Newbie needs help setting up an AS5402T

[Dehenry]

I tested the sample https://software-download.name/sample-m ... -video.zip in ADM File Explorer, had set the option to ask me about the conversion, there's a loading screen for just few seconds and the video played. Sometimes it would take slightly longer to wake my raid array disks.

When I tested it with a ca. 45 sec. video, it took ca. 30 seconds for it to start playing in the ADM File Explorer- not really usable. In Jellyfin, it starts playing on my PC after a few seconds. And Support told me that my video played in the File Explorer right away without a (noticeable) delay for conversion.

Not sure about this as I don't have this issue. You can ask questions in the Jellyfin Github. I set my max bitrate to 10mbps for internet transcoding and direct play for home. My NAS does struggle slightly at 60mbps but lower than that it's fine.

I did that and read some posts relating to a problem with the "auto" setting for the bitrate in Jellyfin which seems to be unresolved. I thought that streaming video from a NAS is an easy thing to do in 2024, but I came across problems in almost every single step I took to set things up...

Not exactly sure what you mean.

I mean that I can use my phone to select a video and stream it from my NAS to my FireTV stick. I have installed Jellyfin on the FireTV, but it doesn't show in Jellyfin on the NAS or on my mobile.

[Nazar78]

I tested the video, 1080p 50fps 26mbps, you just shared in my PM, in ADM File Explorer it took 22 secs before the file starts playing. In Jellyfin Android Mobile, transcoding was used due to unsupported container, it took 3 secs before it starts playing. Not sure but think ADM has set its transcoding buffer longer.

Think for your Jellyfin mobile issue, set your JF server stream bandwidth settings, under dashboard > playback > streaming, to something like 30 mbps. 10 mbps 1080p is actually enough IIRC similar to YouTube's 1080p. You can also set this in the user profile.

As for your last question, unless there's an app for both mobile and tv that's designed to work together to relay the request i.e. control from mobile app to instruct the tv app to play media from the NAS, which I'm not sure if there's such app, then the only way to accomplish this is via casting or mirroring.

Yeah it's 2024 but there's many types of codecs/containers etc and some are proprietary.

[Dehenry]

Thanks for testing! Support only told me that my video could be played back, but didn't say if there was a delay until the video actually started playing. I'll confirm with them. Having to wait 20+ seconds for each video would be pointless for me.

I had already reduced the JF server bandwidth settings, but that didn't change anything. Even if I adjust the bandwidth settings in the mobile app, I have to manually set the bandwidth from "auto" to 20 Mbps or lower in the settings under the playback screen, and I have to repeat that for each individual video I want to watch.

Yeah it's 2024 but there's many types of codecs/containers etc and some are proprietary.

Sure, but that has never caused such problems on my Windows computer. I want to watch videos that I shot with a 12 year old camera. The container and codec have been around for a long time. With all the advertising about real-time transcoding (which is my I bought a NAS with a powerful CPU) I didn't expect to run into such issues.

[Dehenry]

I have another problem with setting up the NAS. So far I had only installed a single SSD that I want to use as main working drive. I now added an HDD that should only serve as first backup in order to be protected against hardware failure of the SSD. I want to backup the whole SSD with all folder shares that are on it to the internal HDD based on a time schedule. Otherwise the HDD should sleep. In addition, I want to backup the SSD or the HDD (not sure yet what makes more sense) as a whole to an external HDD that I only physically connect via USB when I do backups. I want to start that "external" backup using One Touch Backup.

1. I installed and initialized the HDD as volume 2, but it doesn't show up in the File Explorer or as a target volume in the Backup &/ Restore app. It still only shows me ADM on the top level and then the folder shares I have on my SSD. How can I set things up so that the HDD appears as a separate volume in ADM and can also be addressed as a separate volume from my Windos PC?

2. It seems that One Touch Backup only lets me backup one (1) of the folder shares, but not more than one or all. That limitation doesn't make sense to me. As I wrote, I want to backup my whole SSD. I would have expected that I can flexibly define a backup job that includes any combination of source folders, and that this particular backup job can be triggered by pressing the button. Am I missing something? How do you use One Touch Backup?

Many thanks again!

[Nazar78]

1. Access Control > Shared Folders > Add a new share with volume2 selected.

2. One Touch Backup is a tool to quickly transfer from internal to external vice versa. To have multiple sources sent to the USB, use the External Backup.

[Dehenry]

1. Does that mean that ADM only deals with and shows shares regardless of which volume they are on? Is there a technical reason for this or is it just a technical convention applied by ADM? I would want to be able to clearly distinguish volumes as I am used to on my PC. IS there a way to do this?

2. It appears that External Backups cannot be triggered by the button. Again, is there a specific reason why the functionality of One Touch Backups is stripped down compared to External Backups? I would have thought that backing up a whole volume or even volumes to an external USB device is a rather common thing to do.

[Nazar78]

1. That's how samba works similar to any other file sharing protocols, on every NAS even in Windows shares. If you really need to distinguish the volume names, maybe use prefix/suffix or name the root share as the volume name then create folders within.

