TerraMaster NAS and DAs units, any good?

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I was just wondering if anyone here had used any of the TerraMaster NAS and/or DAS units?
I'm looking at getting a DAS to put some old HDDs in and considering the TerraMaster D5-300 and the Qnap TR-004, but I hear reports that the Qnap has bad access speeds.

I've currently got a Qnap TS-112 and TS212 but thinking at some point I might upgrade that to a 4-bay NAS and have been considering the TerraMaster F4-423, but not sure if I should stick to what I know or maybe try Synology?

I believe TerraMaster is a Chinese brand, after the fuss about Huawei a while back, do people have an issue with Chinese brands these days? I've not really considered it until now.

 

[Snapshot]

You should also consider Asustor which is generally better technology for the money and doesn't try to force you to use its own disks like Synology does.
The F4-423 is getting good reviews so could be a good choice but the Asustor As5404T is worth considering as it adds four M.2 slots for not too much extra money.

 

[whiskycycle]

The F4-423 has been replaced by the F4-424 now, better processor and much easier to get inside for memory & NVMe installations. Incredibly easy to run unRAID, TruNAS and other OS on them.They’ve also released the F4-424 Pro with an i3-level CPU and 32GB as default shipping memory config.

Ordering an F4-424 Pro later, as the 423 was out of stock before Christmas and I didn’t realise the 424 range were hitting so soon!

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Oh yeah, the F4-424 does look nice, if that's still available when I get around to changing my NAS.

I think the DAS will be my first purchase though, any experience with the D5-300 or TR-004? I'm tempted by the D5-300 just because it'd be nice to go all TerraMaster.

 

[whiskycycle]

No experience of the DAS boxes, but after transplanting the guts of my unRAID system into the 424-Pro, the newer kit from them looks and feels pretty decent. Actually wouldn't mind adding one to the 424-Pro to extend storage if it works and passes through individual drives to unRAID.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Now starting to think, if they've refreshed the F4-423 with the F4-424 I wonder if they'll soon refresh the D5-300 with something similar.
I do prefer the black styling of the F4-424 over the F4-423 and it looks to have a smaller footprint too.

 

[wonko]

Hi, I've got a terramaster D5-300C (USB3) here which I use for backups. I use it in JBOD mode with Drivepool (under windows) to make a 30 ish TB drive. It's not the quietest or quickest thing but it has worked reliably and the noise hasn't really bothered me as it's only powered up intermittently. I've not tried the raid mode, and would be nervous of data loss tbh.
Depending on the size/value of the disks you're intending to put in it, it might make more sense to just buy a new 16Tb + disk instead.
Hope that helps a bit.

 

[IanAG]

No experience of the DAS boxes, but after transplanting the guts of my unRAID system into the 424-Pro, the newer kit from them looks and feels pretty decent. Actually wouldn't mind adding one to the 424-Pro to extend storage if it works and passes through individual drives to unRAID.

I picked up the regular 424 the other day and finding it good so far with unraid.

Have you played much with the fan settings in the bios? I just set mine to maximum while doing some fan transfers but will probably try and find something which gives a curve.

I did not have any joy so fan with fan control using the dynamix plugin.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Hi, I've got a terramaster D5-300C (USB3) here which I use for backups. I use it in JBOD mode with Drivepool (under windows) to make a 30 ish TB drive. It's not the quietest or quickest thing but it has worked reliably and the noise hasn't really bothered me as it's only powered up intermittently. I've not tried the raid mode, and would be nervous of data loss tbh.
Depending on the size/value of the disks you're intending to put in it, it might make more sense to just buy a new 16Tb + disk instead.
Hope that helps a bit.

Thanks for that.
My reasoning is partly that I've got some old HDDs that I've just got sitting around, so thought this could make use of them. Also in the future plan to upgrade my NAS so it may be useful when it comes to doing that.
I'm planning on connecting it via my NAS to use it as more NAS storage. Currently undecided how to set the disks up. RAID5 would be nice but due to uneven disk size I'd lose a fair amount of space.

 

[whiskycycle]

I picked up the regular 424 the other day and finding it good so far with unraid.

Have you played much with the fan settings in the bios? I just set mine to maximum while doing some fan transfers but will probably try and find something which gives a curve.

