TERRAMASTER F2-423 2-Bay High Performance NAS for SMB with N5095 Quad-core CPU, 4GB DDR4 Memory, 2.5GbE Port x 2, Network Storage Server (Diskless)

I just picked up TerraMaster F4-423 NAS, and it's been an absolute game-changer for my home network. The F4-423 effortlessly runs my Plex Media Server, streaming 4K content to multiple devices simultaneously without breaking a sweat. Transcoding is handled with ease, thanks to the powerful CPU and hardware acceleration capabilities with Plex Pass.I paired the F4-423 with four 18TB IronWolf drives, giving me a massive storage pool for my media library and other files. The IronWolf drives are designed for NAS environments, and their performance and reliability have been flawless.Beyond Plex, I use the F4-423 for various other tasks, including file sharing and Docker containers. The TerraMaster TOS operating system is user-friendly and offers a wide range of features and apps to customize the NAS to your needs.Pros:Handles demanding tasks like Plex transcoding with easeLarge storage capacity: Supports up to 80TB of storage with four drives2.5GbE networking: Blazing-fast data transfer speedsUser-friendly OS: TerraMaster TOS is intuitive and easy to useAffordable: Offers excellent value for the priceCons:Limited RAM in base configuration: Consider upgrading to 8GB or more for optimal performanceThe TerraMaster F4-423 is an excellent NAS for home users and small businesses who need a powerful, reliable, and affordable storage solution. Its powerful hardware, ample storage capacity, and user-friendly OS make it a top choice for Plex media servers, file sharing, backups, and other NAS tasks. Highly recommended!

Have used a Zyxel NAS-540 for the last 7 years, my main purpose for it is iTunes library containment and sharing and backup of my PCs. Had a couple HDD failures and decided 7 years was too long for any computer component - and found the Terramaster F4-423 on Amazon through searching for NAS products. The all-aluminum case attracted me to this product as well as the dual fans. Came quickly and well packaged - I also ordered 4x Samsung 1TB SSDs from Amazon via Terramaster’s helpful compatibility list (time to join the 21st century and retire the old HDD spindles!). Very glad I made this purchase - really everything was quite easy for an “advanced novice” to handle. Only challenge on installation was fitting the 2.5” SSDs to the included carriers (the included screws work fine, just a little kludgey at first). The downloadable PC desktop app works like a charm and found my new Terramaster immediately which enabled me to initialize everything with just a few clicks. I put my 4x SSDs in old school RAID-5, but Terramaster includes some nifty advanced data protection algorithms which would be really helpful for having disks of different sizes for sure. Overall it didn’t take too much effort to move data over and start to use the new NAS - I was able to listen to tunes via Sonos within 2 hours of unboxing. There are many many features on the desktop app, most of which I likely won’t use but could see it being helpful for business users like remote access and iSCSI target just for instance. The NIC teaming feature worked amazingly well for a non-CCNA - I told the app what I wanted to do and it offered some options and away it went. Just a well thought out and put together OS, app, and overall design. Nice they included cushioned “feet” for the desk surface as well - small touches that really complete the job.Only wishes: slicker drive carriers that maybe don’t require a screwdriver (again, file under “wouldn’t that be nice!”) and a data migration tool from existing storage would be amazing for those with more rudimentary Windows/networking skills. It may very well have one I just don’t know it’s called - there again are a lot of features.Would highly recommend this to anyone in the market for a well priced, well engineered, and nice looking small NAS!

The F2-423 NAS has so far performed solidly for me. After getting past the initial learning curve for the user interface, it was straightforward to create users, groups, shared folders, etc.One of my requirements when shopping for a NAS was disk encryption. Although full-disk encryption is not supported, encryption of shared folders is. One important note is the encryption keys are not cached in the hardware, which means whenever the NAS is rebooted, each encrypted shared folder must be manually mounted, and the encryption key must be entered manually. This is actually a good thing, because if the device is stolen, the data will be inaccessible.When creating an encrypted shared folder, there is a prompt to enter the encryption key. The UI lists several special characters that are not allowed. However, when attempting to create a key with the "@" and ":" characters (which are not on the "not allowed" list), the folder creation returned an "operation failed" message without explaining why it failed. After scratching my head for a while, it finally occurred to me to remove the special characters, and the shared folders were created successfully.A couple of other quirks around the Security Advisor:- "Security isolation mode" is reported as not enabled when it is.- "Firewall": Security Advisor recommends to create firewall rules. It seemed odd to me that Terramaster did not provide default firewall rules and relied on their customers to create them. There do appear to be default firewall rules included in the TOS 6.0 beta, although Security Advisor still complains that no firewall rules are set.In all fairness, none of the quirks should be considered non-starters when deciding whether to purchase this product. It is a very solid, cost-effective storage solution for personal or small business use.