Summary
App Central includes software developed by ASUSTOR as well as software developed by other organizations. There are lots of programs available which really helps to extend the functionality of the NAS device. This article is really only a taster of the myriad of software available.
If you’re new to Linux, you might not realise that the ASUSTOR apps section is somewhat mislabelled. What that section really signifies is that ASUSTOR are the maintainer of the packages listed in that section. Essentially, they have compiled the packages for the NAS device. But for many of the apps listed in this section, the projects are developed by completely separate companies and developers. The All Apps section includes applications where ASUSTOR are neither the developer nor the package maintainer.
I’d like to see details of the license for each program. Many of the programs are published under an open source license, but this information is not listed in App Central.
It’s important to put things into perspective what you can do with a NAS device. You’ve probably watched some YouTubers proclaim that a NAS device can run literally any app you want. That claim is pure hyperbole. For a start, even with access to Docker, there are lots of apps that you cannot easily run on a NAS. And I’m not talking just about software that needs a dedicated graphics card such as video editing, games, and such like.
Second, the vast majority of NAS devices, particularly devices targeted at home users, have low specs hardware wise by modern standards. For example, the AS3304T features an ARM-based Realtek RTD1296 CPU which is much slower than higher-end NAS devices hosting say a Ryzen Embedded R1600 CPU. Even that Ryzen CPU only has a CPU Mark of 3281, which is comfortably beaten by an Intel i5-2500K, a desktop processor released way back in 2010.
The thing is that serving files and performing many tasks are handled perfectly well by a NAS. Most NAS activities don’t need a powerful processor. But there are many third-party programs that benefit hugely from a fast CPU or plenty of RAM, I really don’t recommend running those types of apps on a NAS unless it’s just for testing purposes; never for production use.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – Photo Gallery 3
Page 3 – Music software
Page 4 – Summary
All articles in this series:
| ASUSTOR Data Master (ADM) | |
|---|---|
| Part 1 | Getting Started with ADM |
| Part 2 | Detailed review of ADM v4.2.5 |
| Part 3 | AiMaster is a NAS management app for mobile devices |
| Part 4 | Extend the functionality of your NAS with software from App Central |