I did not have any joy so fan with fan control using the dynamix plugin.

It’s brilliant with unRAID so far, although the NVMe complain a bit about heat during downloads that max out the 1gig broadband… need to see if there’s enough since to fit a heatsink on each SSD! Looks like the TM logo on the removable side panel will pop out, so I may be able to Macgyver a Noctua sucking air out after that as well.

The fan does seem to manage itself up and down in speed though.

Haven’t dug much into the BIOS much, but overall the whole thing is reasonably quiet enough to sit on the bottom shelf of an IKEA unit next to my desk, although I’d forgotten about how much spinning rust chunters on.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

@IanAG @whiskycycle Do either of you have any experience with TerraMaster's TRAID?

I'm wondering how you calculate how much space would be wasted and how good the performance is. It would allow me to upgrade the hard disks in it gradually rather than all at once.

 

[IanAG]

@IanAG @whiskycycle Do either of you have any experience with TerraMaster's TRAID?

I'm wondering how you calculate how much space would be wasted and how good the performance is. It would allow me to upgrade the hard disks in it gradually rather than all at once.

Afraid I couldn't say, mine didn't get booted with the standard OS beyond testing it worked.

One comment I will make is that the regular 424 which comes with 8GB does not appear to be easily upgradeable despite the advertisting. Neither a 16GB or 32GB SODIMM I have works. It looks like they have history for applying BIOS restrictions to their own overpriced memory. Will be emailing support and contemplating sending it back if there is a negative response.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Afraid I couldn't say, mine didn't get booted with the standard OS beyond testing it worked.

One comment I will make is that the regular 424 which comes with 8GB does not appear to be easily upgradeable despite the advertisting. Neither a 16GB or 32GB SODIMM I have works. It looks like they have history for applying BIOS restrictions to their own overpriced memory. Will be emailing support and contemplating sending it back if there is a negative response.

I noticed on the *elsewhere* page it does say the memory for the 424 is non-upgradeable (unlike the 424 pro and the 423 (oddly)).
Is that generally an issue though? I'd only be using it as a media server and shared HDD space.

EDIT: Forgot I need to avoid mentioning competitors (even though Overclockers don't sell the F4-424), so took the name out.

 

[IanAG]

For me it is showing as upgradeable *elsewhere*, and also on the Terramaster page for the F4 and the F2 non-pro versions.

You are probably right, I am trying to simplify down from a single larger server (12600, 16 disks @ ~100TB, 32GB RAM) so will be limiting what is running on it. That said I would rather be limited by my choice, and am also already feeling like it is a compromise going for a NAS solution.

 

[Snapshot]

Afraid I couldn't say, mine didn't get booted with the standard OS beyond testing it worked.

One comment I will make is that the regular 424 which comes with 8GB does not appear to be easily upgradeable despite the advertisting. Neither a 16GB or 32GB SODIMM I have works. It looks like they have history for applying BIOS restrictions to their own overpriced memory. Will be emailing support and contemplating sending it back if there is a negative response.

My Asustor NASs that use DDR4 insist that it's 1Rx8 or they won't boot. Does DDR5 have something similar?

 

[whiskycycle]

Afraid I couldn't say, mine didn't get booted with the standard OS beyond testing it worked.

One comment I will make is that the regular 424 which comes with 8GB does not appear to be easily upgradeable despite the advertisting. Neither a 16GB or 32GB SODIMM I have works. It looks like they have history for applying BIOS restrictions to their own overpriced memory. Will be emailing support and contemplating sending it back if there is a negative response.

I’ll have a look at my Pro later and see what memory’s in there.

I did briefly try a F4-423 last year and that took a couple of sticks of Crucial no problem, just normal memory matched to speed of what I removed. That same memory’s in a couple of laptops now, so behaving ok. Not entirely sure their attention to detail would go as far as locking down memory like Synology, given the ”Samrt monitor“ or something in the BIOS!

Now I’ve stuck a couple of heatsinks on the NVMe drives, no more heat issues with those. More than happy with the hardware overall so far.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Hi, sorry for resurrecting this thread!

I see TerraMaster have now released a F4-212 NAS that seems like a less powerful F4-424. What do people think of this NAS? Does anyone have one?

