Comparison ASUSTOR Flashstor 12 Pro vs ASUSTOR Flashstor 6

Number of M.2 slots provided in the design of the NAS server.

M.2 slot is used for connecting various internal peripheral devices, mainly of a miniature form factor. This solution allows reducing the size of the NAS server itself. Solutions without 2.5" and 3.5" slots can make it compact. It is worth noting that this slot can implement two electrical (logical) interfaces — SATA 3.0 and PCI-Express, with each individual M.2 socket on the board being able to support either both interfaces simultaneously or just one of them. These details should be clarified before purchase, as they directly affect the capabilities of using M.2. For instance, with SATA 3.0 support, such a slot has a significantly lower speed compared to PCI-E; therefore, this M.2 variant is mainly used for inexpensive SSD modules. In turn, PCI-E is somewhat more expensive but provides maximum data transfer speed and allows connecting high-class solid-state drives to the NAS server.

The number of LAN ports provided in the design of the NAS server.

LAN — a connector used for a wired connection to Ethernet local networks (the most common "local" format today, it is also used to access the Internet). For a relatively simple network (say, within a medium office), one LAN port will be enough. However, models are produced where there are more than one such ports, mainly 2, 3 and 4 connectors. They are designed for large networks divided into subnets with separate access to the NAS server: the presence of several LAN connectors allows you to connect each of the subnets directly without using a router. This simplifies the network architecture and optimizes the load.

The maximum operating speed supported by the LAN port(s) of the NAS server. For the LAN ports themselves, see above; in today's networking equipment, higher speed means compatibility with lower rates

In general, the higher the LAN speed, the wider the bandwidth, the faster the device will cope with data transfer and the easier it will be for it to work with several network requests at once. As for specific standards, 1 Gbps is the most popular nowadays: it gives quite decent speed and at the same time is inexpensive. The more advanced 10 Gbps standard is less common, mostly in professional equipment designed for high loads. The middle and rare link are models with a speed of 2.5 Gbps. But LAN 100 Mbps is considered completely obsolete version.

The amount of power consumed by the NAS server during normal operation. Most often, we are talking about maximum power consumption — with all the occupied slots for drives, under high load.

Modern NAS, even high-performance ones, have rather modest power consumption — even among professional models with 10 or more drives, this figure rarely exceeds 1 kW. So there are no problems with connecting to a 230 V network. However, energy consumption information can be useful for some special applications, primarily for estimating the load on UPSs, emergency generators, stabilizers, and other special equipment.