Initial Setup

Nothing much has changed in terms of the setup since our review of the F4 SSD, and considering there has only been two minor releases of TOS 6 since then, we didn't really expect any big changes either. TerraMaster's TNAS PC application allows you to quickly find your NAS on the network and start the setup process. We did a typical setup, with the OS installed onto the mechanical drives, since it doesn't seem to affect the performance of the NAS if you install the OS on mechanical or solid state drives, but boot-up times are faster with the OS installed on an SSD. All the steps remain the same as well, so we're not going to waste too much time here, for a more detailed look at TOS 6, please read "A Closer Look at TOS 6" in the TerraMaster F8 Plus SSD review, as there has been no major changes to how the OS works since then.


When we reviewed the F4 SSD, the TOS version was 6.0.750 and by now, TerraMaster is on version 6.0.783. No new features have been added, but the company has fixed some security vulnerabilities, alongside various bugs, but none of the bugs appear to have been serious based on the release notes. That said, it's always good to see when companies are proactively working on improving their software and addressing issues that are reported by users. What we can't tell is if TerraMaster has upgraded the Linux kernel, as the company likes to obfuscate things here too and it looks like nothing has changed since the F4 SSD review, at least not as far as we can tell.


Not everything is perfect though and after having tested the Asustor Nimbustor 4 Gen2 AS5404T, we really wish all the NAS makers had working SMB multichannel, which we of course tested the F4-425 Plus with enabled, but we didn't see any performance gain whatsoever. In fact, some tests came out significantly worse and after having run a full set of tests with SMB multichannel enabled in combination with RAID 5, we decided to skip further testing with it enabled. This is disappointing, especially as TerraMaster claims speeds of up to 1020 MB/s in the specs for the F4-425 Plus, where the company mentions both bonding of multiple network interfaces—which would require a managed switch—and specifically SMB multichannel. With the Asustor, we simply plugged in the second Ethernet port to the switch and everything worked, but even after enabling SMB multichannel in the settings for the F4-425 Plus, none of our tests showed any kind of performance gain. In many tests, the performance actually came out worse with SMB multichannel enabled, or at best, within the margin of testing. This is disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, as this seems to be common issue among other NAS makers as well. The tricky part with SMB multichannel is that there's no simply way of knowing if it's enabled and working, as you simply enable it under the file services in the NAS, and then it should be working. It seems like some companies have figured out how to get it working properly, whereas others have a feature tick box that doesn't really do anything.

Beyond that, TOS 6 is pretty solid and delivers what you expect from a NAS OS, and with this being our fourth review of a device with TOS 6, we've gotten quite comfortable using the OS. We should add that TerraMaster has added a version of its TNAS PC application for Linux since our most recent review, this is a desktop assistant that will find the NAS on the network, and it gives you remote access to some of the system resource monitors, which can be handy for monitoring your NAS without needing to login to it. TNAS was previously only available for Windows and macOS, although TerraMaster doesn't specify which Linux operating systems they support, but it seems to be a Debian package which could limit compatibility to Debian based versions of Linux.

Disk Configuration

Below is the output from the lsblk command on Linux, which shows the disk configuration. As pointed out in a previous review, TOS 6 lists everything as expected. Note that the three SSDs are listed as the sdz devices towards the end.

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 3.6T 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 285M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 7.6G 0 part
│ └─md9 9:9 0 7.6G 0 raid1 /
├─sda3 8:3 0 1.9G 0 part
│ └─md8 9:8 0 1.9G 0 raid1 [SWAP]
└─sda4 8:4 0 3.6T 0 part
└─md0 9:0 0 10.9T 0 raid5
└─vg0-lv0 252:0 0 10.9T 0 lvm /home
/Volume1
/var/subvols/8vEbTxkKvwa
sdb 8:16 0 3.6T 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 285M 0 part
├─sdb2 8:18 0 7.6G 0 part
│ └─md9 9:9 0 7.6G 0 raid1 /
├─sdb3 8:19 0 1.9G 0 part
│ └─md8 9:8 0 1.9G 0 raid1 [SWAP]
└─sdb4 8:20 0 3.6T 0 part
└─md0 9:0 0 10.9T 0 raid5
└─vg0-lv0 252:0 0 10.9T 0 lvm /home
/Volume1
/var/subvols/8vEbTxkKvwa
sdc 8:32 0 3.6T 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 0 285M 0 part
├─sdc2 8:34 0 7.6G 0 part
├─sdc3 8:35 0 1.9G 0 part
└─sdc4 8:36 0 3.6T 0 part
└─md0 9:0 0 10.9T 0 raid5
└─vg0-lv0 252:0 0 10.9T 0 lvm /home
/Volume1
/var/subvols/8vEbTxkKvwa
sdd 8:48 0 3.6T 0 disk
├─sdd1 8:49 0 285M 0 part
├─sdd2 8:50 0 7.6G 0 part
├─sdd3 8:51 0 1.9G 0 part
└─sdd4 8:52 0 3.6T 0 part
└─md0 9:0 0 10.9T 0 raid5
└─vg0-lv0 252:0 0 10.9T 0 lvm /home
/Volume1
/var/subvols/8vEbTxkKvwa
nbd0 43:0 0 0B 0 disk
nbd1 43:32 0 0B 0 disk
nbd2 43:64 0 0B 0 disk
nbd3 43:96 0 0B 0 disk
nbd4 43:128 0 0B 0 disk
nbd5 43:160 0 0B 0 disk
nbd6 43:192 0 0B 0 disk
nbd7 43:224 0 0B 0 disk
sdzc 259:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─sdzc1 259:2 0 1.8T 0 part
sdzb 259:1 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─sdzb1 259:3 0 1.8T 0 part
sdza 259:4 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdza1 259:5 0 931.5G 0 part
nbd8 43:256 0 0B 0 disk
nbd9 43:288 0 0B 0 disk
nbd10 43:320 0 0B 0 disk
nbd11 43:352 0 0B 0 disk
nbd12 43:384 0 0B 0 disk
nbd13 43:416 0 0B 0 disk
nbd14 43:448 0 0B 0 disk
nbd15 43:480 0 0B 0 disk