News

Oct 01, 2023

Asustor Flashstor 6 FS6706T review: A unique next

Asustor's new all-flash NAS enclosures are an interesting launch With the continued rise of network-attached storage (NAS), Asustor is working to establish the brand as a leader in SSD-only connected

Asustor's new all-flash NAS enclosures are an interesting launch

With the continued rise of network-attached storage (NAS), Asustor is working to establish the brand as a leader in SSD-only connected storage. Asustor launched the Flashstor series of NAS with support for M.2 NVMe SSDs that offer considerably higher transfer speeds than mechanical hard drives. The Asustor Flashstor 6 (FS6706T) is a unique enclosure in that it doesn't have any 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch bays. Instead, the company kitted out the NAS with six M.2 PCIe 3.0 slots that should be good for about 3,500 MB/s per slot, at least on paper. While not perfect, the Flashstor 6 (FS6706T) is an interesting step forward for the brand into an all-flash future.

One would imagine six M.2 NVMe slots would offer some serious performance figures, and indeed, the FS6706T can drive up to six NVMe drives. But it's held back by a sub-600MB/s bottleneck with the two 2.5GbE ports.

The Asustor Flashstor 6 (FS6706T) launched with an MSRP of $500, but the NAS can be found listed for as low as $450 without a discount applied. NAS enclosures such as this are often discounted for sales events such as Prime Day and Black Friday, so it may be worth holding out until the next round of deals if you don't require a NAS right now. It's worth bearing in mind that the FS6706T is available as a diskless enclosure and, as such, NAS drives will have to be purchased separately.

This enclosure from Asustor looks like nothing else on the market and that's because the company was able to work with a vastly more compact chassis thanks to the omission of any 3.5-inch drive bays. Instead of hard drives, this is an all-SSD NAS with six slots for M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs. Instead of looking like a traditional NAS enclosure, Asustor's FS6706T resembles a video game console, namely the classic Sony PlayStation 2. This is likely by no mistake, as the NAS is marketed as a media box that can be connected directly to the big screen.

The front of the Asustor Flashstor 6 (FS6706T) plays host to one of the available USB-A 2.0 ports and a small slip vent. The rest is angular styling. Four LED indicator lights are located on the top of the enclosure, as well as branding. The top of the chassis is split in two with the left side simple black plastic and the right a brushed metal effect. Interestingly, Asustor placed the power button on the right side of the NAS, alongside some ventilation. The left side also has the same ventilation slits. The rest of the ports are on the back of the FS6706T and consist of three USB-A ports (one 2.0 and two 3.2 Gen 2x1), one HDMI 2.0b port, two 2.5GbE connections, and SPDIF.

In order to access the drive bays, one needs to take apart the NAS. Luckily, this is an easy process that involves the use of just four screws and a removable panel. This panel also holds the single 80mm fan that's used to keep the Intel Celeron and M.2 drives cool. The panel slides off and the fan is powered using a USB port, which negates the need to remove (and reattach) a cable to a PCB header. Just like modern motherboards, Asustor doesn't require the use of M.2 screws and instead, each M.2 drive is secured using plastic clips. Only M.2 2280 drives are supported with this NAS.

Powering everything inside this NAS is the trusty Intel Celeron N5105, a quad-core chip we've seen in countless other NAS enclosures. It's a very capable processor with enough performance for 4K media transcoding and running various apps available on Asustor's software manager. At the factory, Asustor installs 4GB of DDR4 RAM, which can be expanded to a maximum supported capacity of 16GB. The N5105 has eight PCIe lanes, which could be viewed as a bottleneck since we have six PCIe 3.0 SSD slots, USB ports, networking connections, and more, but we found the two 2.5GbE links more of a performance hindrance, although this NAS is still very fast.

We managed to achieve 590MB/s with the two LAN ports, which is considerably slower than not only what a single M.2 NVMe SSD is capable of, but also the two USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 ports (10Gbps a piece). That puts this NAS in an interesting position as it's powerful enough for most home networks — not many have the infrastructure to handle 2.5GbE, let alone 10GbE — but the CPU and LAN are underpowered for the hardware and even more so with the 12-bay version (though the 10GbE with the FS6712X is an improvement). Where it shines is by being able to use older NVMe drives and removing noisy spinning drives.

