Installing the AS1202T is easy. I removed the cover and installed two Seagate 10TB IronWolf drives using the included thumbscrews.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
I then connected the NAS drive to a 2.5GbE switch, which was also connected to my desktop PC’s 10GbE LAN port and to my router, and powered up the NAS. Next, I opened a web browser on my desktop PC and typed http://acc.asustor.com in the address bar. I downloaded and ran the Windows version of the Asustor Control Center software, and the PC immediately recognized the device.
Next, I tapped the Uninitialized button next to the device name to install the ADM operating system and, once ADM was done, created an account. I selected 1-Click Setup with a balanced configuration and Btrfs enabled, which yielded a total of 9.09TB of storage in a RAID 1 (mirrored) configuration. (You can manually configure the NAS with a different RAID configuration, if you prefer.) I tapped Initialize, and after 12 hours, the drives were synchronized, and the installation was complete.
To test NAS performance, we record read and write speeds while transferring a 4.9GB folder (containing a mix of music, video, photo, and office document files) between the NAS and a desktop PC connected to the same network. We then compare the results with those of similarly priced and configured NAS devices using the very same drives.
While not the fastest two-bay NAS we’ve tested, the AS1202T turned in respectable scores on these tests. Its score of 233MBps on the write test matched the QNAP TS-216G, but was a bit slower than the Ugreen DXP2800 (245MBps). On the read test, the AS1202T’s score of 188MBps was identical to that of the Ugreen DXP2800 but not quite as fast as the QNAP TS-216G (196MBps).
