Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
It's a little expensive for that purpose, but it could do it. There's nothing preventing you from running Windows on this machine. Or replacing ADM—ASUSTOR's own Busybox Linux-derivative OS—with something a bit more storage-focused, like TrueNAS! Here is a shot of the motherboard populated from the front where the sole USB port is. Asustor FS6712X NAS Motherboard Front Port Once the cover panels are removed, upgrading RAM and also placing drives in is a snap. It is very straight forward and as much as I complain about the screws above, drive install is latch style so no screws are required. RAM is installed in a traditional manner. The design of the Asustor FS6712X Flashstor 12 Pro NAS is both unique and slightly unconventional. The rhombus-shaped enclosure, constructed mainly of plastic, sets it apart from traditional NAS devices. While some may find the design to be a matter of personal taste, others may appreciate the visual interest it brings to the table. One peculiar aspect of the design is the location of the power button. It is positioned on the right side of the unit, which can make it challenging to locate from above. This placement is not the most intuitive and may cause initial confusion for users. On a positive note, when the NAS is powered on, the side of the chassis lights up in a vibrant red, adding a cool visual element to the device. With the falling cost of NAND modules and new larger capacity drives appearing, expect other brands to jump on board with their designs between now and Christmas 2023.
The benefits of having a Quad-Core 2.0GHz Processor in the ASUSTOR Flashstor 6 FS6706T are immense. With this powerful processor, users can run multiple applications and perform several tasks at the same time without experiencing any lag or slow performance. It ensures that the device can handle more demanding workloads such as large file transfers, hosting virtual machines, and advanced network services. Connecting a PC with NVMe storage transfer speeds of 1200MB/s is possible, but only to a single client connected to the NAS. By directly connecting the NAS to a client computer, all the bandwidth is available for that communication, and no other extraneous network traffic can interfere. While the FS6712X offers a solid software experience with the Asustor NAS operating system, it’s worth noting that the software does not differentiate between the NVMe storage and other drive mechanisms. This means that the performance of the NVMe drives may not be fully utilized over the network. However, if the NAS is primarily used for indexing data directly or for local access, it can take advantage of the interactions between the Intel Celeron N5105 processor and the drive array, resulting in improved performance.The base of the flash store shows us the four rubber feet that raise the system up by a few millimetres, but also that base fan. I do wonder about the effectiveness of this fan on the base of the system (though under the M.2 NVMe SSD media) as the other half of the system is comprised of one large heatsink that covers the CPU, which runs directly into the pathway of that fan, but also the M.2s. Again, we will run some test temps later on the YouTube channel. Something to keep in mind is that there is also an 8GB eMMC device for the OS boot onboard. This is about what we would expect as we can see the three ASMedia ASM2806 devices each with four drives attached. This will take a few minutes, but once it's complete, consider storing that ADM .img file somewhere safe so you can re-image the eMMC if you ever need to. Optional, but recommended - Disable eMMC Now, the important part: use dd to clone the contents of the eMMC drive to the flash drive: sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/path/to/usb/adm-image.img bs=16M
A more likely network configuration might be that multiple client computers connect to the FS6712X by 2.5GbE LAN using a switch with a 10GbE downlink for the NAS.I simply couldn’t justify the jump in price between the FS6 to FS12 for an extra 6 drive slots and the 10Gb LAN. Just remember, drives often promote themselves as being a particular size and often fall short. The degree of how short can be minimal or enough to disappoint. I have in another NAS some 16 TB drives that show as 14.55 TB usable. About 1.5 TB loss. The M.2 drives I bought were to be 4 TB drives yet show 3.73 in size once put into this unit. Having put 4 drives in to start, I only have just over 11 TB accessible in RAID 5. That is about 1 TB difference than the advertised 4 TB. Lesson - while this device may suggest you can get up to 24 TB capacity with all drives populated, it will be less and you should calculate for the difference. Price: The FS6706T is a premium NAS device, and requires the more expensive M.2 drives, its price may therefore be a concern for budget-conscious users. When the Flashtor NAS is up and running, it’s tiddly built-in fan is up and running. The ball bearing noise can be heard distinctly and penetratingly across the room. This is not to mention the rushing sound of air. Asustor has almost succeeded with that, although the fan is rather small. In fact the airflow can only be heard if one waves the entire NAS to one’s ear or, equally, places one’s ear really quite close to it.
For example, if you want to install Plex on an Asustor NAS all you need to do is open App Central, find the Plex Media Server app and press install. Once installed you’ll have access to a web interface that will take you through the rest of the setup procedure, and once completed (I’d say it takes less than 10 minutes) you’ll find any device with Plex connected to your nextwork can see and stream media from the NAS. However, it’s important to note that the device’s internal architecture presents some limitations. The Intel Celeron N5105 processor offers a maximum of eight PCIe lanes, which falls short considering the number of M.2 slots and other connectivity options available. This is mitigated by a PCIe bridge chip, but ultimately results in each NVMe SSD slot capping at PCIe Gen 3×1 – so a theoretical maximum of 1,000MB/s per drive, which still won’t be realized in a larger RAID (particularly in Write performance) duue to that efficient little chip just not having the muscles. In the 6-bay unit, the bottom cover comes off using four screws. One nice feature is that the M.2 drives are installed via tool-less carriers. Asustor FS6706T 6x M.2 SSD Hatch The design of the system is quite ‘PS4’ ish, it has to be said. But it IS fantastically compact, considering the scale of storage available here. With 2280 M.2 NVMes now arriving in as high as 8TB capacity, this is a pretty substantial amount of storage in such as small server. The system has a single base-mounted fan, as well as numerous ventilation points all around the sides. As nice as it looks, is does feel a little cheap as they casing is completely plastic. Not unusual for a desktop NAS and certainly for this price tag, understandable. Some brands now make NVMe specifically for NAS use, although exactly how that differs from modules using identical NAND sold for desktop computers isn’t clear.That could effectively increase by 50% network throughput, but that path assumes you don’t want to use the USB ports for anything else. The ASUSTOR Flashstor 6 FS6706T is a high-end storage device that offers advanced features and specifications that set it apart from other options in the market. It is powered by a powerful 10 nm Quad-Core Intel Celeron N5105 Processor that enables it to handle demanding tasks such as video editing and data storage with ease.
On the other, we get a power button. This one lights up the side of the chassis red when turned on, which is a cool feature. We show this briefly in the video. Asustor FS6712X NAS Power Button As already mentioned, it has 2 x Superfast 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet ports that allow for high-speed data transfer, making it an ideal solution for businesses and individuals who prioritize speed and efficiency.According to Intel, the maximum number of lanes this processor supports is 8, so that’s not even a whole PCIe 3.0 lane per potential M.2 slot. The HDMI port and TV furniture friendly shape make this an ideal media server. Plus, the switch to solid state drives means it’s significantly less noisy compared to previous models such as the Nimbustor 4.
Great Deal 
New Comment