I look at all NAS options as BYOS. Especially after the QNAP issue…. Embracing the lab/tinkerer would be a perfect fit for a company like Terramaster. People come to YT for answers and most vocal and popular YTbers are lab guys.
I love this little nas I installed Xpenology on mine. It's surprising good at Plex transcending better than anything Synology offers at this price range. Love Synology DSM but not their hardware choices or prices. It definitely has the USB boot bug that had happened to me as well.
Can you post the link to where you got instructions on installing jellyfin? - Thanks! I found your video as I was considering this NAS. I think I'll start watching the rest of them!
9:14 - If Framework entered the NAS market with their philosophy they've done with laptops, this would be up their alley! Maybe they could even have laptop components swappable into NAS parts?
that would be pretty cool. Don't know if they support thunderbolt or usb4 but if there is someone crazy enough out there to figure out how to use the usb c pci-e to connect to a sata controller in a custom backplane, the rest would be fairly standard
For those having boot issues with the TerraMaster devices... - The problem I found on m F4-423 was lingering EFI boot options for OS's I never installed (including Windows) - The solution: 1. With a Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse hooked up, boot a live linux distro ( Fedora 38 Workstation works well ) 2. Open Terminal 3. Become root: sudo -i 4. List existing EFI boot options: efibootmgr 5. Remove any/all OS entries that you're not using: efibootmgr -B -b 0000 - Where '0000' is the ID of the OS you want to remove. Example output from step 4: Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager ... Note the '0000' in 'Boot0000' -> This is the ID to use in step 5. Once this was complete, my unit boots reliably every time to the OS I'm actually using!
I wish more youtubers gave an honest assessment of the free devices they're sent. I get really jaded by watching the folks getting free EcoFlow battery packs, coolers, and lawnmowers, pico projectors, etc.. and giving obviously overly generous reviews. This was a great take. Honest assessment of the device, and a fun project.
Didn’t think this was going to be as entertaining as it was. Another excellent production. There’s something relaxing about your content that I can’t quite explain.
It is almost scary how this video appears when I was looking into doing the same! My initial plan was to run UnRAID on a HP Prodesk and run a DAS enclosure by USB but plenty of people warned me off it, so reinstalling a new OS onto an existing NAS was my next idea. Teramaster was even the brand I was going to use!
HP Elitedesk 800 series can hold 2x 3.5", NVME on G3 or newer, than some upto 2x 2.5". I have one with Intel Core-i3 6100 which does support ECC oddly enough but motherboard does not.
@@xxgg Good to know. But I'm going for a five bay setup, so my only option with the Prodesk was to go for a HBA card or something and have cables strewn out the back. In the end I decided an existing NAS would just be less hassle. Still getting a prodesk eventually, it'll run more intensive services than the NAS.
I run a very similar setup. Lenovo m710q (tiny) attached to a DAS via USB. I know some people warn against it but it's great for personal use. I've had it deployed for over a year with zero issues.
Great video and I love your take on leaning in to installing other OSs. Synology has the all in one segment nailed already. No one is building a hardware only solution.
I wish there were more options for ITX cases with hotswap 3.5 bays on the market for DIY NAS builds. I love the compact narrow footprints of the Jonsbo n1 and SST-DS380 but the airflow and cable management is terrible. Feel like there's no decent SSF lunchbox-style case with 4x HDD bays with decent airflow and cable routes out there for full DIY with a standard board
The term hack as in hacker, originates with the MIT model railroad group. To hack meant to make an alteration. Hopefully good. So yes, you're hacking! And that's a good thing.
Really well done on the camera and editing work! The camera angle and placement for your self-recording looks really professional. And with the editing everything feels nice and seamless I also quite enjoyed the subject of this video
Great video! I have to agree with him on his points about being more tinkerer and upgrade friendly. I'm glad the manufacturer didn't lock it down at least.
Getting one form-factor for 2/3/4/5-bays, for 3.5"/2.5" or m.2 SATA, in a desktop, or rackmount chassis, would be great. Then, you just need a 2-core CPU because reasons, or a 8-core, take the motherboard that fits your needs.
I have recently got an F5-221 and agree with all you said about the device and TOS. the basic setup works fine and thats how I have left it as trying anything else just did not work or maybe I am too dumb. Speaking of dumb your display is off that unused HDMI and mouse/keyboard in the USB right?
