TerraMaster T12-500 Pro review: An affordable NAS powerhouse for small to medium businesses

Following our recent reviews of the F4-424 Pro, F8 SSD Plus, and F4-424 Max, TerraMaster is back with another NAS in its 2024 lineup, this time from the SMB (small and medium-sized business) offerings, the F12-500 Pro.

Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: TerraMaster provided a free sample without any editorial input or review pre-approval. Now, some specifications:

As you can see from the specs, this is a seriously beefy NAS powered by the Intel i7-1255U, which was introduced in Q1 of 2022. It comes 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. However, it should be noted that according to the specs, the T12-500 Pro includes an HDMI 2.0 port, not 2.1.

Yes, this contains a CPU usually found in laptops or Mini PCs, and by the way, this is the first time I have reviewed a NAS that would typically be found in small businesses, not really in a home lab setup.

You may be wondering what the heck "Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics eligible" means. Basically, Iris Xe (96 EUs) is only supported with dual channel RAM, since we only have a single DDR5 SODIMM in this F12-500 Pro, the iGPU defaults back to Intel UHD Graphics (80 EUs). As if you weren't already confused enough, yes, DDR5 memory is dual-channel in itself (2x 32-bit = 64-bit), but Iris Xe qualification requires populating with 128-bit (dual channel) memory (which are 2x 64-bit modules).

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 (2023). In some cases, a free upgrade was possible (why not just always include it then?). TerraMaster is definitely at the front of the pack in this regard, mostly supplying abundant amounts of RAM in its 2024 lineup. For example, the F4-424 Pro and F8 SSD Plus come with 32GB of DDR5 RAM (the "Max" variant of the same series only had 8GB of RAM for some reason), and here we have this 12-bay NAS with a plentiful 16GB of 4800MT/s DDR5 RAM. Synology, I hope you are taking notes.

Target audience

The F12-500 Pro is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, although thanks to the ultra-low powered chipset and quiet fans, this can easily be used in your home. There's also a 9-bay version that costs $200 less, and the only difference here (according to the specifications) is the power supply that is 250W instead of 500W. It is obviously a bit smaller (in width only) due to the reduced number of HDDs it can hold.

Apology

Before we start, let me first apologize for the awful bokeh effect of the Samsung S23 Ultra camera. Even when I am in Photo mode and want to take some close-ups, everything surrounding the center of the image becomes blurred for some reason. Hopefully, when I upgrade to the S25 series, the camera will be better! And this review is image-heavy; sorry about that!

First impressions

The T12-500 Pro comes in a big, plain, cream-colored box with TERRAMASTER stamped on the sides, along with an example of the front printed on the sides of the box. One thing I do want to say, is that this is packaged really well with foam, you can see above how thick the foam padding is, it is so good that you could probably transport this fully loaded with HDDs, and you'll be fine.

In the box

• F12-500 Pro
• Power cord
• RJ-45 LAN cable (CAT 6)
• Quick guide [full online guide]
• Limited warranty notice
• Screws (for HDD bays)
• 2 bags of screws + screwdriver
• Sheet of extra rubber feet
• HDD insulation cards

The official website left out a few things that were included in the box, but I've listed them above from my own findings.

Design

The F12-500 Pro is mostly made up of metal, and its internals can be accessed by removing three screws on the rear and removing the right side panel. It not only looks great, in my opinion, but it's sturdy and feels like premium hardware. The color is not quite silver, it's more of a metal/iron color, with a mostly black front aside from the HDD grills on the bays which are also a bare metal color.

The drive bays can be accessed by pressing down on the bottom lever, which then releases an "arm," which you can use to pull out the sled. When reinserting to the F12-500 Pro, that same arm can be pressed down to lock the drive into place with a satisfying "click" as well.

Speaking of the sleds, these are also made up of a metal enclosure with black plastic housing around the front and side rails.

There are a couple of ways you can secure an HDD in the sled, either with just two screws on either side in the middle (6th image in the above table) or from the bottom. However, weirdly the holes on the bottom do not line up with the four screw holes usually found in SATA NAS HDDs, so I could only use three screws to fasten from the bottom. It's not a big deal, but I found that strange!

