r/asustor

Picked up a new Asus NAS AS5404T with 4 bays though I’ll only install 2 hard drives right now. First timer and I plan to start installing everything over the next few days. I plan to not run a RAID setup and also install TrueNAS Scale instead of ADM.

- install RAM so there’s 16GB from 4GB and the M.2

- create a bootable TrueNAS USB and boot from it

- after running the installer, create TrueNAS account - is this what I need to do?

- create storage pool (can you change this anytime?) I was planning on creating folders for photos and documents that I’ll back up - and add encryption. Then set up a separate folder for media (probably won’t back up most of this right now), but don’t need to encrypt it. In creating these pools, can I make them bigger over time, or do I have to know I want to set aside 4TB for photos and docs?

- is this also where I would create separate folders for family members to save their own stuf? Can these things be expanded or changed over time? For instance, add a new family member

- Plan to install Proton VPN, Plex, Immich on one of the hard drives

- schedule backup

Anything else i should do and make time for? I was curious about the onboard ASUS fan and using TrueNAS - I’ve read that there could be some fan issues and you need to test and maybe add additional code. How do I do that - test and know I need to make changes?

Similar to some others here, my 2 year old Asustor backup just suddenly failed. This wasn't after any sort of external event I know about, and it wasn't during a normal backup time.

I'm sure there was *some* trigger, but nothing obvious. It just happened mid-day yesterday. It's been running in my house since late 2024, with 8x Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB drives in RAID 6 config, and 2x WD_BLACK 2TB NVMe drives for cache, handling daily and weekly backup, plus pulling down files from OneDrive. It's connected to the network and also USB-C.

Now, during boot, when it gets to "Starting Service" it flashes red/orange/green with a beep for each cycle. It shows an IP address, so this is fairly far along in the boot cycle, it would seem. However, it doesn't appear in the client app on my PC, and I cannot reach the browser "desktop" configuration by IP address.

Reading the posts here yesterday, I powered it down after the failure and let it stay powered down and unplugged all night. Not sure why that's a thing (I'm assuming for some sort of capacitor discharge?) Powered it back on late this afternoon.

I noticed one drive (top right) didn't have its light on in the same cadence as the others, so I pulled that and tried booting. No change in behavior, so I put it back in place.

I haven't opened it, pulled the cmos battery, etc. that others recommend. It's also not in a location where it would work any connections loose.

Any suggestions for obvious things to consider? Given placement up on the top shelf of a utility rack in my basement, getting this within range of a monitor is going to be super annoying, so don't want to do that unless there's proven need to. Of all the random mini PCs I have in that room, this was the last thing I had expected to fail, so I didn't make it easy to move. :P

Lockerstor 8 up on a high shelf

Edit. The steps shown on the LCD are
- Starting-System Please wait ...
- Booting-Storage Please wait ...
- Booting-Service Please wait ...

The error beeps start with Booting-Service.

I also verified, through the front panel, that the one disk volume it shows has tons of free space. This isn't a capacity / disk full issue.

Thanks

Pete

Support just told me they don't even know if it ever worked.

I've been asking them to tell me what version of ADM supported HW decoding on my Nas for a while, got many back and forth (I mentioned it here https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNAS/comments/1u0025u/asustor_is_discontinuing_hardware_decoding/ ) and finally got a "closed support ticket ".

To this day they still advertise (and propably sell) NASes with a realtek chip for "4k decoding" that apparently... Perhaps never worked, or so they say:

Rough translation of their final answer:

>Thank you for your patience.

>Regarding your question, we are unfortunately unable to confirm the existence of a specific version of ADM or FFmpeg that officially supports hardware acceleration on this model.
Best regards.

If it's a licencing issue they could at least have the guts to say it but whatever.

I guess buying a NAS instead of building one with parts I control was a mistake.

For those of you who have purchased the ASUSTOR Lockerstor 2 Gen2+ AS6702T v2, did it meet your expectations? If you upgrade the memory to 16 GB, is it fast enough for a home network NAS?

Edit: Is the fan noticeably loud?

I have been building a VirtualBox management app for ADM, and some additional tweaks to the system, in a separate application of my own design.
Would anyone here be interested in doing some beta testing for this? It is not quite ready yet for prime time but it does one cool thing I was missing: It has a VM live web console:

https://preview.redd.it/gdo72ar9jqih1.png?width=1172&format=png&auto=webp&s=370de635be64589f80ad8497db9ac1c10af7c805

https://preview.redd.it/q9nfphdejqih1.png?width=1211&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0bc2f761a731a66383f0d73e6f191b6beafd5c3

Asustor needs to release an updated version of ACC. It's been stuck on subordinate version .1200 for FAR TOO LONG. And it is unreliable...

ADM releases have been plentiful. ACC, ignored!

Flashstor FS6806X (6 drive, 1x10GbE) no longer connects to network. Seems too coincidental this occurred nearly immediately after upgrading ADM. Device only 15 months old. Are there other troubleshooting or connection methods?

All of these failed to remedy the connection trouble:

- Rebooted NAS

- Rebooted router

- Tried new Eth cables

- Tried new Eth port on router

- Tried multiple USB-C to Eth adapters

[Have not tried the pinhole reset]

PS: In hindsight, it's unfortunate that this product does not have an iGPU + display out OR a second network port (i.e., Gen 1 or the 12-drive Gen 2).