Oh, I have exactly such a device. Yes, I also got a secure boot problem. But there is a solution on the terramaster forum. It is enough to update the bios. And everything will be fine. But the problem of heating the processor is not voiced in the video. For some unknown reason, the cooler is controlled not from the processor temperature, but from the motherboard temperature sensor. Otherwise, the iron is very good. I also used ios 5 for a short time and switched to omv6 very quickly. I am currently using casa os and am completely satisfied with the device. This is a really good device in price/performance comparison.
Sorry for the translation, I speak French. So I used the Deepl translator. Hello . I need a machine that allows me to store, share and play my multimedia files directly. I already work with libreelec but on a Dell optiplex mini pc, so not designed to support 3.5” hard disks. So I'm strongly considering using a nas terramaster, but with the possibility of installing libreelec and my 16 TB hard disks. If you still have the NAS terramaster, could you please test the LibreELEC 12 distribution?
I bought a D-link DNS 1550-04 a while back, and I cannot use that thing, the software is horrendous, and no longer supported. I wanted up upgrade to a synology rack station but I honestly can't afford. Can I change the operating system on the d-link.. To maybe DSM or or true nas? Really needing help right now as I'm scared of not having running backups of really important projects
Seconding the hardware piece. It looks like the mobo should be a straight fit from the f2-223 into the older f2-221. Terramaster should 100% sell just the boards. Would be awesome actually.
can i ask you for help? i Have this old Netgear Readynas NV+ and this Netgear can only handel smb1 so i cant enter it whit newer windows so i can manage it. Do you know any way that i can install a newer firmware so i can use it whit like windows10?...i use mac os to and there i can see all hardrives and upload things to it but i cant see it in windows...Sorry for the question,,,
I have the Terramaster F2-210 and I'm happy with it. I use it just for storage and I don't use it for any other function. The OS on it has it's problems but it works very well for my needs.
I think this would be an excellent home user/entry level NAS with TrueNAS on it instead of the Terramaster OS. The 2 core version would directly compete with the TrueNAS Mini E+ at 1/4 the price, considering the N4505 isn't too far off of the C3558 in single core performance. The Quad core version looks like it would actually offer more CPU than the E+ in fact. Nobody wants to hear they've gone the wrong direction, but developing this device with TrueNAS Core or Scale and True Charts versions of the apps they offer would be a dynamite combination. It's a shame installing your own OS voids the warranty, it looks like a fun project.
The only advantages you get by doing this is the enclosure and power efficiency. Other than that you can get so much more for you money with a custom build.
Why do you need hardware encoding. I feel any device can read media files these days. Unless it’s so you can have smaller files going out of your house
Cool video. If you ever make another DIY NAS budget build video... I highly consider HP Elitedesk 800 G3 SFF or better. From what I have searched, HP Elitedesk 800 G3 SFF case can hold 2x 3.5", 2x 2.5", 1x nvme. I don't think you can utilize m.2 wifi slot as HP bios/firmware locked it down to only allow wifi cards.... I think, not 100% sure. I've got one running a TrueNAS Scale and it's a great small minimal NAS build. (I am running OS on a SATA SSD, 2x 4TB HDD RAID1, nvme 250GB as cache (just because i got one doing nothing)
THAT IS NOT A PCI EXPRESS SLOT DO NOT PLUG CARDS INTO IT YOU WILL HAVE A VERY BAD DAY. I made this same mistake on an advantech embedded board with a "SATA" riser. Let the blue smoke out of the GPU and the motherboard... *sigh*.
Hmmm… on the listing for the actual SBC (made by tech vision) it’s listed as PCIe X4, but maybe that’s misleading. I might test it out when I get a chance
In the USA, according to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 just cutting the pointless warranty void sticker cannot legally void a warranty in the USA. Laws in other countries will vary. Since they have to prove that what you did caused the issue I don't see how they can legally claim that just installing an alternate OS voids the warranty of the hardware. The most they could do is have you install their software for troubleshooting hardware issues. (Please note I am not a lawyer & this is not legal advice.)