As I mentioned in the What's in the Box section, screws and HDD insulation pads (papers?) were also included, and I tested both methods of installing the HDDs, which we'll come to a bit later.

As far as dimensions go, it is a little taller but shorter in depth and width than my NR200P Max. If you can fit a tower somewhere, then the T12-500 Pro will easily fit as well and doesn't look out of place next to a PC.

On the front, you have your 12 bays in rows of four, with each bay having its own dual LED indicators for the HDDs, one for power and the other for HDD activity. This is quite innovative since the LEDs are in the bay itself and are powered by two pins that stick out the rear of one side of the HDD sled, so you have to be mindful not to damage them, as they look like they could be easily bent.

On the top right, you have the power button, which is lit green when powered on. On the bottom right of the T12-500 Pro is the TerraMaster logo. 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, there is a pinhole Reset, three Type A USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports, a Type-C port (also 10Gbps), an HDMI port, two 10 GbE Ethernet ports, and a power connector. There's no Kensington Security Slot present, which is a bit of a shame, considering it's a data storage device.

There's also ample heat dissipation with each fan right behind a row of four HDDs and a fan for the 500W PSU, too.

It must be noted that the Type-C USB port does not support a screen over DisplayPort, so you are stuck needing to connect a self-powered screen to the T12-500 Pro.

On the left and right of the F12-500 Pro, there's also sufficient venting thanks to the large grills, one of which is on the bottom right side directly flanks the PSU.

On the bottom, there are four large rubber feet that elevate the T12-500 Pro around 4mm off the surface of my desk, and unlike the Home series of NAS, where the smaller rubber feet are prone to fall off simply by moving it around, these are attached quite well, and I have no fear of them coming loose.

Upon removing the side panel, everything from the memory, the two NVMe M.2 slots, and even the six SATA connectors can be easily managed. I filled the two NVMe with a couple of MP44Q 4TB NVMe SSDs (at Amazon or Newegg for $229.99) that TEAMGROUP supplied us with. Meanwhile, one of the SODIMM slot connectors is pre-populated with a single 16GB DDR5 4800MT/s module.

Even the Cruzer Fit 16GB USB Flash Drive is easily accessible, so you can easily back up the bootloader if you want without too much effort. There's also a PCIe slot on the motherboard, but thanks to the minimal clearance of the side panel, you will be limited in how you can use it. There's no way to even secure a card if you find one small enough, either.

As I have said in previous reviews, TerraMaster support staff actually encourage installing whatever the hell you want on their devices, and there are no restrictions in doing so on this model. TerraMaster is a company that has no problem with you modifying the hardware (or software) defaults. Still, as with most other vendors, if you do need to make use of the warranty, you will have to deliver it back to the state in which it was purchased.

As you can see in the last photo up above, there are even two additional connectors for system fans, should you need them.

The build quality is top-notch; no complaints here. Metal is used to make it sturdy, and the black plastic, wherever it is used, adds to the aesthetic with its two-tone color.

Lastly, a view of the inside. You can just about see the fan flanking the rear. It's also plain to see that the HDDs are not going to get overheated in this F12-500 Pro tower, with plenty of openings for heat dissipation.

Setup

BIOS

The F12-500 Pro includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2]. You can set up 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

The setup is exactly the same as the F4-424 Max, so there will be no surprises here. Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the T12-500 Pro 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 straightforward, through a wizard, and in full below:

Gallery: T12-500 Pro TOS 6 setup

I used the Automatic Initialization feature, which even prompts midway to select the disks that should be used (I selected two WD Red drives) to install the F12-500 Pro; however, as you can see in the last screenshot, all disks (HDD and SSD) were initialized in a single Storage Pool, not just the two I selected.

Gallery: F12-500 Pro TOS 6.0 Custom Setup

So I decided to factory reset and do the install again, but this time, choosing the custom setup and only selecting the one NVMe and lo-and-behold, the same result. TOS 6 is installed on all HDDs and a single Storage Pool is made of all SSDs and HDDs again!

Regardless of the number of Storage Pools, the OS is 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, in my case with Volume 1 made up of two 4TB SSDs where the apps are installed, I opted for TRAID, which mirrors the NVMe for redundancy.