Once at least one M.2 SSD has been installed inside the Asustor Flashstor 6 (FS6706T), it can be powered on and Asustor Data Master (ADM) can be installed. The installation process of ADM is painless and can be completed in a matter of minutes. Asustor's operating system is one of the more refined solutions available for prebuilt NAS, rivaling Synology DiskStation Manager. The installation wizard will run you through the process of downloading the OS, setting up drives, configuring the NAS with a user account, setting up RAID, and more. Once complete, the FS6706T is good to go.

If you've never used a NAS before, the web interface is usually the main method of managing the server, regardless of brand or OS. The UX is purposely designed to mimic a traditional computer OS. You'll find an app store, settings app, storage manager, activity monitor, and the ability to shut down and/or restart the NAS altogether. It's always worth spending a good hour or so playing around with the various apps and settings available through ADM to get accustomed to where everything is located. To aid this, Asustor includes a quick-start guide that pops up upon first visiting the ADM web interface post-installation.

Asustor has many apps available through App Central. The catalog is not quite as extensive as Synology's offering, but there's almost every popular NAS app present, including Plex Media Server, PHP, Docker, TeamSpeak, Amazon Prime Video, ClamAV, Deluge, Disney+, and Vaultwarden. APK files can be installed manually through App Central, too, and can be the preferred method for specific apps such as Plex. Setting up protocols for providing access to clients across the network connections is also incredibly easy, allowing the NAS to become the centralized location for storage in a matter of minutes.

Depending on what the NAS will be tasked with handling, additional services can be installed and activated such as surveillance management, web server components, and cloud services.

There's nothing available that currently competes against the Asustor Flashstor 6 (FS6706T). While there are SSD-only NAS from the likes of Synology, we've yet to see another M.2 NVMe enclosure hit the market. This provides Asustor with exclusive access to this niche. The FS6706T did launch alongside the FS6712X, which comes with an additional six M.2 slots (12 in total) and faster networking with double the bandwidth. Should you be planning to utilize such speeds with adequate network infrastructure, we'd recommend considering the FS6712X.

The Asustor Flashstor FS6706T is a good launch for the company. It's the first M.2 NVMe NAS from Asustor and could be viewed as a way for the brand to test the waters and see what works. The FS6706T is a powerful NAS that performs as well as other traditional HDD-supporting enclosures, such as Asustor's own DriveStor Gen2 range. It's easy to max out the two 2.5GbE connections with a single M.2 drive and the CPU could be viewed as a little weak for what Asustor installed on the PCB, but with a few drives installed inside the NAS, it runs without a hitch.

Where this enclosure truly shines is with the reduction in noise and power draw, but that's largely down to the SSD technology, rather than something Asustor managed to do with the FS6706T design. In fact, this NAS isn't completely silent, thanks to that single 80mm blower, and turning it to its quietest setting within the ADM OS still doesn't turn it off (even with just one NVMe drive installed). Should you be in possession of some M.2 2280 drives that are no longer used, the FS6706T is a great way to put them to good use. The Celeron chip is more than capable of running various apps and services, such as Plex Media Server.

I can see NAS such as the FS6706T become a more common sight as the price of SSDs continues to drop and the capacity of NAND grows to catch up with mechanical drives. For now, unless you have reasons to go against a NAS enclosure with 3.5-inch bays, we'd recommend the FS6706T for those who either have access to NVMe drives or desire a compact system with flash storage.

If you're looking for a NAS with excellent transfer rates, look no further than the Asustor Flashstor 6 FS6706T. This thing is rapid, with six M.2 slots available for speedy SSD drives. There's 2.5GbE networking, HDMI output, expansion support, and expandable RAM, making the FS6706T an impressive NAS.

Richard is a Senior Commerce Writer at Valnet and has been covering the technology industry for more than a decade. He's been building PCs and managing network infrastructure for just as long. When he's not creating content for Valnet, you can often find him inside a chassis somewhere.