Hello all,
im think of buying a AS 302t as the specs look pretty good and reviews are good too.
But im a little concerned about Asustor customer care and update policies.
Last announcement to this forum over a year old... arent there any news, is this product dead or is it just because noone cares?
Am i buying a product as it is - no further development?
How about updates to plugins esp. xbmc are they kept uptodate?
I guess i looked at the wrong topics/threads and you can dispel my worries?!?
i think asustor focus is not on the software (just like OEMs with Android firmware). They get their OEM product from QNAP and try to make something good out of it. Price is good competition, but if the software fails to deliver, you might not like that you saved a few bucks on it.
Anyways as a NAS, which is the primary purpose, it is a fine product. But do not expect to have Boxee or XBMC replacing your current mediacenter, it is far from perfect and has alot of lag and audio issue, and hardware do not work perfectly with media playback.
I will not make comments such as this. From my interaction Asustor support and also the friends in the forum, they have been very helpful. And if the software is so easy that can be cloned from the others, I guess there will be a bunch of Chinese manufacturer nowadays. I have 304 and 604 and I'm using XBMC in most weekends to play mkv video, I found no troubles at all.
I think the lack of replies from Asustor on this forum says enough. Although they do respond to support tickets, they don't seem able to fix many of the issues their customers are experiencing (like HDD hibernation issues and audio-sync issues).
These are community forums not Asustor support forums, so them not being super active here is fine. They have been very quick to respond to tickets submitted through the support system. Personally I'd rather have the quick support responses there than slow those down with greater forum presence.
dexter wrote:i think asustor focus is not on the software (just like OEMs with Android firmware). They get their OEM product from QNAP and try to make something good out of it. Price is good competition, but if the software fails to deliver, you might not like that you saved a few bucks on it.
Anyways as a NAS, which is the primary purpose, it is a fine product. But do not expect to have Boxee or XBMC replacing your current mediacenter, it is far from perfect and has alot of lag and audio issue, and hardware do not work perfectly with media playback.
But otherwise, it is a fine product!
False on two parts..
They don't get the hardware as OEM from QNAP. Although the design of the enclosure is almost identical to a Qnap type NAS the hardware isn't. The guys that started Asustor are old employees from QNAP that started on their own with Asustor.
And they DO focus on the software.. (if they wouldn't in your presumption what else would they do if the hardware is OEM from QNAP ?)
It's indeed a fine product as NAS with more then the essential software add-ons available.
The mediacenter part is something open for debate.. There are a lot of user that enjoy the mediacenter with no lag and with sometimes a sync problem depending on the media file played. It's not a cut and dry "it doens't work" cause it does work for the most part. They only seems to have a driver issue with intel for the sync part which is out of their control (and to bad)
in firmware beta 2.2, the hard disk hibernation can be clearly identified from the hard disk tray led. If it is in hibernation then the LED light blink around every 9 seconds. I can see both my Western Digital Red drive and Seagate Drive in Myarchive in hibernation clearly. This is a very good design.
My as-304t can play movies very well too. I upgraded to ADM 2.2 beta which is working fine. I reported a hibernation LED issue before, and I got a patch from asustor for this issue. That fixes my problem. I think it will be released to the next version.
PS: My volume-1 is active all the time because I need some APPs to work. However, my volume-2 goes into hibernation correctly.
