In addition to the evolution of its ADM interface, Asustor streamlines its backup and synchronization tools. This will require the arrival of Backup Cloud Center and Data Sync Center, currently in beta. But behind the ads, do they do the job?
Synchronization: welcome centralization
In the classic trio of consumer NAS, of course, we find Synology and its main challenger QNAP, but also Asustor. The company has been trying in recent years to stand out with products with unusual characteristics, both in its classic offer and that intended for businesses.
But its ADM interface is evolving slowly and is lagging behind, despite recurring changes. One of the big black spots was on the backup and synchronization side, where solutions and services were bursting, not always very convincing.
Asustor began to take the bull by the horns. Two applications have been available in beta for a few months, to begin to centralize the tools and make the experience more convincing. We have carried out initial tests.
In its current version, ADM offers a rather disappointing experience for data synchronization. Indeed, only a few services are managed and you have to go through different applications for each of them: DataSync for Dropbox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive for Business), etc.
DataSync Center allows (finally) to offer different services in the same interface. Still in beta, it is hardly complete at the moment, since this time we only find Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, in addition to synchronization from another Asustor NAS:
The parameters are also basic, segmented in two: those specific to each service and those specific to each task. We can indeed have more assets per service. In the first case we mainly regulate the period of activity, logging, number of simultaneous downloads, speed limits and that’s it.
Each will then have their own file / folder sync filters, which can be done one way or two way, sometimes with on-the-fly conversions. For example in the case of Google Drive, to adapt the documents to the home format in Office file or JPEG images.
It is therefore simple, but sufficiently comprehensive. We especially expect from the release of the beta that many more services are managed, whether for consumer or professional use. Especially with the arrival of high-end NAS like Cabinetstor 8/10 and other Lockerstor 10 (Pro).
Backup: BackBlaze is here, S3 still isolated
For backup, Asustor already had a unified application: Backup and Restore. In addition to a purely local procedure, it manages many protocols: rsync, FTP, USB or even S3 (via AWS and compatible).
At the moment, Cloud Backup Center does not take over any of this. It is not yet known if a merger is planned, if only for the integration of S3 in addition to other Cloud services, but for the moment three are present: Alibaba Cloud, Microsoft Azure and BackBlaze B2. Interesting point: the backup can be done from or to the service.
Asustor Cloud Backup Center Beta
Here, we can simply define the source folder and the destination bucket, some parameters such as the speed limits or the recurrence of the backup. The “mission mode” allows you to limit the duration of a task, to take breaks, to define reconnection attempts, etc. To accommodate API limits.
At the moment, no advanced filter is present. No more than version management mechanisms or solutions for encryption, deduplication, etc. The data from the source is just sent to the destination and that’s it. Without more frills. A bit like synchronization, but on demand.
What about catering? No functionality is implemented yet. It will indeed be necessary to fetch the data via the online service or launch a synchronization in the opposite direction to retrieve them, while waiting for an equivalent of the Backupe explorer offered for example at Synology. In short, there is still work to be done.