INTRODUCTION

   I may not be a huge fan of cloud-based services like OneDrive, iCloud and Dropbox but at the same time i can't deny that they can be of tremendous use to people who want access to their files from anywhere in the world. Unfortunately such services have but a single drawback, they are not yours and that basically means you don't have full control over whatever you upload. Now it may not be possible for that data to be accessed by a third party without you granting them that but although safety may not be an serious issue still i feel a lot better when my files are stored locally. NAS servers offer that convenience but they also offer a very large number of other features which simply put are not for everyone and certainly not every single consumer out there looks for them. Promise Technology understands this and although their primary focus has been the enterprise market they decided to expand and take their first steps in the consumer one as well with the Apollo Cloud 4TB NAS.

   Promise Technology is a recognized global leader with 28 years of experience in the storage industry. Promise creates innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of the IoT, Cloud, IT, Rich Media and Surveillance markets. From personal cloud appliances, to scalable enterprise IT Infrastructure, blazingly fast post production tools, video security solutions and hyper converged systems, Promise adapts its products to meet the real-world challenges customers face every day. Promise’s highly experienced sales and engineering teams are strategically located throughout the Americas, EMEA, and JAPAC regions to provide unparalleled services and support to its customers around the globe. For more information, visit: www.promise.com.

   At first glance due to its very compact size the Apollo Cloud NAS doesn't seem to offer that much in terms of specifications and available features and since it's not aimed at the same market segment as the more powerful NAS servers we usually test it doesn't. To be more precise under the hood of the Apollo Cloud we find a single-core Cortex A9-based SoC running at 1GHz paired with 1GB of DDR3L RAM. Connectivity is also rather limited as well so here we just see a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port and a USB 3.0 port. Promise Technology has also equipped the Apollo Cloud with a single 4TB drive but unfortunately on one hand there are no other capacities available and on the other you can’t really swap the drive inside for another (not unless you damage the enclosure). The drive mounted inside the enclosure is the MD04ABA400V 3.5" surveillance model by Toshiba which has a rotational speed of 5400/5900RPM (Toshiba says it's a low-spin drive without mentioning a specific number) with 128MB of cache and an MTBF of 1.1 million hours. Finally the Apollo Cloud 4TB NAS offers AES-256 bit encryption for data encryption in transfer and storage and thanks to the apps provided by Promise Technology it's fully compatible and can be accessed via Windows, MAC, iOS and Android compatible devices.