Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen3 Review: ECC in a Four-Bay Box
A four-bay NAS with an AMD Ryzen quad-core at 3.8GHz and 16GB of ECC DDR5, which Asustor positions for video editing, virtualisation and container workloads. Buy it if you run ZFS or Btrfs with data you cannot silently corrupt, or if you virtualise on the NAS. Skip it if you are storing family photos and streaming Plex, where a $600 four-bay does the same job and the ECC premium buys you nothing you will notice.
A Ryzen quad-core with 16GB of ECC DDR5 in four bays, which almost nothing else at this size offers.
Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen3 AS6804T, 4 Bay NAS, AMD Ryzen 3.8GHz Quad-Core, 16GB ECC DDR5
~$1,520
A four-bay NAS built around an AMD Ryzen quad-core at 3.8GHz with 16GB of ECC DDR5, aimed at video editing, virtualisation, Docker and business backup.
Check price on AmazonSpecifications
| Bays | 4 |
|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen quad-core, 3.8 GHz |
| Memory | 16 GB ECC DDR5 |
| Positioning | Video editing, virtualisation, AI workloads, Docker containers and enterprise backup |
Specifications above come from Asustor's published product information. Treat pricing as approximate, since Amazon pricing moves.
What it does well
- ECC memory in a four-bay chassis is genuinely rare. Most four-bay NAS units at any price ship non-ECC, and if you have decided you want ECC your options narrow immediately.
- A Ryzen quad-core at 3.8GHz is far more CPU than a typical Celeron or N-series NAS, which matters for virtual machines and for transcoding that the GPU cannot handle.
- Sixteen gigabytes as standard means containers and virtual machines have somewhere to live without a memory upgrade on day one.
- DDR5 rather than DDR4 gives more memory bandwidth, which shows up under multiple simultaneous workloads rather than in single-user file copies.
- Four bays is the size most home servers should be, because it supports a RAID level with real redundancy without the power draw and noise of eight spinning drives.
Where it falls short
- ECC is not a feature most home users need. It protects against memory bit flips, which matter enormously for ZFS scrubs and long-lived archives and almost not at all for a media library you could re-rip.
- The price is roughly double a capable four-bay. That difference buys drives, and drives are what actually determine how useful the NAS is.
- A Ryzen quad-core draws more power at idle than an N-series NAS, and a home server runs 8,760 hours a year. Our power calculator turns that into a number.
- Four bays with ECC and this much CPU is a specification aimed at small business. For home use, the CPU spends most of its life idle.
- Asustor has a smaller software ecosystem and a smaller community than Synology or QNAP, so unusual problems have fewer existing answers.
What owners report
Owner reports on Asustor hardware are generally positive on build and performance and mixed on software polish relative to Synology. That trade is consistent across the brand rather than specific to this model, and buyers who are comfortable in a terminal mind it far less than buyers who wanted an appliance.
The question worth settling before spending this much is whether you need ECC at all. Our ECC versus non-ECC comparison is the honest version: ECC prevents silent corruption from memory errors, which matters for ZFS and for archives you will never re-create, and does very little for a Plex library. Most home servers do not need it, and the people who do usually already know.
Before committing, run the numbers. Our RAID capacity calculator shows what four bays actually give you after redundancy, and the power draw calculator shows what a higher-power CPU costs across a year of continuous running.
Who it suits
- ZFS and Btrfs users who care about silent corruption on long-lived data.
- Anyone running virtual machines or several containers on the NAS itself.
- Small businesses where the NAS is doing real work rather than serving films.
Who should skip it
- Home media servers, where the money is better spent on drives.
- Anyone who has not read what ECC actually protects against.
- Power-conscious builds, since a Ryzen idles higher than an N-series chip.
Alternatives worth considering
TerraMaster F4-424 Pro NAS 4-Bay, Core i3-N305 8-Core, 32GB DDR5
~$688
Eight cores and 32GB of DDR5 for under half the price, with dual 2.5GbE. The memory is not ECC, which is the entire difference. If ECC is not on your requirement list, this is the better value four-bay.
Check price on AmazonSynology 4-Bay DiskStation DS925+
~$754
Synology's DSM is the most polished NAS operating system and the easiest to live with. Note that Synology states this model supports drives on its official compatibility list, which is a constraint the Asustor does not impose.
Check price on AmazonA-Tech Server 32GB Kit (2x16GB) DDR4 2400MHz ECC UDIMM
~$280
If ECC is the reason you were looking at this NAS, a DIY server with ECC unbuffered memory reaches the same goal for less. Check your board's supported ECC type first, because unbuffered, registered and load-reduced are not interchangeable.
Check price on AmazonKeep reading
- ECC vs non-ECC memory
- Mini PC vs prebuilt NAS
- RAID capacity calculator
- Power draw calculator
- The 3-2-1 backup rule
- TerraMaster F4-424 Pro review
- Synology DS925+ review
- Best 4-bay NAS
This review draws on published specifications, manufacturer figures and the consensus of verified owner reviews. We have not tested this product ourselves, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need ECC memory in a NAS?
Most home users do not. ECC corrects single-bit memory errors, which prevents a rare class of silent data corruption. That matters most for ZFS, for long-lived archives and for data you cannot regenerate. For a media library, a photo backup that also exists elsewhere, or general file storage, non-ECC is what almost everyone runs and it is fine.
Is a four-bay NAS enough?
For most homes, yes. Four bays lets you run a redundancy level that survives a drive failure while keeping power draw and noise reasonable. Eight bays makes sense when you are storing more than four large drives can hold, or when you want two separate pools. Use the RAID capacity calculator to see what you actually end up with.
What does the Ryzen CPU add over a Celeron NAS?
Headroom for things other than serving files: virtual machines, several containers at once, and CPU transcoding where hardware transcoding is not available. If the NAS only stores and streams, that headroom idles. It also draws more power doing so.
Does more CPU help Plex?
Only for the transcodes hardware acceleration cannot do. Most Plex performance questions come down to whether the client can direct play the file, and whether the NAS has a GPU capable of hardware transcoding for the codecs you use. Adding CPU is the expensive way to solve a problem that is usually a client or file format problem.
Is RAID a backup?
No, and this is the most important thing to understand before buying any NAS. RAID protects against a drive failing. It does not protect against deletion, ransomware, fire, theft or a controller writing garbage to every drive at once. You need a separate backup, and our 3-2-1 guide covers what that means in practice.
How we choose: we compare published manufacturer specifications, drive datasheets, published reliability statistics and verified owner reviews. We do not test hardware in person, and we are not tied to any NAS vendor. Capacity and power figures here are researched guidance, not a warranty. RAID protects against drive failure, not against deletion, ransomware, fire or theft, so keep verified backups regardless of what any calculator tells you.
Working out your own cost per usable terabyte? The Home Server Build Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.