I have some concerns over the network speed with it only being a 1Gbps port (but to be fair that's what my network is for now). Also worried that the CPU and 3GB RAM could be an issue for some thing and may reduce how long it receives OS updates, especially given peoples concerns over the F4-424 only having 8GB RAM. Is this a realistic concern?

I mostly expect to use it as plain old network storage and a DLNA media server, but if it supports Docker containers that might be of interest too. Would the F4-212 be enough for my needs?

 

[Demon]

Hi, sorry for resurrecting this thread!

I see TerraMaster have now released a F4-212 NAS that seems like a less powerful F4-424. What do people think of this NAS? Does anyone have one?

I have some concerns over the network speed with it only being a 1Gbps port (but to be fair that's what my network is for now). Also worried that the CPU and 3GB RAM could be an issue for some thing and may reduce how long it receives OS updates, especially given peoples concerns over the F4-424 only having 8GB RAM. Is this a realistic concern?

I mostly expect to use it as plain old network storage and a DLNA media server, but if it supports Docker containers that might be of interest too. Would the F4-212 be enough for my needs?

Running Unraid, it took a lot of dockers before I tipped over 8GB, so 8GB is 'enough' for a reasonable use case of running apps, but 3GB definitely sounds too little unless just using it as a basic NAS IME.

I was just wondering if anyone here had used any of the TerraMaster NAS and/or DAS units?
I'm looking at getting a DAS to put some old HDDs in and considering the TerraMaster D5-300 and the Qnap TR-004, but I hear reports that the Qnap has bad access speeds.

I've currently got a Qnap TS-112 and TS212 but thinking at some point I might upgrade that to a 4-bay NAS and have been considering the TerraMaster F4-423, but not sure if I should stick to what I know or maybe try Synology?

I believe TerraMaster is a Chinese brand, after the fuss about Huawei a while back, do people have an issue with Chinese brands these days? I've not really considered it until now.

I have a D6-320 DAS case turn up before Xmas, which was more of an experiment to potentially go for a low power NAS using that and a smally i5 alderlake NUC style box..

It works remarkably well, all HDDs showed up, no issues with a week long stability test and SMART/Spindown all worked as expected (using Unraid) and over a USB 3.2G2 link, I had no issues with performance with spinning disks, easily doing parity writes @ 160MB/Sec sustained..

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Running Unraid, it took a lot of dockers before I tipped over 8GB, so 8GB is 'enough' for a reasonable use case of running apps, but 3GB definitely sounds too little unless just using it as a basic NAS IME.




I have a D6-320 DAS case turn up before Xmas, which was more of an experiment to potentially go for a low power NAS using that and a smally i5 alderlake NUC style box..

It works remarkably well, all HDDs showed up, no issues with a week long stability test and SMART/Spindown all worked as expected (using Unraid) and over a USB 3.2G2 link, I had no issues with performance with spinning disks, easily doing parity writes @ 160MB/Sec sustained..

Thanks. I realised I made a typo, it's actually only 2GB RAM in the F4-212. However so far the only Docker container I'm considering is a pihole container. Obviously once I've got it I might find others, and that's the worry really. Otherwise I'd imagine my use case is pretty basic.

I'm just thinking I could get the F4-212 and D4-320 (DAS) for about the same price as the F4-424 (which I'm also struggling to find stock of).

 

[Demon]

Thanks. I realised I made a typo, it's actually only 2GB RAM in the F4-212. However so far the only Docker container I'm considering is a pihole container. Obviously once I've got it I might find others, and that's the worry really. Otherwise I'd imagine my use case is pretty basic.

I'm just thinking I could get the F4-212 and D4-320 (DAS) for about the same price as the F4-424 (which I'm also struggling to find stock of).

The F4-212 is not just 2GB, it's an arm based quad core @ 1.7ghz

How about the F2-424 (Intel N95 quad core @ 3.4Ghz / 8GB RAM) its £60 more than the F4-212 but it seems a big step up in CPU/RAM and only sacrificing 2 drives overall, assuming you stick with the D4-320.

The F2-424 will let you hardware transcoding (Plex) and would allow other OS' such as Unraid in the future (that is paid, but very much well worth it).