The first strawberries I grew in hydro was with a NFT system, these did pretty well but the variety liked a slightly lower nutrient level, and fruited well at 1.6 mS.

I have also grown strawberries on coco coir slabs with great success. The plants rooted into the coir extremely well and fruit tasted great. Using a coir specific nutrient is a must to ensure elevated calcium and reduced potassium levels. The variety I grew in coir slabs was different to the NFT and appreciated a higher nutrient level of 2.0 mS (1000ppm), although during peak summer I had to back off down to 1.8 mS as the nutrient increased in the slabs due to lower summer time humidity which caused higher transpiration.

All strawberry varieties are different, I recommend starting on 1.6 mS and slowly increase the nutrient solution strength if needed.

Interesting question about why they are called strawberries? You are right, many growers use to, and still do, use straw as a mulch to suppress weeds, keep moisture in the soil and prevent the berries from touch the moist earth and getting botrytis (grey mould). This however is not where the origins of the name came from. To be honest nobody really knows for sure, but this is the most plausible explanation I could find while researching the topic:

“It seems likely that the name comes from the practice the strawberry plant has of sending out runners in all directions. A strawberry has about 200 tiny seeds but they seem to have little to do with the spread of the plant itself. While it has been proven that under exact conditions these seeds will, indeed, sprout and grow, the plant, for some reason, seems to have rejected this as the main way of propagation. Thus, the plant could be said to have ’strewn’ runners and plants all over. So the name probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb for ’strew’(meaning to spread around) which was streabergen(Strea means ’strew’ and Bergen for berry or fruit) and thence to streberie, straiberie, strauberie, straubery, strauberry, and finally, ’strawberry’, the word which we use today.”

Source : http://tiny.cc/u4vgv