TerraMaster F5-422 NAS Review

Networking 64 Page 2 of 13 Published by

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NAS Explained

F5-422 

The NAS can house five hard drives (or SSDs that fit in the same drive caddy). Next to 10 GigE this NAS unit is tied to two Gigabit Ethernet jacks, meaning 1000 / 8 minus QOS and random overhead like error-correction is roughly a maximum of 100 to 120 MB/sec on a single Gigabit Ethernet connection. The F5-422 also comes with 10-Gigabit Ethernet for ultra-fast data transfer which theoretically is 10x faster, this 1 GB/s is something that ethernet jack could handle. Unfortunately it seems the AQC107 NBase-T chip from Aquantia (now Marvell) appears to be connected through only two PCIe lanes, the PCI throughput is limited to around 8 Gbit/s. Minus error correction and QoS we seem to max out at roughly 670 MB/sec of throughput, but that's still 5360 Mbit of throughput. The processor used is the Celeron Processor J3455, which is the Apollo lake generation.

Apollo Lake

Apollo Lake is the name of the core for Intel's generation of a system on chip serving as a successor to Braswell. These chips are primarily targeted towards entry-level 2-in-1 devices, low-cost laptops and desktops, and All-in-One PCs. Apollo Lake chips are manufactured on a 14 nm process and is part of Intel's Goldmont microarchitecture. The Apollo Lake platform with 14 nm Goldmont core was released late 2016. The Goldmont architecture borrows heavily from the Skylake Core processors and offers more than 30 percent performance boost compared to the previous Braswell platform. The Synology DS1019+ uses that Apollo Lake Intel Celeron Quad-Core Processor (J3455) at 1.5 GHz base clocks that can boost towards 2.2 GHz on four cores and  2.3 GHz with one core. It is rated at a 10 Watt TDP. The processor incorporates Intel's HD Graphics 500 GPU operating at 250 MHz with a burst frequency of 750 MHz. This IGP can manage resolutions up to 3840x2160 @30 Hz and offers support for:
  • Video decode hardware acceleration including support for HEVC (H.265), H.264, MVC, VP8, VP9, MPEG2, VC-1, WMV9, JPEG/MJPEG.
  • Video encode hardware acceleration including support for HEVC (H.265), H.264, MVC, VP8, VP9, JPEG/MJPEG.
 
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Goldmont / Apollo lake SoC die
 
Obviously, everything from UPnP to Plex can be installed as well and matches fine with this SoC. Factory-installed is 4 GB memory, offering an optional 8 GB memory set up in dual channel mode (typically you only have single-channel memory on NAS servers, so this will help out great with memory-intensive applications like databases).  The storage volume(s), can be set up in Single disk, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10. Once you have installed your hardware, you'll need to bind the NAS to your Ethernet with (preferably) a CAT5e cable to a compatible switch; the NAS offers more connectors though including USB 3.1 Gen 1. When you have your HDDs installed, and the device connected through your PC you'll need to start-up a software suite to bind and set up your configuration. Simply use a smartphone app like FING and scan the network, the NAS will show up with a corresponding IP. Type the IP into your browser and you can start setting up the unit. 
  • CPU: Intel Celeron J3455 Processor
  • Memory: 8GB DDR4
  • Memory Expandable up to: not expandable
  • HDD: 5 x SATA3 6Gb/s; 3.5"/2.5" HDD/SSD
  • NVME SSD: 2x M.2. 2280
  • Expansion: USB 3.1 Gen-1 x2
  • Network: Gigabit Ethernet x 2;
  • System Fan: 192mm x 2
  • Power Supply Unit / Adapter: 120W x1
  • Input Power Voltage: 100V to 240V AC
  • Certification: FCC, CE, VCCI, BSMI, C-TICK
  • Power consumption: 38.59 W (Access) 13.32 W (HDD Hibernation)

Operating system compatibility wise the NAS supports file sharing across Linux, UNIX, Mac, and Windows platforms. We will be testing with Windows 8.1 and 10. Also for the more advanced among you, Windows AD (Active Directory) is supported to help create an easy-to-access environment. SSH login and web page SSL login enables users to transfer, store, and share data securely. Since this product acts as a server, ALL PC's within your network can connect to it, with or without access rights.

Times have changed and our storage requirements have moved from Kilobytes, to Megabytes, to Gigabytes and these days even Terabytes of storage. And sure, it won't be long until we reach Petabytes either. Oh, and after that, there are Exabytes and then Zettabytes!
So we passed the Terabyte marker rather rapidly. With our hefty demand in storage capabilities, the industry had to constantly adapt and introduce new features in hardware. Storage units got much bigger in volume over the year, 18 TB HDDs have been introduced onto the market with higher TB HDDs already in the pipeline. In that line of storage solutions, there is one product series growing fast and now reaching SOHO and consumer based markets. They are called NAS units, Network Attached Storage. And there has been a lot of development in these nifty little boxes. Pretty much they are little servers that can hook onto your network and then function as file-servers. The NAS units are often small, do not use a lot of power compared to, say, your PC, but they are highly configurable, offer redundancy as some models can even handle RAID internally. Network Attachable Storage units are among the most advanced home servers available on the market today. Products feature multiple HDD setups, partitions, RAID, USER and USERGROUP based access, FTP, web server, MySQL, hot-swappable drives; these are just some of the features that a NAS unit can handle. And though expensive, a product like this is just too darn handy when it comes to file-storage and management over your network. 

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