TERRAMASTER F4-210 4-bay NAS Quad Core 2GB RAM Media Server
TERRAMASTER F4-210 4-bay NAS Quad Core 2GB RAM Media Server Personal Cloud Storage (Diskless)
From the brand
TerraMaster’s focus has been on digital storage products. In line with the evolving technological landscape, TerraMaster has developed a distinctive product line, which includes both direct and network attached storage devices.
At present, TerraMaster sells its products in more than 40 countries, which are widely used in education, finance, government, supermarkets, clinics, scientific research, law firms, film production, home, and other fields.
| Weight: | 3.29 kg |
| Dimensions: | 22 x 22 x 13 cm; 3.29 kg |
| Brand: | TERRAMASTER |
| Model: | F4-210 |
| Colour: | Silver |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | TERRAMASTER |
| Dimensions: | 22 x 22 x 13 cm; 3.29 kg |
Lot going for this unit, currently have 4x4TB Red drives in, once syc it’s great of kit
Down side is not a lot of apps, but has got Google drive and Microsoft OneDrive to syc your data locally
The TERRAMASTER F2-212 2-Bay NAS strikes a balance as a capable home storage solution. It is equipped with a Quad-Core 1619B processor and 1GB of DDR4 RAM, which proficiently manage data and backup tasks, although the fixed RAM may restrict more demanding applications. A major strength lies in its excellent Docker support via the TERRAMASTER OS, allowing for the operation of multiple simple Docker containers. However, the modest hardware can be a bottleneck for running complex or multiple Docker applications concurrently. This makes the NAS ideal for basic to moderate usage scenarios, where its strengths in simplicity and Docker integration can be best utilized without pushing its limits. Overall, it’s a dependable choice for those needing straightforward, functional network attached storage with the added versatility of Docker.
Helpful Tip for Docker Manager:
When starting with Docker Manager, which is the most straightforward way to deploy Docker on this NAS, be sure to disable the “enable automatic boot on startup” option. This precaution can save you a lot of hassle. If you make a configuration error or install a resource-heavy container by mistake (making your NAS freeze), having this setting off prevents the container from automatically reloading upon a system restart. I learned this the hard way after making a mistake, I ended up having to reset the TOS and manually remove containers because uninstalling Docker Manager alone doesn’t clear active containers. This will prevent your NAS from potentially freezing up again when you reinstall Docker Manager and/or start the application.
I bought this NAS enclosure to replace an outgoing western digital device. I had 3 2TB drives laying around and looking at the price and reviews, thought, why not.
The installation was easy, but it was about to bite in the bum!
Looking at video reviews and checking the Terramaster website, it was all about the new TOS 5 operating system. How good it was, how it had been improved and the added extras.
So, I plugged in the enclosure, added the drives, started the process and away I went. Oh! Don’t forget to check for updates!
Funny, it was up to date, yet I was showing TOS 4? No, can’t be, try again. Nope, TOS 4 latest update.
So, a quick jump on terramaster website and to check amazon, no mention of not being able to update.
I did the chat bot thing, and the answer I got from Terramaster! Send it back pay another 200 and buy the latest one.
Now, I’m not a legal eagle, but surely, if selling what seems to be a device that will probably be discontinued, and I don’t know, should they not state that it cannot be updated to the new operating system.
It would be like buying a windows 10 PC, and to be told, “sorry mate, can’t do windows 11”.
Customer service was not sympathetic in anyway, not helpful.
My fault! You will have your opinions, but buyer beware.
Rather than buy 2 4TB hard disks, for about the same price, I opted to purchase a TerraMaster F4-210 4-bay unit plus an additional 2TB HDD – which would allow me to set up a 4TB Raid5 with a spare bay for future expansion.
In addition to a faster cpu and twice as much RAM compared to my old NAS — the TerraMaster also comes with many more apps especially a couple of fully-featured media servers which I was eager to experiment with for all my movies, music and photos stored on the NAS.
