TerraMaster F4-424 Max review: a 10-core Intel i5-1235U, 10 GbE, powerhouse of a NAS

Following our relative recent reviews of the F4-424 Pro and F8 SSD Plus, TerraMaster is back with another in its 2024 lineup of home-class NAS with the F4-424 Max.

What you need to know is that it basically follows the design principles of the four-bay F4-424 Pro, but with some exciting, and head-scratching changes.

Here are the most important specifications:

As you can see from the specs, this is a seriously powerful NAS. However, the clear difference with the F4-424 Pro is that it contains the year older Intel i5-1235U which was introduced in Q1 of 2022 with support for AV1 decode, DisplayPort 1.4a, HDMI 2.1, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, LPDDR5 (5200), DDR5 and DDR4, and a max TDP of 55W.

Yes, this contains a CPU usually found in laptops or Mini PCs, and so with this, I feel that TerraMaster has positioned the F4-424 Max squarely in the HTPC segment. Other changes include 10GbE networking, and 24GB less RAM. Wait, what!?

Below is a table of all the "U" series CPUs in that generation, the "U" stands for Ultra-Low Power, prioritizing energy efficiency and extended battery life, which absolutely applies to a NAS. Ours is in bold for reference.

One of the things I always mentioned in previous NAS reviews, is how disappointing it was to discover just 4GB RAM in models even up until last year, in some cases a free upgrade was possible (why not just always include it then?) Anyway, I thought we were well over that when TerraMaster released the F4-424 Pro and F8 SSD Plus with 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a giant step leap forward in my opinion; but here we have the "Max" variant with only 8GB of RAM, 24 less than the aforementioned Pro or Plus 2024 models. A bit of a strange decision there guys considering this is called a "Max".

Before we dive in, you can view the different SKUs in this (four bay) class with the most important specifications listed along with the MSRP listed below:

First impressions

Like with the F8 SSD Plus packaging, the F4-424 Max is using the upgraded box materials, that certainly look better than a plain cream colored box with TERRAMASTER stamped on the sides. The box gives off a premium feel, and certainly adds a positive vibe to first impressions.

In the box

• F4-424 Max TNAS device
• Power adapter
• LAN cable (CAT 6)
• Quick guide [full online guide]
• Limited warranty notice
• Screws (for HDD bays)
• Stickers

Design

If you have already read our review of the F4-424 Pro that we reviewed back in July, then you can skip over this part. It is completely plastic and has a textured look and feel. Thanks to the textured finish it is not a fingerprint magnet, as there are no glossy parts at all.

Some key differences from earlier models like the F4-423 include placing the power button on the back, and easier access to the F4-424 Max through a panel on the right of the unit being able to slide off after removing two screws to access the two NVMe M.2 slots and double SODIMM connector, which is far better than having to literally dismantle the F4-423 just to get to the M.2 slots and memory.

Although the dimensions of the F4-424 Max are slightly smaller than that of the F4-423, it is slightly longer in depth, and I think this is mainly due to the single larger fan, which is completely inside the unit, rather than, as in the case of the F4-423, the dual fans sort of protruding out of the back of the unit.

On the front, you just have your four bays along with LED indicators for the HDDs, and power. As with the F4-424 Pro, there is no USB port on the front, which in my opinion would have been nice for quick backups.

Around the back, from top to bottom you have the power button, a HDMI port, two 10 GbE Ethernet ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type A ports with a Type-C port below them, and a connector for the barrel port power source. Again, there's no Kensington Security Slot present which is a bit of a shame considering it's a data storage device.

On the left and right of the F4-424 Max you will find an enlarged TERRAMASTER logo imprint which doubles as a vent to expel heat, which also becomes important for the M.2 SSDs, since the side panel clearance does not allow for even a thin M.2 heatsink.

On the bottom, there are some holes to assist ventilation. I'm pleased to find that the rubber feet have been attached with better glue on the Max, throughout my testing and shifting it around on my desk, they stayed stuck to the bottom of the NAS, which is an improvement on all four-bay prior models that I've tested, on which the rubber feet always became detached from the device, mainly because a weak glue sticker was used with the strength of a Pritt Stick (if you don't know what that is, look here).

