Synology's operating systems, however. The ADM OS interface does not look as good and lacks the plethora of options QTS provides, for instance. It is on the right path, though, and has been improved greatly since its inception. I still remember the older ADM versions where you couldn't even resize windows. As you can see above, the list of negatives is short, with the most significant the stiff price and lack of a free PCIe slot for future upgrades. It would be nice to have the option to install a Thunderbolt 3 PCIe card for my MAC mini, which has a low-capacity SSD drive installed—video editing in Final Cut was hence challenging as well.