Introduction

It's been nearly three years since we last took a look at a NAS from Asustor and the Nimbustor 4 Gen2 AS5404T that we're reviewing today is a successor of the Nimbustor 4 AS5304T that we reviewed all the way back in 2019. The physical design hasn't changed much since then, with the only difference being the top cover, which now has a pattern with some air vents. However, things have changed quite a lot under the hood, even though much has remained the same here as well, but more on that later.

On the software side of things, it looks like it not much has changed on the surface, but the Gen2 AS5404T we have here shipped with ADM 5.0.1, versus the ADM 3.4 of the previous generation we tested back in 2019. Asustor seems to be happy with the general look and feel of its UI/UX, as there doesn't seem to have been any major changes, but there has been a lot of polish that we'll go over in the software section of this review. Most of Asustor's competitors have changed how their UI/UX works over the past five to six years, but Asustor has stuck with its tried and tested formula and just evolved, rather than revolutionized up a completely new user experience. At least this means that if you're familiar with ADM, you won't feel lost.

Keep in mind that the Nimbustor 4 Gen2 AS5404T is a mid to entry level product in Asustor's product stack, with the Drivestor models being the entry level products and Lockerstor series forming the higher-end products. It's also a slightly older model, which is obvious from the hardware specs, so it'll be interesting to see how it compares to more recent hardware, such as the TerraMaster F4-424 which offers similar features at a similar price point.

Specifications

Packaging and Bundle

Asustor ships the Nimbustor 4 Gen2 AS5404T in a nice retail box, and the NAS itself is protected by two pieces of foam padding that also holds the accessory box in place.


The bundle consists of your typical power brick, two Ethernet cables, a bag of screws for 2.5-inch drives, and rather unusually a clip for the power cable that screws to the NAS itself, besides a few different instruction manuals.