Margins are low on the hardware-only product so they have to offer something unique or convenient. I think it's time to ditch the hard drives, especially for a small NAS. For 16TB usable space you need 2x 16TB HDD, @ $340 CAD each for IronWolf PRO 7200RPM, that's $680 for the media alone. Team Group 2TB SSD MP44L are $110 each, so ten (two extra for redundancy) costs $1100, or 62% more. That higher price buys you much better performance, with the HDD's capable of maybe 150 IOPS, the SSDs have tens or hundreds of thousands of IOPS. What's missing is a device with many PCIe lanes and a modern Ethernet interface. Four PCIe 4.0 lanes is 64Gbps, enough for dual 25GbE. A Ryzen 7000 has 28 PCIe lanes leaving 24 lanes for NVMe, and there are embedded EPYC or ARM CPUs with even more. The rule of thumb is 1Hz per bit, so 50 gigabit should require 12 4GHz cores to service the network (though modern CPUs might beat that). A high speed Ethernet switch might be something that could also be integrated. This just one specific example, the HDD $/TB can go down with wider RAID groups or ZFS VDEVs. Large amounts of cache can hide some of the HDD performance but that's more complexity that has to be automated if anybody is actually going to use it. Personally I use dozens of recycled HDD to get decent performance, but that has it's own costs in drive shelves and interconnects, as well as electricity. To summarize, SSD are still about 2.5x the cost per capacity of HDDs, but that gap is always closing, and it doesn't need to reach parity before SSDs are a better value for the small homelab NAS or SAN.
MY biggest grip about Tera master is the password will not allow special characters like example #$%. Which is poor in this day and age for security. Yes i filled a ticket still no fix yet. I hope they don't get mad at you for opening it up to install the OS.
Bought their F4-423 few days ago, as this is my first NAS, setting up TOS5 was NOT a breeze, they gave me disk initialization error while the initial TOS installation, what a joke. After tinkering around, i had TOS5 installed, but that wasn't the end of my misery. Photobackup doesnt exist, Docker is extremely clunky, UI is sluggish and not responsive. I had enough after three days and replaced the USB Boot drive with Unraid. now it's running smooth like a dream
i cant agree more to that. after watching this video i will sell my qnap stuff, and go for this hardware, or going one step up, using pc hardware. i would pay more for a software support of unraid or others, but i wont buy it if there is only the official way. i dont know what thei think. if you let the users use other software, they cant blame you for data loss! :-) whats the problem then?
I wouldn't be installing 32GB on this but doubling up the default memory to 8GB seems fine if you're good at stick matching (dual channel?) and just doing a pair of containers. The dual USB and 2.5GbE ports on the rear IO looks like a perfect staple for any grade of modern day NAS where you just plug it in and disks go brrrr. This is a perfect example of taking the low power silicon and putting it to work properly. Keep in mind, an Intel "Celeron" the n4505 is NOT eWaste. I do actual eWaste for my NAS and that cute Celeron runs circles around my Athlon 2650e at 2/3 TDP. I get that there's no point in comparing silicon from a decade ago but this really screams volumes to efficiency and power. Also utility. I can't do encoding at all. I can't do containers either. When I invoke some file grab over 10GbE, the CPU spikes North of 50% whereas this Terra should be in the single digits. It's really good. ✅ Maybe this should be an entry level NAS for people that don't have a 2nd computer?
Tbh, I ran across this NAS thinking it was just a thunderbolt drive bay. When I realized it was a NAS like synology with it's own software eco system I immediately became disinterested, but after this video I'm at least considering it again since it sounds like a nice flexible, portable NAS. Terramaster should really lean into keeping the system open even if they begin making a solid OS.
Nononono, you're on to something there. And I hope Terramaster is listening! We used to put all kinds of drives and interfaces in an old SCSI drive chassis because the SCSI centronics 50 pin connector was bigger than anything else that we could just fit an interface board into the place the old centronics port lived. That's how Intel's been doing motherboards since the ATX family was introduced and even if Terramaster doesn't want to use e.g. mini-ITX, that's fine. Just make the next revision of these devices have an opening and an I/O plate on the motherboard and you'd be able to just upgrade their product to the latest and the top of their product line as it was upgraded. And um, that's even better because every time you have to basically e-waste an old product, you find yourself looking at its competition when buying the new one. Except if you've already got a possibly 8-bay chassis and a serviceable power supply of sufficient power, why would you buy that stuff again to switch brands if you were happy with what you had before? I'm sure their software serves a certain market just fine (or if it doesn't, as you said you can run whatever you want instead…) Lean into the fact that they've got conveniently the hardware you want at a good price.
Terramaster people. I past up you NAS, because of the OS on it. Being able to put on TrueNAS would have put me over the fence to buy this unit. Not know it was possible made me pass on it, and go a different route.
