Introduction: In recent years, with the rise of private cloud NAS, its categories are becoming more and more abundant, there are fashion brands based on audio-visual entertainment, which are relatively simple and easy to use, and TV, mobile phones, and computers can watch many ** data saved in NAS, which is very convenient. But when it comes to professional gameplay and safety, TerraMaster is more reliable. As a national professional NAS brand, TerraMaster has been deeply involved in the NAS field for nearly 10 years, and its data backup, security protection and system compatibility are more powerful.
Recently, I suddenly came up with a different way of living, and I was ready to put all the information of my life**, personal collection**, and study and work materials in the private cloud NAS for future travel, considering the extreme importance of relevant data, I finally chose TerraMaster F4-424 Pro professional private cloud as a private network storage server. This article combines the experience of using it in the past week to share this product with you:
Product Introduction
TerraMaster F4-424 Pro is a new NAS product launched in January 2024, which is based on the Intel Core i3-N305 processor, equipped with 32GB large memory as standard, and adopts 2 2280 SSD bays + 4 SATA hard disk bays with a capacity design, and a high configuration of 25G dual network port, A+C dual USB32. Interface design. According to the current 4T solid-state drive and 20TB mechanical hard disk, it can also store 88TB of data, even if the data is double-backed up, it is enough for three or four people to share it. The following figure shows the specific parameters:
What level of processor is the i3-N305? Let's take a comparison chart of its performance evaluation with common NAS processors such as N100, N6006, N5105, and J4125. The i3-N305 adopts an 8-core and 8-thread design, with a turbo frequency of up to 38GHz, ** buffer 6MB, TDP power consumption 15W, CPU Mark running score at 10010 points. Its performance is equivalent to 2 of the N510525 times that of the N10078 times.
From the perspective of memory, before opening the cover, I thought that TerraMaster F4-424 Pro used DDR4 specification memory, because the cost of DDR4 specification memory is much cheaper. But after opening the cover, I found that it was actually DDR5 specifications, DDR5 specifications have high memory costs, but the main frequency starting point is 4800MHz frequency, which is faster and has less delay.
In order to give full play to the advantages of the i3-N305 processor, an octa-core processor, the CPU cooler is also very powerful.
So I personally think: the current hardware configuration of TerraMaster F4-424 Pro is really powerful.
Unboxing experience
From the outside, TerraMaster F4-424 Pro has an all-over matte black design, which looks very business-like, and there are four hard disk array brackets on the front.
In addition to the bay on the front, there are five indicators on the right side, which show the status of the four hard disks and the system status respectively.
12. The back is mounted to supply air inward5cm standard computer unit silent fan. This kind of active air intake forms a positive sub in the chassis, which is more conducive to the coverage of heat dissipation air ducts in various parts. In addition, the power switch, A+C USB32 interfaces, double 2The 5G Gigabit Ethernet ports are on the back panel.
The power supply is 100-240V wide range AC power supply, and the maximum support is 90W DC power output. The two-stage power supply is convenient for connecting to power outlets over long distances. In addition, a Category 6 network cable is included.
From the design point of view, the hard disk supports hot swapping, and it is also very convenient to pick and place the hard disk.
In terms of the space of the hard disks, there are also heat dissipation channels between them.
The picture below is a close-up of the internal metal frame structure after the hard drive bracket is removed
The hard disk bracket supports SATA interface specification 35-inch HDD, 25 inch HDD as well as 25-inch SSD.
If it is 3The 5-inch mechanical hard disk does not need auxiliary tools such as screwdrivers at all, and the hard disk is directly put in place and the double-sided quick-release card strip is just on it. But if it's an installation 2For 5-inch hard drives, they need to be fixed with screws. Comes with a pack of screws, enough for 4 2.5-inch hard disk installation and use.
In addition, for the installation of 2280 SSDs, you need to remove the two screws on the back and install them on the main circuit board. The installation location is shown below
Since I currently have 10TB of space for the next one or two years, I have installed two 3s5-inch 4TB HDD.
System installation
Before using TerraMaster, because I had never played this kind of product in depth, I was worried that this professional NAS would not be able to handle it by myself, but later I found that it was actually quite simple. According to the manual, get TerraMaster Support support on the official website, you can *** install the latest TOS 6 system, initialize the format hard disk and register your own account.
After completing the system installation and registering the superuser (equivalent to the administrator of the NAS), you will see the following interface, which is very similar to the desktop of the computer.
The super account also has the coupon to create a multi-user account, which is equivalent to the administrator allocating the use space, available folders and related read and write permissions to each common user. Since I am mainly a family member with colleagues and friends, I use the unlimited storage quota setting for new accounts.
And for multi-user use, it supports user group management and separate configuration of permissions.
In terms of hard disk arrays, the TOS 6 system formats hard disks as XRaid by default. TRAID is an elastic disk array management tool developed by TerraMaster, which has functions such as automatic combination of disk space, hard disk failure redundancy protection, and automatic expansion, saving new users the trouble of manual settings.
