Hands on: Asustor Flashstor 6 FS6706T review
This review first appeared in Issue 358 PC Professional Edition.
As the name suggests, Flashstor 6 is an all-flash NAS Enclosure for up to 6 NVMe SSD. It is primarily aimed at home audiophiles and therefore comes equipped with useful multimedia features such as HDMI and S/PDIF audio output. It’s well documented elsewhere, too, with a pair of 2.5GbE network ports, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and two USB-A 2 ports. The 4GB memory provided is upgradeable to 16GB.
It doesn’t have any hard drive slots, but you can add mass storage using up to two Asustor AS6004U expansion units, each of which can accept up to four 3.5-inch SATA drives. If 6 SSDs aren’t enough, pay £744 inc. VAT (from Amazon) you can choose 12 slot flash memory 12, Otherwise much the same.
Most NAS cases offer a tool-less setup, but you’ll need a screwdriver to open the lid here, while each NVMe simply clips in. The FS6706T supports the same RAID format as any six-bay device, although we tested with two 1TB WD Black SSDs arranged in a RAID1 array. Asustor’s ADM software uses the EXT4 file system by default, but you can choose Btrfs.
It’s no surprise that the FS6706T is a strong performer. We tested it using a single 2.5GbE connection, and its speeds easily exceeded any NAS limited to a 1GbE connection. That said, it doesn’t overshadow disk-based 2.5GbE devices, with Asustor’s own Nimbustor 4 Gen2 proving slightly faster. Like the Nimbustor 4, this NAS was inexplicably slow on the PCMark 10 data drive benchmark, but made up for it with fast real-world copy times. Windows 11. It’s worth pointing out that the device would likely be faster if we were able to test it with a six-drive RAID5 array.
Although you can use this NAS as a network center small business, It is more likely to be used as a multimedia store and server for demanding home users and gamers. It’s perfectly suited to this role, with Asustor’s App Central offering a staggering 273 apps covering content, downloads and media management as well as productivity, monitoring and Streaming.
This NAS has the ability to transcode video content without getting bogged down, so it’s even suitable for households with a handful of power users. However, its lack of disk support makes it less flexible than the Nimbustor 4 Gen2, which accepts up to four disks and four NVMe SSDs and proved just as fast in our testing. In most cases we will pay an additional £80 for this.
