Asustor AS52 Series NAS vs TerraMaster F5-221

The Asustor Nimbustor 2 AS5202T is a great Home NAS for its $299 asking price.

The TerraMaster F5-221, however, while a reasonable product for $359, doesn't stack up against its competitors quite as well. If you're considering Home NASs in the $430 range, you might want to check out some better options.

The Asustor Nimbustor 2 AS5202T was loved by reviewers at PCmag, a highly trusted source that performs reliable in-depth testing. It did great in its "The Best NAS (Network Attached Storage) Devices for 2020" roundup where it was named its "Best for Wide app selection", which, in itself, makes it a product worth considering.

Moving on to the TerraMaster F5-221: it was loved by Expert Reviews and Windows Central - two reliable sources that conduct their own in-depth testing. In fact, it was named "Best cheap five-bay NAS drive" and "Best Capacity" in their respective roundups, which points to it being a product worthy of consideration.

We couldn't find any sources that tested both of these Home NASs, so we only analyzed how they performed in reviews from different sites.

We first examined which sources rated each of these best and found that the Asustor Nimbustor 2 AS5202T got its highest, 9, rating from TechHive, while the TerraMaster F5-221 earned its best, 8, score from itpro.co.uk.

Lastly, we averaged out all of the reviews scores that we could find on these two products and compared them to other Home NASs on the market. We learned that both of them performed far better than most of their competitors - the overall review average earned by Home NASs being 7.4 out of 10, whereas the Asustor Nimbustor 2 AS5202T and TerraMaster F5-221 managed averages of 8.5 and 8.0 points, respectively.

Due to the difference in their prices, however, it's important to keep in mind that a direct Asustor Nimbustor 2 AS5202T vs. TerraMaster F5-221 comparison might not be entirely fair - some sources don't take value for money into account when assigning their scores and therefore have a tendency to rate more premium products better.