Inside
The AS-20XTEs are powered by an Intel Atom CE5310 dual core processor running at 1.2 GHz. On the AS-204TE, there's an Asmedia ASM1061 PCI Express to dual port SATA on the backplane to provide the third and fourth SATA ports for the four bay version.
Other components are collected in Table 1, along with two other dual-core Atom NASes, ASUSTOR's AS-604T and a slightly less expensive Thecus N4560.
ASUSTOR AS-204TE | ASUSTOR AS-604T | Thecus N4560 | |
---|---|---|---|
Price | $428 | $588 | $401 |
CPU | Inel Atom CE5310 @ 1.2 GHz (dual core) | Intel Atom D2700 @ 2.13 GHz | Intel CE5335 @ 1.6 GHz (dual core) |
RAM | 1GB DDR3 on board | 1 GB DDR2 DIMM (expandable to 3GB) | 2GB on board Hynix H5TQ4G63MFR (x4) |
Flash | 16 MB Spansion FL128SAIF00 | 512 MB DOM | - 4GB Samsung KLM4G1YE4C X1 - 4MB Winbond 25Q32BVSIG |
Etherent | Realtek RTL8211E | Broadcom BCM57781 (x2) | Realtek RTL 8211E |
Companion | ? | Intel NM10 (guess) | ? |
USB 3.0 | Etron Tech EJ188H | NEC D720200AF | Eltron Tech EJ168A USB 3.0 Host controller |
SATA | Asmedia ASM1061 PCI Express to two ports of Serial ATA (on back plane - AS-204TE only) | Marvell 88SE9125 SATA 6GB/s and PATA Host controller (x2) | Dual port host controller 3.0 GB/s SATA device support PCEe 1.0 host bus |
Table 1: Key component summary and comparison
Below is a photo of the component side of the PCB. The processor is covered by a large heatsink. To the right of the processor is the connector for the riser board that contains the connectors for the disks. Above the CPU is the strip that connects to the power supply. Interestingly, the PCB is silkscreened with AS-30XT, so you might assume that the components are the same for the "3" series with the exception of a slightly beefier processor (1.6 GHz).
ASUSTOR AS-20XTE PCB component side
For an inside shot of the chassis, you can refer to the AS-604T review - the construction, as you can tell from the rear panel connector layout, appears to be very similar.
Features
When Tim reviewed the AS-604T, the device was running on version 1.0.4.RBU2 firmware. In February, ASUSTOR has upgraded their "ADM" (ASUSTOR Data Master) to version 2.1 with the tested version being 2.1.1.R3B2. Tim posted a news release that highlighted the new features here. To summarize, new features include:
- An improved file explorer
- MyArchive which allows users to use hard disks as removable storage archives.
- VPN Server app supporting PPTP and OpenVPN
- Integrated Avast Anti-Virus
- AiMusic app for Android and iOS to enable streaming from the NAS to mobile devices.
- Download Center Helper add-on for FireFox and Chrome browsers.
To give you a feel for ASUSTOR's GUI, here's a screenshot of the landing page. As with Android devices, if you have more than one page of icons, you can scroll left or right. We will be doing an in-depth review of the ADM 2.0 in a few weeks. In the meantime, if you can't wait for the review, you can visit ASUSTOR's live demo page and navigate your way through the interface and App Central.
In App Central, you can download additional programs that run on the server platform and add functionality to your ASUSTOR NAS. App Central sems to have grown since Tim's review of the AS-604T. According to my count, using the live demo, there are now 124 apps in App Central. Tim counted 85 in January of 2013, so you can't say that the number of available apps is "exploding".
ASUSTOR ADM 2.1 landing page
The feature list for the AS20XTE for the most part, lines up pretty well with what Tim reported for the AS-604T. Here's that summary, edited to reflect the differences in the devices.
General Features
Backup
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Network
Administration
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