Usage

I benchmarked the drive speeds using CrystalDiskMark and NASTester over my newly installed 10G lan using a TP-Link TX-401 card (3.1.10 driver) with these driver settings, connected to a MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN (have not tweaked those settings yet) but could only get up to 6.1 Gb/s.

First off, single link.

Next, I created a bond for link aggregation and ran the benchmarks again.

I must admit, I was tweaking the driver settings throughout my testing, which explains the difference, but it is clear that a network bonding delivers better results with HDD link aggregation.

TOS 6

TOS 6 comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, and 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 on the F12-500 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core i7-1255U CPU and 16GB of DDR5 memory, but also the Iris Xe GPU with its 96 EUs, which can decode pretty much anything you throw at it.

TOS 6 Annoyances

A few months on, and I still feel like some of the apps could do with some work or major upgrades. There is still no dedicated client app in Windows or on mobile for my Reolink video doorbell to use with Surveillance Manager like you can find with Synology Surveillance Client, and there is no timeline or event markers on the Live view in the web app.

There are also still the annoyances of email notifications not working out of the box, months after the last stable Beta and almost three months after the official release of TOS 6; it is part of the setup process, so you would think that TerraMaster would prioritize it.

Another major annoyance that has persisted since the early betas are the notifications stacking on the desktop, with no way to close them. The workaround is to toggle the "Notification" chat bubble on the right side of the desktop or simply refresh the web UI. These two bugs are front and center of the TOS 6 experience, and it's not like users haven't reported them (as I was reminded by a 'friendly' forum user in my own topic on the matter); all we got was a generic response with still no fix as of writing.

Other annoyances include the control panel. For example, when you want to manage a user, rather than being able to edit a user by double-clicking on that user, you are required to first select the user and then use the edit pencil link at the top of the settings panel. This sort of thing persists through most of the control panel. Maybe I am just acting like a spoiled brat coming off Synology DSM. I don't know.

Before HDD insulation	Before HDD insulation

Making it quieter

It's already relatively quiet, but with a little help provided in the box by TerraMaster, we can make it even quieter. I used the (totally ad-ridden!) Sound Meter app for a crude test with my Samsung S23 Ultra stood upright, about an inch away from the front of the T12-500 Pro. The four HDDs in their sled and fastened with one screw on each side resulted in roughly 71dB of noise, and there was an audible whine from the HDDs that got annoying quite quickly.

After adding the paper insulating pads and fastening the HDDs with 3 screws on the bottom of the sled, the average dB recorded over roughly 40 seconds dropped to 57dB, which by the way, is just 2 dB above an acceptable premium bedroom portable airco's noise level (I am speaking from experience here, guys).

So these weird paper pads really do make a difference with the noise levels.

Conclusion

What it comes down to is the quality of the F12-500 Pro, it isn't cheap at $1,799.99 but I think it is very well built, and gives off a premium vibe. Recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're looking for a relatively small NAS to manage virtual machines on, back up your files and take care of your SMB, possibly even with cloud OS clients, then this really ticks all the boxes. It provides great performance, takes up little space, and is very quiet on the whole. Twelve bays afford proper redundancy, and if that is a bit too much, you can save $200 off the price by opting for the slightly smaller T9-500 Pro with its nine bays instead.

I feel like this is competitively priced if you consider its nearest mainstream competitors, one of which is the two-year-old DS2224+, costing almost $100 more; the other, QNAP, tops out at 8-bays with its QNAP TS-873A-8G, and both are powered by the six-year-old AMD Embedded V1500B CPU with 4GB and 8GB of DDR4 RAM respectively. As of writing, TerraMaster have knocked $100 off the price and are offering it for $1,699.99 on the official website, otherwise you can check out Amazon for the current pricing.

The only downside I can really think of with the F12-500 Pro is TOS 6 and the lack of community and 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, and you can do great things with this hardware. I just wish TOS 6 had the same polish as the hardware, and that for me loses it a point from an otherwise perfect 10.

Yes, as you may have gathered from my conclusion, it does not change the fact that this truly is a powerhouse of an SMB-class NAS that you can buy right now. If four bays aren't enough for you, get the T9-500 Pro or T12-500 Pro; you will not be disappointed.

As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.