Is Asustor Lockerstor AS6704T enough for me?

[Enquiries]

Hello everyone,

My question is about Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T), from what I see it should do everything I want.

I run Plex on my own PC's last 8 years with lifetime PlexPass, I have around 12GB content. All content is 1080p, and I am not planning to use 4K.
I use NZBGet, Sonarr, CouchPotato and Tatulli, I do run Home Assistant on a dedicated NUC, I am not planning to move Home Assistant on NAS, but you never know in the future.
NAS will be used mostly for Plex and document back-ups.
I want 4x 18TB HDD's, two M.2 drives and I have no intention to go higher than 2.5Gbps any soon.

My questions are:
- Can AS6704T encode at least 2x 1080P high bitrate files and subtitles simultaneously to 480p.
- My budget is around €700 for NAS, is there a better or cheaper options out there?
- Gen3 Lockerstor should be announced at the end of 2024, should I wait?

Thanks in advance!

[ed]

It seems like the Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T) should meet your needs quite well. With your current setup and requirements—primarily 1080p content streaming via Plex, alongside NZBGet, Sonarr, CouchPotato, and Tatulli—the AS6704T should handle multiple 1080p transcodes and subtitle conversions to 480p without issues.

Regarding your budget of €700, the AS6704T appears to be a suitable choice. As for waiting for the Gen3 Lockerstor, which might be announced by the end of 2024, it's worth noting that newer models typically come at a higher cost but might not offer significantly better performance for your specific needs.

[SpAwN]

@ed thanks for your fast answer, enjoy your coffee please

Next decision I have to make is, which version of it, the question was for the 4 bay version but if I choose to get one with 6 bays and take 3x 18TB drives instead of 4x and add extra drives later when the budget allows.
But that is on me, I probably go for the 6 bay with 16GB RAM upgrade, but we will see, I am not in hurry at the moment. 

Again, thanks for your time!

[ed]

@ed thanks for your fast answer, enjoy your coffee please

Next decision I have to make is, which version of it, the question was for the 4 bay version but if I choose to get one with 6 bays and take 3x 18TB drives instead of 4x and add extra drives later when the budget allows.
But that is on me, I probably go for the 6 bay with 16GB RAM upgrade, but we will see, I am not in hurry at the moment. 

Again, thanks for your time!

Thank you for your support.
Yes, so often people get few more bays and keep them empty. Then simply add drives later when more space is necessary.

[SpAwN]

Thanks for the reply @ed

Meanwhile, I made my decision, and I am going for 6 bay version.

Next decision to make was harder, going for 4x 500GB M.2 drives or 1TB drives, if I look into my needs, I only need the NAS for Plex and some document-photo back-ups, 2 of those drives will be utilized as cache and 2 other drives for RAW storage for the document back-ups. 
Watched a lot of videos and read a lot of information, and I am leaning towards 4x 500GB, since I don't need huge caching and fast storage for Plex and 500GB is more than enough for ADM and some documents.
Drives will be WD Red SN700 NVMe, speeds are more than sufficient for AS6706T, it is still not clear if AS6706T has PCI-e 3.0 x1 or PCI-e 3.0 x4, even if it has x4 the SN700 will be enough.
Price difference between (4x) 500GB and 1TB drives is around €90, but everything adds up, so far I am above €2000 which was my target budget for all. 
If you guys advice to get 4x 1TB drives, I will go for that, otherwise 4x 500GB looks like enough.