Page 8 - Conclusion
In the conclusion of the ASUSTOR AS1002T review, I have concluded the company's value offering was more "smart" than "cheap". There were a few things you had to give up in order to hit that $180 price tag, like number crunching prowess and multimedia features, but did that really matter? The AS1002T did all it set out to do and more, whether it is delivering class leading network throughput in a home environment, or loaded with software features thanks to the company's leading ADM 2.5 operating system. That said, if you are willing to spend some more money, the ASUSTOR AS3102T fills in on almost area where the AS1002T fell short. The AS3102T features a more powerful Intel Celeron N3050 dual core processor and 2GB of RAM with a very marginal increase in power consumption. It has a built in HDMI 1.4b port for 4K video output support, and a hardware transcoding engine for improved performance. You can even throw in an optional remote, and turn it into a full-fledged media center system. Sure, you will see some frame drops if you are playing a 4K video while the system is busy with other tasks, but for most regular home workload environments, I do not foresee this to be a significant problem. Furthermore, the ASUSTOR AS3102T's sustained performance is better than the AS1002T, which is already the best in its class. Combined with its slick looking diamond plate finished plastic cover, the ASUSTOR AS3102T is quite the package to beat. It still suffers from some issues the AS1002T had, which includes the lack of hot swap drive bays and expandable memory, but I will be honest with you here: I almost never hot swap HDDs, nor have I ever bothered to add more RAM to my NAS, even when both were possible. For about $260 at press time, the ASUSTOR AS3102T is $80 more than the AS1002T, which is a rather considerable 44% price premium. This makes it no longer a budget system, but if you are looking for a full featured 2-bay system that will exhibit the synergetic power of relatively modest hardware with the company's excellent ADM operating system, the AS3102T is a fine example of something that does it all.
ASUSTOR provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH:Renewal Award | APH Review Focus Summary:
8/10 means Definitely a very good product with drawbacks that are not likely going to matter to the end user.
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks; but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Numeric Rating is 7.7/10
Please note that the APH Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other sites.
The ASUSTOR AS3102T is a good looking and good performing consumer NAS that does 4K with one of the best operating systems in the market today.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware (External)
3. A Closer Look - Hardware (Internal)
4. Configuration and User Interface, Part I
5. Configuration and User Interface, Part II
6. Configuration and User Interface, Part III
7. Performance and Power Consumption
8. Conclusion
