TerraMaster NAS and DAs units, any good?

[GoogalyMoogaly]

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).

Yeah the CPU did worry me too. I think the issue is I don't know what I need. Will I need transcoding or will I want to run Unraid? I just don't know.
Part of me thinks to just get the cheaper one (F4-212) and see how it goes, but the other part of me keeps thinking of the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice".

 

[Demon]

Yeah the CPU did worry me too. I think the issue is I don't know what I need. Will I need transcoding or will I want to run Unraid? I just don't know.
Part of me thinks to just get the cheaper one (F4-212) and see how it goes, but the other part of me keeps thinking of the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice".

Yeah, indeed.. if you just want a file server running lightweight things like pi-hole then anything will do.. If you then find more uses for the NAS, then it becomes and issue..

Why not just build a NAS from cheap second hand components? My NAS is just my old PC bits in a new case with a cheap LSI controller (miniSAS to 8 SATA) for loads of HDDs..

Cases like the Fractal Design 7 with support for 14HDDs (I think you need to buy extra cages to get all those in) and for more SATA ports you can get HBA cards (the LSI-9207-8i preflashed in IT mode which support TrueNAS/Unraid etc) which gives you 8 SATA ports from one PCIE 3.0 slot and they are cheap.

I've bought loads of second hand stuff of these forums, I'm running an old Ryzen 3600 + B-450F Asus motherboard and in total the server that can hold around 12 HDDs + 6 SSDs was £300

You could start off small, you don't need an HBA card until you exceed the SATA ports on the motherboard, and you don't need a huge case, anything that holds a few HDDs is fine, then upgrade when you need it, and upgrade costs are cheap.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Yeah, indeed.. if you just want a file server running lightweight things like pi-hole then anything will do.. If you then find more uses for the NAS, then it becomes and issue..

Why not just build a NAS from cheap second hand components? My NAS is just my old PC bits in a new case with a cheap LSI controller (miniSAS to 8 SATA) for loads of HDDs..

Cases like the Fractal Design 7 with support for 14HDDs (I think you need to buy extra cages to get all those in) and for more SATA ports you can get HBA cards (the LSI-9207-8i preflashed in IT mode which support TrueNAS/Unraid etc) which gives you 8 SATA ports from one PCIE 3.0 slot and they are cheap.

I've bought loads of second hand stuff of these forums, I'm running an old Ryzen 3600 + B-450F Asus motherboard and in total the server that can hold around 12 HDDs + 6 SSDs was £300

You could start off small, you don't need an HBA card until you exceed the SATA ports on the motherboard, and you don't need a huge case, anything that holds a few HDDs is fine, then upgrade when you need it, and upgrade costs are cheap.

Yeah, an option I suppose.
But getting small form factor stuff is expensive and also limits HDD space. If you don't go SFF then it's going to be considerably bigger than a F4-212 and D4-320 combined. Plus what if it turns out all I want is a file/media server?
I don't know, I'm rubbish at making decisions. Currently running a QNAP TS-112, so anything will be better than that!

 

[Snapshot]

Personally I don't like ARM-based NASs. The CPUs all seem feeble compared with Intel-based models and the small, non-expandable RAM seems insufficient. The N95 CPU in the F4-424 is class-leading, well ahead of the N5105 in the Asustor AS5404T which I consider its nearest competitor. What I can't find for the F4-424 (apart from stock!) is whether the M.2 slots can be used for data or only cache. This is clear for the AS5404T - any of the four slots can be used for data or cache.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

well, you guys really putting me off the F4-212!

Maybe I'm best to wait for the F4-424 (non-pro) to be back in stock.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Personally I don't like ARM-based NASs. The CPUs all seem feeble compared with Intel-based models and the small, non-expandable RAM seems insufficient. The N95 CPU in the F4-424 is class-leading, well ahead of the N5105 in the Asustor AS5404T which I consider its nearest competitor. What I can't find for the F4-424 (apart from stock!) is whether the M.2 slots can be used for data or only cache. This is clear for the AS5404T - any of the four slots can be used for data or cache.

Website seems to suggest only as cache.

The F4-424 is in stock again now so I'm very tempted to go for it.
I'm just worried that it might be overkill for my needs and I'm wasting ~£180. But I don't want to regret it later when it's too slow or can't do something...