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TerraMaster has been pushing all-SSD network attached storage for a while now, but the F4 SSD feels like the first time the company has truly nailed what people actually want from the format. This is a NAS that fits in your hand, runs silently on your desk, and delivers performance that makes traditional spinning rust feel ancient. At $399, it’s positioned right at the intersection of ambition and affordability, which makes it either a smart compromise or a missed opportunity depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
The hardware itself is deceptively simple. Inside a chassis that looks more like an external hard drive than a proper NAS, TerraMaster has packed an Intel N95 processor with four cores that can burst up to 3.4 GHz, 8GB of DDR5 RAM that’s upgradable to 32GB, and four M.2 NVMe slots that accept drives up to 8TB each. The catch is that those four slots aren’t created equal – two run at PCIe 3.0 x2 speeds while the other two are limited to PCIe 3.0 x1, which means you’ll want to be strategic about which drives go where if you’re chasing maximum throughput.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Design
What makes the F4 SSD distinct from TerraMaster’s larger offerings is the commitment to being both small and quiet. Rather than relying on passive cooling alone, the unit features two silent fans located on the bottom of the chassis that pull cool air through the top vents. The entire unit weighs barely over a pound, light enough that you could forget it’s sitting on your desk. The front panel is completely smooth save for a simple logo sticker, while the back houses a USB-C port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports running at 10Gbps, a single 5GbE Ethernet port, and an HDMI 2.1 output.
Opening the F4 SSD requires nothing more than unscrewing a single thumb screw on the bottom and sliding off the outer shell. The four M.2 slots are clearly labeled with their PCIe lane configurations, and installation is toolless – you just pop in your drives and secure them with the included screws. On the opposite side of the board sits the single 8GB DDR5 memory module, which TerraMaster actively encourages you to upgrade if you need more headroom for virtual machines or demanding workloads.
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Software
TerraMaster’s TOS 6 operating system is refreshingly straightforward. The initial setup walks you through creating a storage pool using TRAID, which is the company’s take on RAID 5 that allows you to mix different-sized drives without wasting space. The system automatically dedicates an equivalent-sized disk for redundancy, so you can start small and scale up over time by swapping out drives as your needs grow. Real-world testing showed that initialization of a storage pool took around 38 minutes, though there were some quirks during the automatic setup process that required manually recreating the pool to ensure all installed drives were properly recognized.
Once you’re up and running, TOS 6 offers the usual NAS features – AI-powered photo indexing, multimedia streaming through Plex or Emby, Docker container support, and the ability to host virtual machines. The Intel N95 processor handles hardware transcoding for H.264 and H.265 codecs, which means the F4 SSD can serve as a home media server without breaking a sweat, though you’ll want to temper expectations if you’re planning to run multiple demanding virtual machines simultaneously.
What Works and What Doesn’t
The F4 SSD excels at being exactly what it claims to be – a compact, quiet, energy-efficient NAS that prioritizes solid-state performance without demanding a massive investment. Power consumption sits at just 32 watts when fully loaded with drives actively reading and writing, dropping to 8 watts when the drives hibernate. That low power draw makes it an appealing replacement for dated HTPC setups or older servers that chug electricity, and the lack of spinning disks means you can place it anywhere without worrying about vibration or noise.
The single 5GbE Ethernet port is both a blessing and a limitation. It’s faster than gigabit Ethernet, which is still the standard on many consumer routers, but it’s not fast enough to fully saturate the potential speed of a four-drive NVMe RAID array. If you’re planning to use this as a high-performance scratch disk for video editing or other bandwidth-intensive workflows, you might find yourself wishing for 10GbE or even dual network ports for link aggregation. The HDMI port is a nice touch for those who want to turn the F4 SSD into a hybrid media center that can output directly to a display, though most people will likely ignore it in favor of streaming through their existing devices.
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The decision to limit two of the four M.2 slots to PCIe 3.0 x1 speeds is understandable from a cost perspective, but it does mean you’ll see performance differences depending on which slots you populate. If you’re building a TRAID or RAID 5 array across all four drives, those slower slots will create a bottleneck that prevents the entire pool from reaching its full potential. For most home users who are primarily using the F4 SSD for file storage, backups, and media streaming, this won’t be a dealbreaker, but power users who are chasing maximum IOPS will notice the constraint.
Who This Is Actually For
The F4 SSD makes the most sense for people who want the speed and reliability of solid-state storage but don’t need the complexity or expense of enterprise-grade systems. It’s ideal for content creators who need fast access to large files, remote workers who want a private cloud for backups and file sharing, or anyone running a home lab who values quiet operation and low power consumption. The ability to run Docker containers and virtual machines opens up possibilities for self-hosted services, network monitoring, or even lightweight development environments, though the Intel N95 processor will show its limits if you try to push too hard.
At $399 for the base unit without drives, the F4 SSD sits in a competitive but crowded space. You could spend more on Synology’s offerings and get more polished software and better customer support, or you could go cheaper with DIY solutions that demand more technical expertise. TerraMaster’s pitch here is that you get the performance and flexibility of all-flash storage in a form factor that doesn’t dominate your desk or your electricity bill, and for many people, that balance will be exactly right.
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Verdict
The TerraMaster F4 SSD delivers on its core promise – fast, quiet, compact NAS storage that doesn’t require a degree in systems administration to set up and use. It’s not the fastest all-SSD NAS you can buy, and the PCIe lane limitations mean you won’t squeeze every last drop of performance out of top-tier NVMe drives, but for most home and small office users, those compromises won’t matter. What you get instead is a device that fits in the palm of your hand, runs silently enough to sit on your desk without distraction, and provides the kind of snappy file access that makes traditional hard drive NAS units feel sluggish by comparison. If you’ve been waiting for all-flash storage to make sense at a price point that doesn’t require justification to your accountant, the F4 SSD might finally be that device.