My other NAS offers a good basic DNLA server and I’m hoping to implement one with a “glossy” front-end like the on-demand websites provide.
So, unit was ordered on Monday — arrived the following day (thanks Amazon).
Setup was very easy, just log into the website noted on the leaflet included in the box and follow the stepwise, very clear, instruction screens which walk you through installing your drives and turning on your NAS, then automatically downloads the latest TOS operating system and walks you through setup pretty much like Windows does.
As mentioned above, I have 2TB hard-disks. They’re actually Desktop models (not optimised for 24/7 NAS use) and NOT in TerraMaster’s compatibility list but I figured I’d give it a try. I pulled one from my old NAS and mounted it in one of the F4-210’s slots during setup. At the appropriate point, the NAS tested the HDD and reported it “good” (phew).
As expected, although in EXT4 format, the TerraMaster NAS needed to reformat the drive — so I’d have to copy all my data across from the disk still in the old NAS. I opted initially for a non-Raid ‘single disk’ configuration as my ordered HDD was still awaited with a view to upgrading to Raid 1, and thence to Raid 5 once I’d got all 3 drives installed.
So, couple of days later, I’ve replicated my share-folders and users, and have transferred all my data across and checked. I’ve also installed one of the Multimedia servers and linked in all my multimedia folders — it’s proven simpler and better than I expected.
The F4-210 NAS, with 2 large cooling fans, is virtually silent. You could easily have it sat on your desktop I guess. The most noise encountered was the chattering of the hard-drives when copying the masses of data across. Overall, massively impressed.
Next steps to upgrade my configuration to Raid 5, investigate setting up my own email server (another app new to me) and also investigate encryption of shared folders…
It was also intended for her to use it to stream media files to the TV – more on this later.
I previously bought a 4 bay TerraMaster NAS drive which we currently use to store all data and stream media files. This has been working very well and we are more than happy with it. Hence the decision to buy another TerraMaster.
So back to the review of the F2-210, I bought two secondhand 2Tb WD green drives. These were installed and drive device was connected up and switched on. When I tried to find the device using my PC and the installed TerraMaster software, it was not found – I could only see my existing NAS drive.
It turned out that when installing, you need to have only one drive on the network, so I had to power down my 4-bay TerraMaster and then power the F2-210 on again.
This time it found it and I was able to get the TOS installed and get the drives set up with RAID-0 giving me about 4Tb.
I then used the web interface to select my preferences on the System settings and I installed the TerraMaster Multimedia Server app. I then proceeded to start copying files. I decided to copy the video files to the folder “Video” and the pictures to the folder “Photo”.
As the NAS drive is connected by a gigabit ethernet, I was not expecting transfer rates more than 110 MB/s and when reading files to an SSD drive on my PC, this is the read rate I got. Writing to the drives was a little slower though averaging between 70-100 MB/s – maybe installing the Multimedia Server first affected the write time as it was probably trying to update its library on the fly.
Once all the files had been copied over, I tried to find the device on my Samsung Smart TV. I found the DLNA device but only a handful of video files were showing – where were they?
So I wiped the drive and instead used the folder “Public” for multimedia and re-copied the files – this then worked
I then turned my old TerraMaster back on again and the new HAS drive was no longer visible from the TV.
I realised that I needed to use separate ports for each NAS drive, so I changed the port on the F2-210 and rebooted it.
I could now see both DLNA devices. So I tried playing some video files. It all worked EXCEPT when it came to fast-forward. So I contacted the previously very helpful tech support and they told me that the F2-210 is different to my 4-bay NAS and fast-forwarding will not work at the moment.
This was the only disappointment I have had with the system – hence 4 stars instead of 5.
Lastly I wanted to see how the quad core processor would cope. So I got the system doing lots of things at once. streaming video files, playing music, viewing holiday pics on my PC and installing another app.
There was a definite slowing down, but in general it seemed to cope very well.
All in all, I like this system as a NAS storage device. There are so many apps available that I will never use, but hopefully someone will.