For example, if you use 4 hard disks of 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, and 10TB with different capacities to build a disk array with redundancy protection, the traditional RAID 5 array only gets 5TB of free space, but the TRAID elastic strategy can get 23TB of available space without manual settings.
That's the answer I found on the official forum. So if you encounter any technical problems that can't be solved, you can also go to the official forum to find answers, many geeks collide and exchange ideas here, and the answers to the problems encountered by Xiaobai can be found here.
In addition, from the TOS 6 system, this is a very open system, there are currently a large number of APP application software can be installed, support the global application platform, and support Docker professional open source application container engine, VBOX virtualization application.
The most common ones such as Aomei backup, CloudSync cloud disk synchronization, Deduplication Manager file deduplication tool, etc., can be installed according to your own usage habits. I've installed tools like Berry Dandelion, Peanut Shell, and Thunderbolt, which I'm relatively familiar with.
Backup experience
When it comes to private cloud NAS, the core function is the backup function, and how to apply it to different backup scenarios more conveniently and efficiently is the most concerned by users. TerraMaster F4-424 Pro's TOS 6 system comes with 7 backup functions:
rsync backup, this is a data image backup tool under the linux system that supports backup between rsync devices;
Dual backup, which can be used for multi-version and incremental backup backup on remote servers and cloud disks.
* Backup, commercial active backup file server, server, PC, Hyper-V, VMware virtual machine backup and restore;
USB backup, support 3 backup modes, support anti-ransomware attack strategy;
CloudSync backup, which supports the synchronization of up to 12 types of common cloud disk data to or from the cloud.
TerraSync, a synchronization application developed by TerraMotor, supports multiple devices such as NAS PCs, supports multiple synchronization strategies, and supports historical version management.
Backtracking backup supports SMB and AFP file services, and can manage storage space quotas.
Back in time.
First of all, let's talk about the time back-up backup, because I use a lot of Apple computers myself, a lot of data is saved on Apple computers. But because Apple doesn't support its own expansion, the system and files need to be backed up regularly. TerraMaster perfectly met my relatively special backup requirements. In this way, the time machine backup function of Mac can make a complete backup of the entire Mac computer, not only important files will not be lost, but the system will also be backed up. In the unlikely event that the system crashes one day, I can restore it directly from Tiewei.
And after turning on the automatic backup function of Time Machine, it will be fully managed in the future, no need to operate manually, the system will automatically save the hourly backup of the past 24 hours, the daily backup of the past month, and the weekly backup of all the past months for you, in case you can find old data.
USB backup.
In addition, for the core data, especially those important data, the USB backup function is also very useful, connect the mobile hard disk device for the NAS host, you can start the USB backup function.
In USB backup, you can customize the backup source and destination folder, and you can also set whether the backup is a one-time backup or a regular backup.
From the perspective of backup settings, TerraMaster supports USB backup, supports three backup modes: mirror mode, multi-version mode, and incremental mode, and has anti-ransomware attack strategies.
And the execution cycle of USB backup can also be highly customizable:
Moreover, USB backup also supports file filtering function, which files do not need to be backed up, can be automatically filtered according to file type, which is conducive to making full use of existing storage space.
Manual backups. In addition, from the perspective of manual backup of general backup, the application is also very simple. The files in the computer can be directly backed up to TerraMaster by dragging and dropping through FTP online neighboring.
Security protection experience
In terms of security protection, it supports tools such as hot spare, file system snapshot, TFM backup, and security advisor. For example, security consultants can conduct global scans and alert security vulnerabilities in a timely manner.
For example, the TFM backup function can implement local and remote remote folder image backup and differential backup.
In addition, its file snapshot function is also very easy to use, it supports one-click global snapshot of storage space, one-click restore, which can effectively prevent ransomware attacks.
In addition, on the mobile phone, you can back up your phone's photo album anytime and anywhere, in case the phone is lost or damaged during the trip, you don't have to worry about losing all the content in your phone.
The interface design of the mobile app is also very friendly, you can store backups according to **, documents and other categories, and you can also use Terra Photos to easily manage albums by category. Vault can also be enabled for sensitive data, enhancing privacy security.
As for the sharing and collaboration security strategy and the like, I won't introduce it, but at present, there are so many functions that you can't think of it, and it can be realized. For example, the Terra Search function for enterprise users supports **text search, and it is very convenient to find contracts** and honorary certificates.
In short, TerraMaster F4-424 Pro, as a professional NAS device, has indeed very powerful product functions, strong professionalism, multi-mode backup, multiple security policies, and safer sharing and use, and is a relatively open professional system, which supports massive applications and virtual machine installation, and can also meet the secondary development needs of geeks. In addition, from the point of view of product details and workmanship, the design is also very careful, and it also provides a 2-year warranty service that is only replaced without repair, which can also make people feel more at ease. February**Dynamic Incentive Plan Okay, share this article here!