TerraMaster F2-425 Plus Review

The TerraMaster F2-425 Plus is a two-bay NAS that goes beyond just simple file storage. It’s more than meets the eye, incorporating more advanced features than you would get in an entry-level product. After using the F2-425 Plus for a month, it’s time for my review.

Impressive NAS specs

Looking inwards, the F2-425 Plus boasts some impressive specs for a NAS. The brains of the operation are the Intel N150 supported by 8GB of DDR5 RAM. That’s a capable duo and should come in handy for some of the more challenging operations.

When it comes to potential storage space, this two-bay version has room for, you guessed it, two SATA drives. However, what might not be expected are the three M.2 NVMe slots. SSDs slotted into these slots can be used for caching or to further bolster overall storage.

The need for network speed

The other big highlight on the I/O side is the two 5GbE ports. That is an impressive bit of networking that is sure to please both newcomers and enthusiasts.

Getting it up and running in the software is simple enough and I’ve been impressed by the tools on offer. The AI-powered photo filter might raise doubts to begin with, but being local and therefore not sending data to the cloud, I was happy to use it and found it quite helpful in managing my previously unmanageable task of sorting through all of my photos, which I have kept backing up for years.

Smoothly does it

In use, the F2-425 Plus works wonderfully. The CPU and memory combo keeps performance smooth, even while multitasking. While other NAS devices become locked up when completing a task, this one does not. Users can still navigate without issue.

File transfers to and from the NAS are made easy and I never experienced any issues when it came to finding and retrieving video clips — often 4K and at a high bitrate — over the connection.

The presence of NVMe slots for expansion is also exciting, giving this two-bay unit some room to grow beyond just the two SATA drives.

Some things to note

The biggest downside to the F2-425 Plus is the two-bay limitation. While it’s by design and it won’t impact the review score I’m giving, two drives just don’t feel like enough if, like me, you like to use one drive as redundancy for the other, via mirroring.

Also, NAS newcomers may take a little longer to set up the storage when compared to other brands that are much more hand-holdy. That is not to say TerraMaster has done a bad job, it’s just that some competitors make a huge effort in walking users through NAS setup.

Disclosure: Review sample provided by TerraMaster.