Corporate affairs-grade management with spectacular efficiency

I’ve spent the previous few weeks utilizing the Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS, and it’s positively a unique expertise than I’m used to. Focusing extra on safety and enterprise-grade options, this NAS is a superb match for small/medium companies or fans, but it surely won’t be the appropriate selection for somebody simply beginning out with homelabbing or self-hosting.

8/10

Brand

Asustor

CPU

Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core, 2.0GHz (as much as 2.9GHz)

Memory

4GB DDR4-2933 SO-DIMM; expandable to 16GB

Drive Bays

2× 2.5/3.5-inch SATA III

The Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS provides enterprise-grade options in a compact form-factor. With a premium safety suite to maintain your NAS protected, this method has extra choices than the common NAS on the subject of safety. Plus, although barely older, the Intel N5105 CPU is ready to deal with as much as 14 simultaneous Plex transcodes as examined.

Pros & Cons

• Four NVMe drive slots
• Extensive safety and administrative controls
• Strong efficiency regardless of 5 yr outdated CPU
• Upgradable RAM

• 3.5-inch drive caddies require screws and should not toolless
• Complicated interface for residence customers
• Expensive for a 2-bay NAS

Price and Availability

The Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS is offered from $517 from Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, Newegg, and Micro Center.

Solid {hardware}, however lacking one core characteristic

I’d count on toolless drive bays at this value level

I’ve harped on this earlier than, and I’ll harp on this once more: a NAS ought to have toolless drive bays, no query. Especially when the NAS is over $500 for a 2-bay system.

Asustor ought to positively have included toolless drive bays right here, and it is a huge letdown that it is not. I count on to have to make use of a screwdriver to put in 2.5-inch SSDs, however when putting in 3.5-inch exhausting drives, I ought to simply be capable of use latches on the facet of the tray.

Synology does it, Ugreen does it, TerraMaster does it, so why does not Asustor? There’s actually no purpose to not have a toolless drive caddy in 2026.

Outside of the drive caddies, the Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ provides 4 NVMe drive slots which are accessible by eradicating simply three screws in the back of the unit. Those three screws let the entire shell slide off and expose each the NVMe drive slots in addition to a SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM slot for increasing the RAM of the system.

It looks like the Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ is simple sufficient to work on when you pull that again panel off, which is sweet. However, one thing I do not perceive is the truth that the NVMe drive slots are toolless, but the three.5-inch drive bays aren’t.

ADM provides you quite a lot of management — and rather a lot to handle

This is an enterprise-ready NAS, in any case

I’ve used quite a lot of NAS interfaces and working methods over time, and I’ve executed Linux community methods administration for enjoyable for about 15 years now. ADM is without doubt one of the extra sophisticated interfaces I’ve ever used, however that is not essentially a foul factor.

While Synology and Ugreen aim their hardware at consumers, Asustor is aiming at barely totally different clientele with its Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS. This NAS has a lot of trade and enterprise options built-in, which provides quite a lot of management.

It’s a bit like an enterprise networking setup and saying that it is extra sophisticated than a shopper networking setup. That’s very true, but it surely serves a function.

With ADM, you might have a slew of choices that merely aren’t there on extra consumer-grade NAS methods. For starters, the setup alone asks far more questions when configuring issues, together with serving to you arrange for multi-user proper off the bat.

ADM Defender can be a really strong safety platform that began locking me out of the NAS myself when making an attempt to SSH into it. ADM Defender is designed to be a safety suite, with a firewall and different applied sciences at play throughout the service. There’s a trusted checklist the place you’ll be able to add IP addresses or ranges to what should not be blocked.

After that, you might have Intelligent Protection, which might apply to whichever companies you choose for it. Intelligent Protection makes use of guidelines to find out if an IP deal with must be blocked. There’s an computerized blocklist, which is populated when an IP deal with fails too many occasions to log in through a particular service.

Then, there’s the Risk Detection Greylist, which is definitely fairly nifty. It mechanically blocks probably dangerous IP addresses which are present in an internet database and provides them to the greylist. This means these IP addresses are blocked earlier than they even try and entry your NAS the primary time.

Those options are actually simply scratching the floor of what ADM provides. Really, ADM is an enterprise-focused working system that can be utilized by shoppers, not the opposite manner round. If you might be in search of the only system to stand up and operating, this won’t be the ticket for you.

But in the event you’re in a piece setting that prioritizes safety over simplicity, then ADM and the Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS may be the proper match.

Its older {hardware} does not maintain it again

Plex transcodes simply advantageous with out breaking a sweat

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

For over $500, I positively was anticipating extra highly effective {hardware}, however the 2021-era Intel Celeron N5105 really holds its personal, even with simply 4GB of RAM.

For storage wants alone, the N5105 and 4GB of RAM are actually loads. I had zero issues when utilizing this NAS for file transfers in my homelab. I used to be operating two 4TB SATA exhausting drives in it with no NVMe cache arrange, and I used to be saturating each my gigabit and a pair of.5G networking pipes.

However, the flexibility so as to add extra RAM is fairly nice, with a max ceiling of 16GB of RAM obtainable in the event you improve each RAM DIMMs.

I additionally wished to place the transcoding and streaming capabilities of this NAS to the check, so I fired up Plex and began operating transcodes.

Transcoding a 4K 65Mb/s film all the way down to 1080p 8Mb/s supported as much as 4 simultaneous transcodes, 4K 65Mb/s to 720p 4Mb/s supported 5 simultaneous transcodes, and 1080p at 9Mb/s to 480p at 1.5Mb/s supported 14 simultaneous transcodes.

Both the 4K and 1080p motion pictures had been already HEVC, and so they stayed HEVC through the transcode, and the shopper I used to be watching in was Plex Web on Chrome. Overall, I used to be very impressed with the potential demonstrated right here. 14 particular person transcode streams from 1080p to 480p is genuinely good efficiency.

Asustor touts this method as having the ability to deal with multi-stream transcoding and livestreaming, and, with the Plex efficiency that I’ve seen right here, I’d positively agree with that.

The Intel N5105 may be older, but it surely nonetheless packs a punch.

Should you purchase the Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS?

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS is a storage system that’s positively extra geared towards trade or enterprise use instances than shopper. At a $517 MSRP, this NAS is certainly not on a budget finish. You’re paying for what you get, and what you get is additional NVMe assist and a extra enterprise-focused working system.

I actually do not assume that almost all shoppers ought to get this NAS except they’ve a particular purpose for it. The NAS would completely work advantageous as a Plex server and photograph backup station, but it surely provides way over the common particular person would wish. Enthusiasts, small/medium companies, or enterprises, nevertheless, I believe this NAS is the proper match.

8/10

Brand

Asustor

CPU

Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core, 2.0GHz (as much as 2.9GHz)

Memory

4GB DDR4-2933 SO-DIMM; expandable to 16GB

Drive Bays

2× 2.5/3.5-inch SATA III

The Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ NAS provides enterprise-grade options in a compact form-factor. With a premium safety suite to maintain your NAS protected, this method has extra choices than the common NAS on the subject of safety. Plus, although barely older, the Intel N5105 CPU is ready to deal with as much as 14 simultaneous Plex transcodes as examined.