TerraMaster F2 NAS

By Samara Lynn

The TerraMaster F2 NAS ($148 USD, street with no drives) comes from TerraMaster?a China-based storage vendor with not much presence in the U.S. market. They sent a unit for review hoping to break more into the NAS space in this country. After taking the TerraMaster for a test, I have to say the company will need to step up its game to compete with the likes of SMB/consumer NAS market dominators such as Synology, Iomega, and Drobo. The Terramaster offers good performance but in my testing I found issues with this NAS that I had never seen before, issues that keep me from recommending it.

Specs
The TerraMaster features a Marvell 6282 processor, 512MB DDRIII RAM, and 16MB flash memory. It's a dual-bay device that supports RAID 0, 1, disk spanning, and JBOD. The vendor also offers the device in a four-bay model. The F2 shipped to me diskless. It only uses 3.5" SATA hard drives.

The unit's design is unique, featuring a silver casing with a cool handle on top for toting around. I really like the handle for this small, desktop form factor. Unfortunately, that handle may be the best feature of this device.

The front panel has power and hard disk drives LEDs which represent the state of the drives and system based on the LED's colors. The back panel has a Gigabit Ethernet port and a USB 3.0 port. The USB port fits the square Type B USB plug, but included in the packaging is a Type B to Type A USB cable.

This NAS also has a feature I've never seen before. There is a small dial in the back which you insert a tiny screwdriver in (also included) and turn to set the drive architecture the way you want. So you can turn the dial right to set the device at RAID 0; down for RAID 1; left for BIG (which is disk spanning); and up for CLEAR (which sets the drives as JBOD). I had a sense of foreboding about setting up RAID in this manner. That feeling turned out to be prescient?more on that next. For more on RAID, see PCMag's Guide to RAID.

RAID Setup
After connecting the NAS to the network I first went about setting up RAID. Using the tiny tool, I set the dial to RAID 0. Following the device's instructions, I then used another included tool?a thin, silver stick, the perfect size for inserting into recessed reset buttons on networking products?the instructions refer to this tool as a "thimble." However, it's unlike any thimble I've ever seen.

You have to use this little stick to then push the tiny RAID Reset button, also on the back of the device. Get this: While you are pushing this button, you then have to power the device up at the same time, and keep pressing the reset button, until the NAS beeps. Yes, performing the RAID setup this way was as awkward as it sounds.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/o_o7Lyi6pjg/0,2817,2419596,00.asp

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