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Your cart is empty.4.0 out of 5 stars
- #63 in Network Attached Storage (NAS) Enclosures
Product Description
Nova
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2025
I got this to upgrade from a Synology 2-bay NAS. It is pretty good hardware for the price, relative to other appliance type NAS devices. Inside there is a very small USB drive that holds the Terramaster OS, but if you remove that you can install something else - this does involve disassembling it though. I put TrueNAS Scale on it right away, so I can't speak to the stock OS, but I have had no issues with TrueNAS compatibility.The N95 processor is very efficient and the unit stays pretty cool, but if you want to run a ton of containers you might need something with more processing power. Overall a good piece of hardware with a lot of bays.
P. Harris
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2025
I got the F4-424 intending to use it with Unraid. It works well, but there were some quirks I hit so I wanted to share what I found.I wanted to upgrade it to 32 GB of RAM. Reports conflicted online if it actually supports 32 GB or if it tops out at 16 GB. I ordered a stick of Crucial RAM 32GB DDR5 4800MHz CL40 -- CT32G48C40S5, and installed it... and the system was immediately unstable. I tried Memtest 86+ and it almost immediately failed. I exchanged the Crucial RAM, and the replacement also failed Memtest. (The stock 8 GB of RAM passed just fine so I knew it wasn't the system itself.) I then tried a 32 GB stick of Patriot PSD532G48002S and it passed! I doubt I got two bad sticks of Crucial RAM so something might be inherently incompatible here, but the Patriot RAM is cheaper anyway so it’s fine.Another quirk is around fan speeds. In the bios I initially set the fan manually to 100 thinking it was 100%, but Unraid quickly complained about drive temps hitting around 50 to 55c. I popped back into the bios and tried changing the fan speed to something higher and it turns out the scale is 0-255, not 0-100. I set it to 255 and it’s no longer silent, but it’s not terribly loud either. Drive temps are now under 30c all the time. It also seems like from the front it has poor air intake, but interestingly the Terramaster logo on each side is made up of many holes and serves as an air intake as well, so keep the area to the left and right of the NAS clear.Another reviewer mentioned it but the internal USB drive is tight, the Sandisk Ultrafit they recommended worked well though. You do have to take the motherboard out to swap this but it’s not terribly difficult. Everything else is really easy to do including installing M.2 SSDs.I do wish the F4-424 had more than one USB-A external port. I have 3 devices total to connect which doesn’t seem excessive but still had to get a USB hub.
Kris
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2024
I've seen lots of complaints about Terramaster's OS (both in Amazon reviews and on places like Reddit), so I was almost put off of buying this device. But in terms of the specs of the F4-424 Pro compared to its price, no other NAS offers a better bang for your buck. Luckily, I found a helpful YouTube video explaining how to install Unraid on a Terramaster NAS, so I picked this up as an upgrade to my QNAP TS-251+.Accessing the boot USB slot on the F4-424 Pro involved removing two screws from the back of the case, sliding off the side panel, then removing the four screws holding the motherboard in place. Doing so allowed me to swap the preinstalled flash drive for a flash drive with an install of Unraid.I will note, I had to buy a Sandisk Ultrafit to create the Unraid boot drive, as the clearance between the USB slot on the board and the NAS enclosure is quite small (even my Samsung FIT was a bit too tall). For Unraid, you'll want to get a USB drive of 32 GB or smaller. You can get a larger flash drive, but you'll need to format it down to 32 GB (from what I understand about Unraid). Also, Unraid's USB boot drive creation tool displayed my Sandisk drive as "incompatible", but using the manual Unraid boot disk creation process worked just fine.I've had the Terramaster F4-424 Pro running Unraid for almost a week now, and everything is working great. I've got three drives (a 12TB, an 8TB, and a 4TB), with another 12TB on the way. Unraid isn't the most user-friendly NAS solution for beginners, but videos from YouTubers like NASCompares (who hosts the tutorial on installing Unraid on a Terramaster device) and Spaceinvader One (an Unraid guru with tutorials on everything Unraid-related) have been extremely helpful and have allowed me to migrate my data from external flash drives and my existing NAS. They also have guides for setting up popular apps like PLEX, which is working great.I haven't yet allowed remote access to my PLEX server, but allowing my parents to stream PLEX in HD was another motivator for upgrading to a beefier NAS. In theory, the device specs suggest they should have no issues, but I'll report back after everything is completely set up. UPDATE: Remote Access to PLEX is working great. I had my parents and a friend both streaming 1080p remotely while I was streaming 4K HDR in the home, and the CPU was rarely getting over 50% load. So, can confirm that the F4-424 Pro is great for PLEX, both over your local network and remotely.So, if you're worried about the Terramaster OS (which, from what I've read, is continually getting better), just know that you can easily install Unraid. While Unraid might not be as easy out of the box as QNAP's or Synology's software, it only took me a few days to get the hang of things.
