TERRAMASTER F4-424 Max NAS Storage - 4Bay Core i5 1235U 10-Cores 12-Threads, 8GB DDR5 RAM, Dual 10GbE Ports, Network Attached Storage Peak Performance for Business (Diskless)

This thing is a beast. I was torn between this f4-424 and another brand around the same specs. The build quality is good. The unit feels solid. The setup was easy to do. I did stick with the Terra master os, and it isn’t too bad, especially for beginners. I will probably buy or build another server and run a different os.This device is great for plex. I have had up to 4 simultaneous video streams, 2 hw transcodes, while streaming music via Plexamp without issues.Customer service is responsive. There is a lot of support out there as well.Adding drives is easy. 32gb ram. Transfer speed from windows laptop via wifi is usually around 70mb/sec. I really have no complaints. I’ve had it about 6 months now running with no issue.

This thing is absolutely awesome! I started with wanted to build a local Plex server, but that's turned into other home server projects (e.g. Immich for image backup) and running a Home Assistant server, it's worked so well for everything I throw at it. It's addicting to play with. The integrated Intel graphics seems to work well for Plex transcoding, from my experience (even from 4k files, etc). I swapped the OS to Unraid like another reviewer mentioned, I do recommend this, Unraid works very well and a quick Google search will give you clear directions how to do this (it was easy). I upgraded RAM & added NVME drives too (easy). The 10G ethernet is a nice touch, and works well with a USB-based UPS battery backup (I chose an APC UPS).My use case unfortunately didn't allow for a large custom server build (I was looking at Fractal cases to build from scratch), or server rack type cases - I just don't have the room. If you're space constrained like me, this form factor is perfect. Even if not, the small size + easy hard drive installation is appealing over custom builds.THANK YOU TERRAMASTER for making this, I think you're filling a void Synology seems to be leaving behind (moving from Intel to AMD processors)

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.

First 19h running and so far no issue, connected Router - Switch - TNAS with 2.5ge ports speed is great (screenshot is PC is using a 2.5ge USB port connected to the switch), from phone using TNAP app, I only used it to check the data migration so far, I need to finish the migration first. I couldn’t activate the Hyper Cache yet as it needs to finish to build the TRaid so, as I’m making the backup from the old NAS as it’s failing and I need to save the data… so it need to wait.Mounted to start with 2x10tb Ironwolf and NVME 1Tb NEMIXAfter data migration will be added 1x10Tb + 1x5Tb.UPDATE1: First issue was the lack of information about how this Control Program works, i created the volume thinking to create later the cache... wrong!, if you select the M2 as part of the volumen, then the system add it to the array too and later you can't take it out... i replaced it with a hdd same capacity and solved (logical disconnection of the M2 and adding the new disk as replacement), it took me a couple of hours to figure it out how to do it as the information that the control program gives you is... 0 or -1.Update2: more issues, this trash like TOS doesn’t allow you to expand the volume, APP don’t work and the common answer is “change it” manually, even following their own instructions it doesn’t work !!! The TOS doesn’t let you to unmount, stuck on the second step and no way to solve… waiting for them to have a solution.Update 3: third day trying to contact their support, no luck. So far, good box, sh$t OS, sh$t support.Update 4: after restarting from scratch. Pool was created, synchronized without issue, but… now it let you create the cache but not assign it to the storage , selecting box was empty. I could access to the unit, create or add files to root user directory but I couldn’t access to any other directory created from the APP. So I returned.Contact support contacted me not bc al messages I sent but for the review 🤣. I returned it… now Amazon system says that I should see my money in more than a month !!!Terrible experience, I hope to see my money back someday…