Various problems with Asustor AS5304T

[danieletokyo]

I apologize in advance to abuse of everyone's kindness, this is going to be a long post. I thought about contacting directly Asustor but I do not even know what to start asking...

Let us start from the very beginning.
Although it is not my daytime job, for a personal project I take lots of photos, in the region of thousands per month, all big RAW Sony files (.ARW, about 50MB/picture), plus 4K 120fps videos etc. It is a 35TB archive at the time I am writing.
I wanted to have this huge archive available all the time, also remotely, so relying on a NAS was a no brainer for me.

In 2020, just like everyone else, I had much time to spend at home so I made the big step.
I bought an Asustor AS5304T and populated it with 4 Seagate Ironwolf 16TB. I also changed the preinstalled RAM with 2 Crucial DDR4 2400 4GB.
NAS is connected in link aggregation to an unmanaged switch Netgear XS508M, which is overkill probably but I wanted something futureproof. That switch was connected to a Synology router RT2600ac at that time, now it is a Synology RT6600ax. Router is connected by cable to a "home gateway" (that is how they are called here in Japan) that is given to me by the service provider, and it is a modem router Aterm BL900HW.

I have never been able to do what everyone else do with their NAS. It works, fortunately no major issues, but I was never able to achieve what I wanted. For instance, right now I cannot see my photos remotely, or access them via VPN. Yet the NAS is up and running...
I keep ADM and all of the apps updated to their latest versions. Sometimes things work, sometimes they just do not.
I can access to it with my MacBook (via Wi-Fi) or my PC (ethernet) when I am at home, I store my photos there and that is it.

One thing I was never able to achieve is allowing the NAS to enter automatically hibernation mode or sleep mode. Never once. And I know I could just check which process is preventing it to enter sleep mode, but when I tried I got a list so long that it seemed endless to me. At about midnight NAS supposedly should go into sleep mode, but when time arrives I just hear HDD access noise for about 10 minutes and then nothing happens. Four years, never once. Even if meanwhile ADM was updated, NAS switched off and on etc.

EZ Connect is set, I can access my NAS via nas-name.ezconnect.to but I cannot find my NAS if I check with nas-name.myasustor.com (either with HTTP or HTTPS, and whatever port I add at the end).
Similarly, if I opened AiMaster I can access my NAS remotely, but if I opened AiFoto it tells me it is unable to connect and to check if NAS is up (it is), if Photo Gallery App is installed (it is), if EZ Router is enabled (I guess it is) and if Photo Gallery App's port is open (I do not know which one that would be, in the past it used to work anyway).

Opening Photo Gallery via EZ Connect is just meaningless. I do not know if connection is too slow or NAS not powerful enough but I do not see thumbnails (only a very few, mostly videos and some JPEG, RAW are supported but I see only old ones), so I do not even know which files to open.
Sometimes it almost seems like NAS has not yet caught up with all the thumbnails although years have passed.

I tried to setup an L2TP/IPsec VPN following exactly Spacerex's Youtube tutorial, but it does not work for me. This time, ADM tells me that last DDNS update is a success (after many issues due to the two routers), but my Windows laptop shows me an error: "The L2TP connection failed because the security layer encountered a processing error during initial negotiations with the remote computer".

So many small issues that make my experience at using Asustor NAS not very pleasant to say the least...

[ed]

I understand that you're facing several challenges with your Asustor NAS setup, from difficulties with remote access to issues with sleep mode and VPN configuration. Let's break down your concerns and try to address them one by one:

Sleep Mode/Hibernation: It's concerning that your NAS isn't entering sleep mode despite your efforts. To troubleshoot this, you mentioned that you saw a long list of processes preventing sleep mode. It might be helpful to focus on the most resource-intensive processes and see if any of them can be optimized or managed differently. Additionally, check if any scheduled tasks or background services are running that might be preventing the NAS from sleeping. It could also be due to network activity or external access attempts keeping the NAS awake. Try monitoring network traffic during the sleep period to see if there's any activity that could be causing this.

Remote Access: It seems like you've set up EZ Connect successfully, but you're encountering issues with accessing your NAS via myasustor.com and using certain apps remotely. Since EZ Connect is working, it's likely not an issue with port forwarding, but it could be related to network configuration or firewall settings. Double-check your router settings to ensure that port forwarding is correctly configured for the necessary ports used by the applications you're trying to access remotely. Also, check if there are any firewall rules blocking incoming connections.

Photo Gallery and Thumbnails: If you're experiencing slow performance or missing thumbnails in Photo Gallery, it could be due to various factors such as network speed, NAS hardware performance, or the size of your media library. Make sure your NAS has enough resources allocated to the Photo Gallery app and that it's running the latest version. You can also try optimizing your media files for better performance, such as converting RAW files to a more web-friendly format for thumbnails.

L2TP/IPsec VPN: The error message you're seeing indicates a problem with the negotiation of security parameters during the VPN connection setup. This could be due to misconfiguration of VPN settings or compatibility issues between your Windows laptop and the VPN server on your NAS. Double-check all VPN settings on both ends to ensure they match, including encryption algorithms, authentication methods, and IP addressing. You may also need to update firmware or drivers on your Windows laptop to ensure compatibility with the VPN protocol used by your NAS.

If you're still facing difficulties after trying these troubleshooting steps, it might be worth reaching out to Asustor support for assistance. Provide them with detailed information about your setup and the specific issues you're encountering, including any error messages or logs you've observed. They should be able to help you diagnose and resolve these issues more effectively.