The Terramaster F2-422 is an advanced product that aims for professionals with small business that need external RAID solution, combined with power and connectivity. The F422 series can load with two or four HDD slots to cover all your storage needs. Users can install up to 32TB to the F2-422 produce (due to the two slots) and it can work at Single,JBOD,RAID 0,RAID 1 configurations. The device supports both 3.5" and 2.5" drives (either mechanical or SSDs). The retail package is complete and has all the stickers/screws you might need in order to get everything ready to run.

The device has a nice external finish in light silver and it’s made out of aluminium with plastic parts (HDD trays). While someone may not like it, it saves weight and for sure doesn't affect the overall performance of the device. Installing the drives is easy and Terramaster has several guides/information at their website and a good active forum for users to ask questions for possible problems.

The device runs on TOS, the system that Terramaster develops and continues to support/improve with constant releases. The first installation guide is simple to go with and even amateur users will get their way through. The final desktop can be seen either from an PC or even mobile devices with the Terramaster android app.

The F422 series are powered via an Intel® Celeron® J3455 processor with 4GB DDR3 onboard memory, that can be upgraded up to 8GB (official specs), but we managed to upgrade it up to 12GB as well without any problem. More-over the F422 series are offering a variety of connectivity with dual 1Gbit LAN ports, one 10GB LAN port, two USB3.0 ports at the back and also...HDMI output! This produce in reality holds a miniPC inside to power up the TOS operating system. The included fans at the back will ensure the internal stays cool at all situations and can be controlled via the TOS operating system.

The GUI interface seems clean and easy to navigate/understand. You can set active users with specific read/write rights and install...apps! Yes, Terramaster offers a variety of apps for many different scenarios either for backup local or remote and constantly adds new apps as well with new firmware revisions. More-over users can compile their own apps or install third party apps available over Terramaster's forums. Nice!

The Plex app performance was very good and in order to have hardware decoding you need to have Plex Premium subscription. The device will not have issues with 4K x264/x265 formats, however the 4K x265 10bit files are not working (probably due to the Intel J3455 processor). The device can playback up to 110mbps x264 and 35mbps x265 files so keep that in mind. Reading/writing from and to the NAS server is high (the internal SSD also helps that), maxing out the 1Gbit Network with up to 115mb/sec reading/writing which is a very good performance for small business use. The increased performance, compared with the ARM based NAS products, comes with a cost, since this NAS products costs around 380 Euro/$ which isn't cheap, however we feel this device is a solid product that will be useful for user who wish to have good performance/price ratio NAS Media Server with many capabilities.

As an additional bonus, since this is an Intel x64 product, users can upgrade/install/modify the device with other alternative products like TrueNAS/Linux and even Windows :-)

Positive
+ Complete retail package with screws and screwdriver and great Overall build quality
+ Easy to setup and installing HDDs
+ Many connectivity ports (1GBit/10Gbit/USB3.0)
+ TOS operating system is stable and has tons of Apps to work with
+ VirtualBox enables several systems to run simultaneously on TNAS, including Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Android Virtual Machines
+ Plex App supports Hardware Acceleration (paid version) and general performance is good up to 1080p/4K x264/x265 files
+ Terramaster.com has many online guides/ instructions/active forums.
+ Very little noise from the onboard fan
+ Easy internal access
+ Can be upgraded up to 8/12GB of DDR3L ram
+ Users can add/upgrade/install other operating systems
+ Two years warranty with direct replacement unit

Neutral
- Plastic HDD trays need care when inserting into to the box|

Negative
- At this price range WIFI/Bluetooth should have been onboard and not require external dongles

Usefull Links
https://www.terra-master.com/global/products/smallmedium-businesses-nas/f2-422.html
https://forum.terra-master.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2119
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201373803-nas-compatibility-list/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16z3vH0NMUIBktr3ZlclWxjfiJ_Hizey11SdrJ3_z7pM/edit#gid=1274624273 https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/95594/intel-celeron-processor-j3455-2m-cache-up-to-2-3-ghz.html
https://help.terra-master.com/TOS/view/?lang/en-us
https://www.terra-master.com/global/compatibility/