Asustor Flashstor Gen2 is an SSD-only NAS with 10 GbE LAN and an AMD Zen 3 processor

For years, most network-attached storage (NAS) devices were basically purpose-built computers designed to let you hook a large hard drive (or array of multiple drives) to your network to function as a media and file server, backup solution, and more.

But these days you can find a growing number of NAS systems that don’t support hard drives at all, because they’re designed for flash storage only. Asustor’s Flashstor series of SSD-only systems were among the first consumer-oriented NAS devices in this emerging space, and now the company has launched the new Asustor Flashstor Gen2 series that brings a significant boost in CPU performance, networking capabilities, and memory capacity.

While the original Asus Flashstor family featured 10-watt quad-core Intel Celeron N5105 “Jasper Lake” processors and support for up to a total of 16GB of DDR4-2933 RAM, the new Asustor Flashstor Gen 2 series is powered by 15-watt AMD’s Ryzen Embedded V3C14 processor and supports up to 64GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory.

AMD’s Ryzen V3C14 is a 4-core, 8-thread processor with three AMD Zen 3 CPU cores featuring a 2.3 GHz base frequency and support for boost speeds up to 3.8 GHz. Designed for embedded devices, it may not feature the latest AMD technologies, but it should deliver a big performance boost over the budget Intel Celeron chips used in the previous-generation. AMD also plans to continue offering this processor through at least 2032, which means that it should be a well supported processor for years to come.

Asustor has also updated the USB capabilities of the new models: instead of two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports and two USB 2.0 (480Mbps) ports, the new models have two USB4 Type-C (40 Gbps) ports and three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The company committed HDMI and S/PDIF ports though, presumably because the USB4 ports can be used for video output.

The Asustor Flashstor Gen 2 comes in two flavors: the Flashstor 6 Gen 2 features 6 M.2 2280 slots for PCIe Gen 4 storage and a single 10 Gb Ethernet port. It ships with 8GB of non-ECC RAM, but supports up to 64GB of ECC memory. This model is available now for $999.

The Asustor Flashstor 12 Gen 2 is a pricier model that sells for $1399. But it supports up to twelve SSDs (with a mix of PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.0 slots), has two 10 Gb Ethernet ports, and ships standard with 16GB of ECC memory.

Both systems measure 309 x 193 x 48mm, but the 12-bay model is a little heavier at 1.45 kg (3.19 pounds), while the 6-bay version is 1.4 kg (3.08 pounds). Power consumption is also lower on the 6-bay version: it uses as little as 1.2 watts in sleep mode or 17.9 watts during operation, compared with 2.8W sleep and 32.2W active user for the Flashstor 12 Gen 2.

via NASCompares and TechPowerUp