Tech
This $400 all-SSD NAS is the ultimate homelab starter kit
When it comes to starting a homelab, it can be a bit of a daunting task. What hardware do you choose? What capabilities do you want? How do you build out your initial setup? Well, the TerraMaster F4 SSD NAS takes care of all that for you.
As an all-SSD NAS, the F4 SSD actually packs a punch in the power department for its small size. The Intel N95 processor does include Intel UHD graphics to handle Plex transcoding, and, while it ships with 8GB of DDR5 RAM, you can upgrade it yourself to 32GB if you start to run out of the 8GB.
An all-SSD NAS is more useful than I originally thought
After using an all-SSD NAS, there’s no going back.
With four M.2 NVMe SSD slots and 5Gb Ethernet on the back, you’re able to turn this NAS into a pretty powerful system to run just about anything you need starting out in a homelab. I was able to run multiple Docker containers, including Plex, with ease on the F4 SSD. I also use this NAS as a backup target for all of my photography and videography work.
One of my favorite things about the TerraMaster F4 SSD is TRAID, which is TerraMaster’s in-house RAID version. It works much like Synology’s Hybrid RAID (SHR) and allows you to utilize more space on your drives.
For instance, I have two 1TB drives and two 2TB drives in my F4 SSD, and that gives me a total of 4TB of storage. With traditional RAID, I would only have 3TB of storage as both 2TB drives would only have 1TB available as part of the RAID pool. I love that I can swap an additional 2TB drive in place of a 1TB drive and bump that 4TB up to 5TB without spending a ton of money.
At a price of $400 (or less during holiday sales), the TerraMaster F4 SSD is really a solid NAS to buy someone as a homelab starter kit in a box. The Intel N95 processor has plenty of power for beginner homelab projects and Docker containers, and M.2 NVMe drives are still relatively affordable to start outfitting the system with some storage too.
8/10
- CPU
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Intel N95
- Memory
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8GB DDR5
The TerraMaster F4 SSD is an all-SSD NAS that supports up to four 8TB NVMe drives. Shipping with 8GB of DDR5 RAM and the Intel N95 processor, this NAS actually can be user-upgraded with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM. The onboard 5Gb/s Ethernet port supports 2.5Gb/s and 1Gb/s networking too, plus there are USB 3 10Gb/s Type-A and Type-C ports on the back for plugging in other peripherals, like hard drives or SSDs.
