Advice on adding additional storage

[Enquiries]

Hi, I purchased an ASTOR AS5304T in 202o Order ID: 78553
I now require additional storage space. Please can you advise on the best way forward?

By the way, the system to date is still working flawlessly.

Colin

[ed]

Great to hear your AS5304T is still going strong — that model has held up really well over the years, especially for a 4-bay unit.

If you’re looking to add more storage, you’ve got a couple of solid options depending on how you’re currently configured and how much flexibility you need:
1. Swap to Larger Drives
If you’re running out of capacity but don’t want to move away from the AS5304T, the simplest route is to replace your existing drives with higher-capacity ones. If you’re using RAID 5, you can swap them out one by one, letting the system rebuild after each swap. For example, going from 4 x 4TB to 4 x 12TB gives a big bump in usable space without needing new hardware.
2. Add an Expansion Unit
Unfortunately, Asustor does not support official expansion units on the AS5304T the same way Synology or QNAP do. So if you want to keep everything inside one system, drive upgrades are your main route.
3. Add a Second NAS
If your current NAS is full and you’d rather not disturb it, you can add a second NAS (even another ASUSTOR unit or something like a Synology DS923+ or QNAP TS-464) and either back up to it or offload certain data types (e.g., archive photos, videos, etc.). You can also mount shared folders from one NAS to the other and access them centrally.
4. Build a Backup + Archive Strategy
If your current NAS is nearing its capacity but still functioning well, you could consider using it just for current projects and setting up a second, higher-capacity NAS purely for backups or cold storage. A unit like the Terramaster F4-423 or QNAP TS-464 offers good value and expansion for that use.