JR
Reviewed in Canada on December 23, 2024
I have tried several times to set this up with varying degrees of success. Through the mobile app, I have been able to upload files and photos only to never see them again. I used file manager through the console and the same login credentials and my files are no where to be found.Installed apps like terra photo and it disappeared.I'm stuck right now enter no matter what I do, I get "operation failed" errors.If you are looking for something to just start using, I would start away from this. It is nice and quiet and you can easily access the inside for hardware but for me those are the only pros.UPDATED FEB 2025I changed my rating to a 1.I got it to a point where it seemed stable and I moved my files over. That's my mistake. I should have copied the files over. In any event, the files I moved over disappeared. It was just a frustration and it would just turn off. Once I noticed my files were gone, I left it off and thought I would use a file recovery software to recover my files. I used 2 8-TB drives setup with mirroring. I don't know if it is a limitation in the recovery software but it only sees the data as a drive and I can't recover anything a it looks like a 8 TB drive. Definitely not the greatest purchase I made.
Lucas Engel
Reviewed in Canada on November 21, 2024
I'm loving my 2-bay NAS. I did A LOT of research before getting this and I have to say I'm quite impressed. Even if you're not too tech-savvy, you'll go fine installing this. There are plenty of articles and videos walking you through how to do anything you want out there. Just search for Terramaster and the term that you're looking for.I finally have enough storage for all of mine and wife's photos, our work and personal files without having to pay any subscriptions. There's even a way for you to host your own Google Photos (it's called Immich).The reviews complaining about the OS are either from super advanced users that should probably have built their custom solutions instead or from people that didn't do a good search on how-to's. You can find everything online!The Terramaster Operational System (TOS) is simple but pretty powerful. There are native apps. You can click and use out of the box backup app for USB devices, cloud, other storage devices on your network and so on. There are Terramaster apps for more advanced features too. Such as deploying you own app containers.And if at the end of the day you're not happy, you can even install your own system because they didn't lock up the hardware as Synology/QNAP do.
Coolers
Reviewed in Australia on November 19, 2024
Challenges with TOS5I encountered several issues while using TOS5 on my TNAS, including persistent permission problems and frustratingly slow SMB transfer speeds. These challenges significantly impacted my user experience. The slow transfers were confirmed by Terra master support as being a known issue.Transition to UnraidTo address these issues, I decided to switch from TOS5 to Unraid. This change proved to be highly beneficial. Not only did it resolve all the problems I was facing, but the hardware now runs exceptionally well.Easy Installation ProcessOne of the best aspects of this transition was the ease of installation. I was able to use the external USB port on the TNAS to boot the Unraid OS without needing to modify the internal components of the TNAS. This straightforward approach made the switch hassle-free.Overall SatisfactionI am now very pleased with the performance of my hardware running Unraid. This experience has shown me that opting for a more versatile operating system can significantly enhance the functionality and efficiency of my TNAS setup. For anyone experiencing similar issues with TOS5, I highly recommend considering Unraid as a viable alternative.TOS6 was not available at the time of writing this review.
Yann
Reviewed in Canada on October 5, 2024
The description of the product (when you select it) says it has 16gb of ram. It's not the case, you will get 8gb.A little bit disappointing to be honest, 16gb would be more adequate.
Richard V.T.
Reviewed in Canada on October 21, 2024
I have a reasonable amount of experience with linux based operating systems. The TOS6 suits my needs and is easy to configure with respect to basic settings. I did not require in depth configuration as my use case was plex and data backup for photos and documents. I've paired mine with 4 22tb seagate iron wolf pro hhds in a TRAID (raid 5) configuration. Additionally I added two 1tb WD red SN700 ssd... one for cache and one for apps/OS. Now, 8gb of memory that is fairly expensive to upgrade if you stick with terramaster branded modules... I upgraded to 64gb using: Crucial CT2K32G56C46S5 specifically. Worked with no problems.Beyond this, the nvme clearance for using heatsinks is super limited without modification. For my deployment and use case, nvme heatsinks weren't required. NVME drive idle around 48-51 degrees and the HDD idle around 38 degrees (Celcuis). The fan noise is negligible so the device can be placed anywhere.Network transfer speeds are fairly steady at 287Mbps over a 2.5gbps remote computer. The nas is interfaced to the switch at 10Gb. I did not experience any connection issues to or from the NAS and was able to map a network drive in a windows PC for access to the NAS with little effort. Remote access to files has worked flawlessly. Through the tnas app for android it was painless to configure the interface to securely sync with shared resources.If you have your heart set on synology then go with that. I needed hardware transcoding for plex uses so a capable INTEL processor was required and not too many affordable option on the synology side. If you take some time to plan and assess your requirements this f6-424 max is a great option for many use cases and I do recommend it.
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