So, people pay monthly fees for RU-vid red to not watch adds. RU-vidrs feel the need to create adds to force their viewers to watch adds,... thats not rude or inconsiderate at all. 🤬👎
Interesting... I've always DIY'd my server stuff, but that's funny that you can basically hack a prebuilt solution to run it how you want... Colten, I know Terramaster sent you the unit you were demo-ing in the video but you technically voided your warranty.... lol. I just find that funny that you highlighted that....
In a hunt for a nas either pre built or diy , i agree 100% with the suggestions on terramaster making upgrades and such things for thse type of devices . would be very enticing .
Very interesting and informative. This really makes one wonder why companies push software that is so buggy it is non-functional. Clearly not well tested. Especially sad when it is apparently accompanied by a solid piece of hardware. I have a bare-bones, bottom-of-the-line Synology box and its OS (DSM) has been relatively easy to use and bug-free. Maybe this outfit should just throw in the towel and offer options pre-configured with OMV or TrueNAS/XigmaNAS.
When I was building my NAS - I searched far and wide for a bare-bones no-OS x86 system with nice hardware and a good hot swap drive bay setup - and couldn't find one, ended up building a monstrosity. I would still be very interested in a nice tower with a bunch (4+, 8 would be awesome) of hot-swap drive bays, and a solid motherboard and hardware - that wasn't $4000. hint hint. not needed are glass panels or RGB or water cooling - just lots of bays, a good drive controller with lots of ports, and a decent motherboard.
I don't consider your review a really negative one of the terramaster. The hardware appears to be really nice and well thought out. I have a Qnap NAS with five 12TB drives so obviously I don't have a need. If I did though I would definitely consider Terramaster as an option given your basic review.
I would only want the 4 or more drive unit...this way one could do a RAIDZ1 it...Or be able to have different size drives in it (just ordered me a Terramaster F4-223 [you guys are killin' me ;) ] ) Very awesome that it's hackable to be able to put open NAS software out there! Keep em coming!!!!
Yea a terramaster is what I need for proxmox backup server with maybe a backup of pihole on it and running my media vault as my proxmox 12900k runs to much power for my liking to leave it on all the time. Or a protecli i7router if it had 2 nvme and ability to add 4 hdd
interesting hardware I took the "turn your old PC into a NAS" route. I used Xpenology and it works but has a few drawbacks from using a real Synology (no remote access) The Terramaster hardware sure looks nice but the OS isn't getting great press. I still haven't OMV but i might need to give it a try. I have a 1st gen i7-920 PC that would make a great NAS.
Wow, I literally got my F2-421 in the mail yesterday. Unfortunately there's no spot for an m.2 drive, but it was super cheap. I'm planning on at least doing a RAM upgrade and putting in an Arctic fan, mostly just to see if I can, it has JST connectors instead of normal fan headers.
your built nas is much better than hacking a prebuilt overpriced under performing piece of garbage - the value proposition isn't even close and it was nice to see you lean forward
I have the 5-bay model with integrated 10G. I don't know the model right now, but I wanted to install a different OS, too. I hope that it is as easy as in your model, I haven't got around to it, though...maybe next holidays :D
Hello, it is possible if you help me confirm if it is possible to install OMV on a F2-210, this in order to free it up more because terramaster does not allow installing many simple things.
I've been thinking about buying the TERRAMASTER D5-330 with Thunderbolt 3, but if I recall right it doesn't have very good support Linux. I had no idea you could install your own software. Do you know if this works on the above mentioned or not?
I believe that’s a DAS unit (direct attached storage), not NAS. So an operating system can’t be installed on it. It has to be connected to another computer
I built a NAS using a raspberry Pi 4 and a USB 3 dual dock. It did cost me $90 total as I reused leftover disks. Performances are below a dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet + Intel 4000 series equipment, but it fills its purpose as backup server. OMV is not usable (slow UI), so I use raw Samba. Another Raspberry Pi 4 serves as a TV recording NAS (Jellyfin) and struggles: transcoding is not usable. (It almost works after a software upgrade, so there is hope.) I don't use old PCs, even if cheaper, because of size, energy use and fan noise. I like the split since I have two network rings: an inner network for desktops with sensitive data (no WiFi), an outer network for home automation and entertainment. This to say that there is no hard rules, and going for cheap can be fun too.
