Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of the ASUSTOR Lockerstor 2 Gen2 (AS6702T)

[Alanwake]

Hi everyone!

I recently got my hands on the ASUSTOR Lockerstor 2 Gen2 (AS6702T) and have been thoroughly impressed with its performance and features. I’d love to start a discussion here to share tips, best practices, and tricks to maximize the potential of this NAS.

Topics I’d like to explore:
Initial Setup:

What’s the best drive configuration for performance and data safety (RAID 1, RAID 0, etc.)?
Any tips for setting up ADM (ASUSTOR Data Master) for first-time users?
Must-Have Apps:

Which apps from App Central do you find essential for backups, multimedia, or security?
Anyone using Docker on the AS6702T? Share some useful container ideas!
Streaming and Multimedia:

Has anyone configured Plex or another media server? How has your experience been?
What’s the best way to transcode videos for smooth streaming directly from the NAS?
Automation and Backups:

How do you set up automatic backups from your PC or smartphone to the Lockerstor?
Tools or methods for syncing with cloud services like Google Drive or Dropbox.
Security and Performance:

What are the best practices for securing the NAS against external threats?
Any advanced tweaks to improve read/write performance?
If you’re using the AS6702T or any other ASUSTOR NAS, I’d love to hear your experiences! Every tip or insight helps us all make better use of this awesome device.

Looking forward to your suggestions and advice!

[father.mande]

Hi,

Welcome to the USER forum ... user and not Asustor directly ... even administrated by Asustor.

Subject is large (sometimes it's better to separate request) and responses can vary for any user ...

... for ex. for my own I select first Raid 1 (+ external backup) in second ... Single (so more capacity) but with a MANDATORY backup or remote sync policy (multiple tool mine is Syncthing) and NEVER Raid0 ... but others users can have a different way linked to specific usage or choice.

... second ex. after long time to use and analyze docker (up to writing a cook book on another NAS Brand), my response is NEVER use docker if you don't create it yourself . But I think it's not the same response for others.

My first suggestion is to read the Asustor college info. it's a VERY good first approach and can help your choice (even if it is not always my own choice )

https://www.asustor.com/en/online/college
... you can select language ...

Philippe.

[snapshot]

The first one is easy - RAID 0 is not a RAID as there's no redundancy, it's an invitation to lose data. RAID 1 offers as much redundancy as is possible with two drives.

How you actually size and configure the drives depends on your actual use but what I would do is have two M.2 drives in RAID 1 as Volume1 and two HDDs in RAID 1 as Volume2. I have this arrangement in my AS6706T with two 4TB M.2 holding the more frequently accessed data which is mirrored to the four RAID 10 HDDs overnight. How you then use the other two M.2 slots is up to you. You could have a separate Volume3, expand Volume1 to RAID10 or RAID5 or use them as cache for Volume2.

I use UPnP Media Server V2 for streaming, Apache as my web server then the various apps needed to support them. Handbrake would be my choice for transcoding videos but I'd do it on my much more powerful PC.

I use a combination of Acronis True Image and Robocopy to backup our PCs and to sync Volume1 to Volume2 but Asustor's Backup Plan is probably worth investigating (and free!).

The best way to secure your NAS is to not make it available outside your LAN.....
Using the M.2 drives for most of your read/write operations will easily saturate the 2.5Gb/s Ethernet link.

[theexecutioner]

My first thought is: wherever possible, use Docker as an installation path, rather than using native apps available on AppCentral.

This is not a slight on the apps there, but rather a comment on the value of Docker sandboxing. If anything goes wrong, it’s reasonably simple to reverse and reinstall, or otherwise correct issues without any ADM / OS impacts, (I learned this lesson multiple times… hamster that I am… finding recovery from issues difficult with the native apps).

Additionally, I’ve found Docker to be more stable for app management than is the native installs in my situation. For example, running a Plex server using the native AppCentral install installed an older version of Plex, which then corrupted itself when I attempted to upgrade - manually I might add - to the latest version. That ended in me wiping and restarting. Yuk.

With the Docker install of Plex, I was on the latest version immediately, without hassle, and have successfully upgraded versions a number of times. Heck, I’ve even customised the install installed ways I was very wary of using the controlled AppCentral app (adding plug-in’s for audiobook metadata retrieval).

IMO, the simplest way to deal with Docker installations is via Portainer (one of the few native apps I installed alongside the Docker Engine … but Portainer is actually just a wrapper for a Docker installation anyway, so pretty risk free).

Docker management is admittedly more challenging generally than the AppCentral installations that do it all for you… but that’s IMO a challenge worth taking.