Exterior

The AS-606T features a metal casing that looks to be of high quality, and its design is similar to that of QNAP's products.


Many LED indicators at the front inform the user about various on-going operations. Through the operating system, you can either make the "power" button put the NAS to sleep or shut it down after continuously pushing the button down for 1.5 seconds. The two-line LCD screen displays several useful pieces of information about the state of the NAS and is, to save energy, de-activated automatically once the start-up or re-boot phase finishes. You can also set it to show custom texts or the local temperature. Four buttons next to the LCD screen allow you to perform some basic administrative tasks or check on various states of the NAS. In the bottom left corner is the copy button with a USB 3.0 port. It was about time a manufacturer chose to install a USB 3.0 port at the face of a NAS instead of its rear - doing so greatly boosts usability. The operating system also gives you a wide range of options for the copy button's functionality, something really convenient for those that want a fast backup to/from an external drive. Finally, the removable trays (or caddies) don't, as you can see, feature any locks, which may sound strange to some administrators since this NAS is mostly intended for business environments where physical data protection is an essential feature.


The above scheme illustrates all LED indicators at the front of the NAS, and the table describes their functionality.


A shot of the NAS's internals with all caddies removed. In the following page, we will provide you with far more interesting shots of its internals by completely taking the NAS apart.


Only one of the two sides features ventilation holes, which reminds us of the QNAP NAS chassis.


A fan occupies most of the back's real estate, with the PSU's fan looking tiny in comparison. Unfortunately, the PSU of the NAS doesn't have an on/off switch, which would come in handy with certain situations. All I/O ports reside on the far right side. They include a fully featured HDMI output, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and two eSATA and four USB 2.0 ones. A USB 3.0 port (blue colored) can also be found on this side. There is also, if you ever forget the password or want to restore the NAS to its factory defaults, a reset switch you can access with a sharp tool.


The bottom of the NAS has four removable rubber feet.

A macro shot of the caddies, courtesy of our Canon DSLR camera.


Unfortunately, the caddies are not numbered and don't feature locks, but they are an essential feature in business environments. Thankfully, the caddies are of high quality, and they can hold both 3.5" and 2.5" drives. All the necessary screws for both disk types are provided as part of the bundle the NAS comes with.


The caddies feature a nice detach mechanism through which they can easily be removed from the system. You only have to press a button located at the bottom of the tray to release the latch, which allows you to pull the tray out of the disk bay easily.