2. You can use the mobile app to trigger the other backups. As mentioned the OTB is a quick tool. I.e. you have a few sdcards from your DSLR that you want to quickly backup to the NAS. It's by design for the longest I'm aware of. There's also high possibly you'd swap to a new USB disk without the previous directory structure which could end up in error trying to backup a particular path. Alternatively you can open a ticket with Asustor Support to give feedback.

[Dehenry]

I was told by Asustor Support that the limitations of One Touch Backup are being worked on and will be addressed in a future update. That is more or less the only good news I have received so far.

My problem with video playback is still unresolved. I just tried playing an 11 second m2ts video and it took almost 1.5 minutes (!!!) to start. Obviously it was converted in the background. I also tried Emby instead of Jellyfin and it refused to play my m2ts videos right away where Jellyfin at least played them after a while. Even with all the explanations I received from you and from Asustor Support, I still don't get why it is so challenging in 2024 to play videos on a modern NAS and why apparently every media app has a different behaviour when dealing with my videos. I have never had these problems with my ~13 year old PC.

And I keep running into new problems. Now it's disk hibernation and sleep mode, which are really important to me. I have media mode turned off, but the HDD (which is still empty) keeps spinning and the system never goes to sleep. Among others, the madm process accesses the HDD regularly. I saw that I am not the only one with this problem. Asustor Support told me that madm and even btrfs can prevent the disks from hibernating. I am wondering how the NAS is supposed to sleep if even the file system prevents the HDDs from hibernating. I asked Support why sleep mode is advertised so prominently if it is essentially impossible for the NAS to enter that mode, but haven't received a real answer.

As good as the AS5402T may be on paper, I have to say that the four weeks with my first NAS have been a very frustrating experience and I am close to returning it. I had to consult with Asustor Support and this forum (which is really great btw - many thanks again in particular to Nazar for all your help!) for almost every single step of setting it up. I was prepared and accepted that ADM is less sophisticated and polished than e.g. DSM. But I have not expected that it is so difficult to do basic things like watching my own videos or sending the NAS to sleep when I don't use it. Is there any other NAS brand that delivers what Asustor advertises?

[Nazar78]

I was told by Asustor Support that the limitations of One Touch Backup are being worked on and will be addressed in a future update. That is more or less the only good news I have received so far.

You can't count on it. Many feedbacks especially those vital ones came back fruitless at least from my experience.

For your video playback, if 3rd party apps cannot resolve them, then it will be the same for any other similar level specs NAS brand, unless you go for the higher-end processors which is costly. If you're talking about 13 year old PC, my 14 year old Alienware laptop with external GPU struggles to even decode modern codecs such as h265. Encoding is even worst due to lack of hardware support. This is never an issue on my newer PC with a 320 watts GPU. So best option for your m2ts is to mass convert them to a browser friendly codec and container such as h264/mp4. This will take some time, been there done that long ago, but you won't have to deal with it once done. They could also probably save you a few bytes.

As for your hibernation and sleep issues, it should be one of the apps you're running or ADM can't process one or more of your media. Mdadm will always be running even if you're not using raid. I'm using both ext4/ btrfs and I don't have these issue, probably due to my mods. You can search the forum on how to troubleshoot.

[Dehenry]

For your video playback, if 3rd party apps cannot resolve them, then it will be the same for any other similar level specs NAS brand, unless you go for the higher-end processors which is costly.

Asustor advertises the NAS as if you can throw anything at it and play back any video format on any device because the NAS will transcode on the fly if needed. I purchased the new AS 5402T to have an even stronger processor to be on the safe side. But my reality is that I keep getting error messages on the server or on the client side or have to wait ages to play back mere FHD videos on the NAS itself or on a relatively modern phone (S21), not to mention a TV. So I am not talking about heavy lifting of 4K h.265 videos (that are advertised as well), but plain old 1080p/h.264. I don't want to convert all my private videos because I don't want to touch them (including the file creation date), and I also don't want to waste storage space on converted copies that I would also have to keep in sync with the originals.

As for your hibernation and sleep issues, it should be one of the apps you're running or ADM can't process one or more of your media. Mdadm will always be running even if you're not using raid. I'm using both ext4/ btrfs and I don't have these issue, probably due to my mods. You can search the forum on how to troubleshoot.

I think it would be Asustor's job to implement sleep mode in a way that it overrides all processes so that the user doen't have to care. If a multimedia app or a system process regularly scans the drives, there should at least be a user friendly option in the OS to suppress that to enable sleep. I don't have the time and am not willing to become an ADM/Linux professional to search for processes and to tweak the system only to make it perform an advertised function. This should work out of the box! I have already spent way too much time troubleshooting this brand new device.

The problem is: I don't see a real alternative in terms of hardware, in particular looking at the four M.2 NVMe slots. I don't like Synology and their outdated hardware, but could I expect that these things work on Synology? Or QNAP? Or am I struggling with the concept of a NAS generally?