Introduction
Today, we will review, analyze and test the TerraMaster F4-424 Pro four-bay NAS. At the heart of this NAS, you will find an Intel Core i3 N300 8-core processor, 32GB RAM, and two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet connections. Next to four HDD/SSD slots, there's also space for two NVMe M2 SSDs.The TerraMaster F4-424 Pro, with its four 2.5"/3.5" HDD/SSD trays, also has two M.2. slots (PCIe Gen 3.0). This new model is designed with a professional consumer in mind. However, we believe that every family should have a NAS device. The F4-423 comes into play if you demand rapid and huge capacity storage for movies transmitted to several devices.n addition to its four 3.5" and compatible 2.5" slots (which thus can accommodate SATA3 HDDs and SSDs). If you have a Multi-GigE Ethernet infrastructure, you can achieve 300 MB/sec across a single Ethernet connection, and the CPU is more than quick enough to keep that file stream locked and loaded. Two 2.5 GbE ports with up to 5 Gbps under Link Aggregation
- 4K HDMI output / transcode H.265 (HEVC), MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1
- 8-Core Intel N300 Processor
- 4GB DDR4-2933/3200
- Supports Wake on LAN and Wake on WAN
It has a 4K-enabled iGPU with embedded graphics support (mostly used as a transcoding engine for NAS). That means that both the native media applications from Terramaster and Plex Media Server will support transcoding. So that offers plenty of performance while remaining energy efficient as well. A NAS is, in fact, a server, so it'll need some system memory as well. Included is 8GB or 32GB DDR5 (SO-DIMM) memory. You will also note that thanks to hardware transcoding engine codecs like H.265 (HEVC), MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-2, VC-1; maximum resolution: 4K (4096 x 2160); maximum frame rate per second (FPS): 60. So you may view high-quality videos from YouTube and Twitch as soon as the NAS device's HDMI 2.0a output is activated. The software included with your purchase of a NAS includes largely first-party media management, file management, backup, and system utilities. There is also support for the more recent docker/container program for operating smaller virtual environments; VirtualBox is supported for larger VMs and features ClamAV Protection for protection against intrusion, malware, viruses, and more. We evaluate the 4-bay model, which is packed with capabilities and a wealth of software that enables anything from a basic FTP server to VM-aware solutions and an abundance of media functions. MySQL (MariaDB) support is featured on the F4-424 (Pro), which can perform various jobs. Desktop software (PC/MAC) with a Linux-based graphical user interface may operate the NAS (GUI). Additionally, Android and iOS apps may be used to monitor the NAS. We will put this device to the test using an NVMe SSD.
| CPU: | Intel Core i3 N300 |
| GPU: | Intel UHD Graphics (32EU) |
| RAM: | 32GB DDR5 (Maximum Size) |
| Storage: | Four 3.5-inch Hard Drives Up To 80TB (20TB X4), Or 2.5-inch Hard Drives/SSDs + 2 X M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 Drives. |
| USB: | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C |
| Raid Types: | TRAID, Single, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID5, RAID 6, RAID 10 |
| Weight | 3.4kg |
| Dimensions | 222 X 179 X 154mm |
| Networking | 2x 2.5GbE LAN |
| OS | TOS 5.1 |
| Internal File Systems | Btrfs, EXT4 |
| External File Systems | EXT3, EXT4, NTFS, FAT32, HFS+ |
| OS Languages | English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Magyar, Chinese, Japanese, Korean , Turkish, Portuguese And Russian |
The TerraMaster F4-424 series features two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, an HDMI output, and two 2.5GbE LAN connections. The HDMI output is used mainly for Linux command line interaction, as the TerraMaster operating system does not include a graphical user interface. The design of this series, including the F4-424 Pro model, has been improved to allow easier access to RAM and M.2 NVMe slots. Accessing the motherboard for upgrades or maintenance is simplified, requiring the removal of only two screws, a notable improvement over the full disassembly required by earlier models. The F4-424 Pro stands out from the base F4-424 model by featuring a more powerful processor and increased memory capacity, offering 32GB compared to the base model's 8GB. This enhancement results in a price increase of about $200, considering the market price of a 32GB DDR5 SODIMM module is approximately $100. Anyway, let's head onwards into the review.