Upon removing the screw above the power button and below the power connector on the left side on the back of the F4-424 Max, and then turning it on its side, you can slide the panel off to the left and lift it off to reveal the two NVMe M.2 slots. I filled these with a couple of MP44Q 4TB NVMe SSDs (at Amazon, or Newegg for $229.99) that TEAMGROUP supplied us with. Meanwhile, the SODIMM slot connectors are pre populated with a single 8GB DDR5 4800MT/s module.

My contact confirmed to me that the F4-424 Max does not have a reset pinhole like pretty much all other NAS I have reviewed for TerraMaster. This probably has to do with the motherboard not supporting it, this means you will have to make use of the software factory reset from within TOS 6.

As I have said in previous reviews, TerraMaster support staff actually encourage installing whatever the hell you want on their devices, and exactly like I found with the F4-424 Pro, the bootloader USB stick is tucked into the unit with the metal frame preventing it from being removed. This results in having to remove the motherboard from the frame so you can then access the USB key and swap it out (or repurpose it) for a bootloader of your own flavor of NAS OS, such as TrueNAS, Unraid, or maybe Xpenology.

As you can see in the second photo up above, there's an additional connector for a second system fan, although I wouldn't know where you would place it.

I'll say again though, a word of advice... if you do decide to take this apart, don't use a electric screwdriver, or if you do, ensure it is on the weakest setting, because when putting back the screws you run the risk of destroying the plastic threading of the screwholes. It happened with the F4-424 Pro, so I was very careful this time, and I only used a manual screwdriver.

Setup

BIOS

The F4-424 Max includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2], and you can setup pretty much everything here except for the boot order, which is locked to the UEFI OS, however above that choice you can enable or disable booting to the UTOS (USB bootloader) so this would still allow you to switch to a USB stick with an alternative bootloader and boot from it, or disable it to instead always start from the first disk with an OS installed on it.

Initial Setup

Setup is exactly the same as the F2-424 Pro, so there will be no surprises here. Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the F4-424 Max can be reached by navigating to http://tnas.local. If that doesn't work, you can use the local address assigned via DHCP which you can find using the TNAS PC desktop application, which is essentially a TerraMaster NAS finder.

The setup process is pretty straight forward, through a wizard, and in full below:

Gallery: Terramaster F4-424 Max setup

A pretty cool feature of the TOS 6 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD, however I opted to install directly to two 6TB Seagate Ironwolf HDDs so that I could use one NVME for application installs, and the other for Hyper Cache as shown in the images above.

The OS is also written to all HDDs that are placed in the unit, which results in around 45GB being taken up per disk and allows for redundancy should one or more disks fail; however, volume 1 where the apps are installed and stored are not mirrored across drives, so you would have to consider recovery options in the case of that single SSD failing.

A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within Windows 11 24H2 PC (image above) connected over a 2.5 GbE hub were well within acceptable ranges.

I also ran NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see it pretty much maxes out my 2.5GbE connection.

TOS 6, which is now out of beta since last month, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat such as Emby, Plex, Docker as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions that aren't really in the scope of this review. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-424 Max will work great, thanks to the Intel Core i5-1235U CPU and 8GB of DDR5 memory.

As I said in previous reviews, I still feel like some of the apps could do with some work, or major upgrades. I linked my Reolink video doorbell to Surveillance Manager, but there is no dedicated client app in Windows or on mobile like you can find with Synology Surveillance Client and there is no timeline, or event markers on the Live view.

It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past two weeks, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan when the disks were not actively copying or reading data.

Conclusion

What it comes down to is the quality of the F4-424 Max, it isn't cheap at $899.99 but it's a great device, recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, back up your files and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly future-proof you for some time. It provides great performance, takes up little space, and is on the whole, very quiet. Four bays affords proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link.

I'd be hard pressed to find a more powerful home NAS right now, you would have to start looking in the realms of repurposed PCs to start to match the F4-424 Max's performance. The price might be a bit of a turn off for casual users, even if there is currently a $100 off coupon that brings the MSRP down to $799.99 / £719.99 on Amazon right now. However, for that same price, and if you have the space for it, you can pick up the six-bay F6-424 Max too (or in the UK for £819.99), which becomes a bit more enticing at this price point.

The only downside is the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there will be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. If you are a bit comfortable with the command line, docker and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine, you can do great things with this hardware. The apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.

However, it does not change the fact that this truly is a powerhouse of a home media-class NAS that you can buy right now.

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