The TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus might not be unique in terms of features, but it is as far as we're aware, the smallest eight slot, all-flash storage NAS to date. The compact form factor is not a hindrance though, as the performance is there, although the PCIe 3.0 x1 interface on the SSD side appears to hamper the random performance, which is worth keeping in mind if you copy a lot of smaller files. On the other hand, the sequential copy speeds, both to and from the F8 SSD Plus are in general as good as we'd expect, even if some RAID modes weren't quite behaving as expected in all test scenarios. Hopefully this is something TerraMaster can address over time, but it's not what we'd call a dealbreaker, especially considering the improvements in performance we saw from the shipping build of TOS 6 to the one we finally installed for the review. On the other hand, it would've been impossible to recommend that anyone should buy the F8 SSD Plus based on the initial performance figures, as in many tests, the performance was nowhere near where it was supposed to be. Thankfully this has been resolved.

On the hardware side of things, we're looking at a pretty balanced solution, even though the SoC lacks sufficient native PCIe lanes, but with a 10 Gbps Ethernet interface being the bottleneck here, the combination of the ASMedia PCIe bridge chip and a single PCIe 3.0 lane per SSD is unlikely to matter. That said, the full 10 Gbps performance can be delivered, although it depends on the type of data being copied. The Intel Core i3-N305 and the 16 GB of DDR5 RAM makes the F8 SSD Plus a pretty high-end NAS for its market segment. The only real complaints are the included heatsinks, which need a better way of being attached to the M.2 SSDs, and the somewhat wobbly design, as there's no way to place the F8 SSD Plus on its side appropriately.

The F8 SSD Plus is without a doubt a niche device in the NAS market, but for those that are looking for a compact NAS that stays quiet even when the fans kick in, this might be what you've been waiting for. With the level of performance that it delivers, the F8 could be an excellent backup solution for those that work with a lot of video or other large files, as long as you have a 10 Gbps network card in your workstation. As a high-end consumer NAS, the F8 SSD Plus offers the advantage of being very discreet, and the low noise output is also a huge bonus here. This is likely to be a device that no-one will complain about at home. At US$800, the F8 SSD Plus isn't cheap, but it doesn't have many competitors in the market either, although you don't get a terrible amount of hardware for that money. TerraMaster does offer a cheaper US$600 model simply called the F8 SSD which features the less powerful, quad-core Intel Processor N95 and only 8 GB of RAM as standard, but it still comes with a 10 Gbps Ethernet port, making it an interesting alternative for those that are looking at high data throughput over the network, but that might not care so much about what else they can run on their NAS. That said, TerraMaster's own F4-424 Pro comes with the same Core i3-N305 SoC and twice the RAM at 32 GB, yet it only costs US$700, making the F8 SSD Plus look a tad overpriced, especially as the F4-424 Pro still offers two PCIe 3.0 x1 M.2 NVMe slots for SSDs, as well as four drive bays for hard drives, in a much larger chassis that has to cost more to produce.

Overall we quite liked the F8 SSD Plus and TOS 6 is a big upgrade in many ways over TOS 5.1, even though it still appears to have some issues that are being addressed. Had TerraMaster not solved the performance issues we experienced, we wouldn't have been able to recommend the F8 SSD Plus, as it was underperforming severely where it mattered when it arrived. However, those issues have since been resolved and TOS 6 has seen regular updates on an almost monthly basis, which is a good sign that TerraMaster is willing to invest in its NAS OS. For those expecting feature parity with the likes of Synology or QNAP, you had best look elsewhere, but for anyone looking for a pretty user-friendly NAS OS with most of the features you'd expect, TOS 6 is not a bad way to go. At the end of the day, you need to make sure that the OS of any NAS offers the features you want before getting one, although today, Docker can solve quite a few software limitations that it wasn't possible to get around in the past.

Now, should you buy the F8 SSD Plus or not, that is a tricky one, largely due to the current cost of M.2 NVMe drives. As long as you can afford to invest in the SSDs, it's definitely a solid piece of kit, but for most people, it would be limited to 16 TB at most, since putting anything more than eight 2 TB NVMe drives into it would quickly become cost prohibitive. Then again, if this is something you'd use for work, it might not be a big deal and as mentioned, there aren't many competitive alternatives on the market, so we give it a thumbs up, but with the caveat that it's a pricey NAS that will cost even more to get storage media for.