TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus review: fast 10Gbe NVMe network storage

Although local storage (a drive connected via USB or Thunderbolt) is preferable for most heavy-duty tasks, if you want to share projects and data between workstations, especially those in disparate locations, then NAS , or Network Attached Storage, can be super handy.

Typical consumer/prosumer NAS enclosures (which are really just small servers capable of much more than just storage), mount SATA hard drives or SSDs. But we’re increasingly seeing products like the TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus reviewed here, which includes eight PCIe M.2 slots for “gumstick” NVMe SSDs.

Of course, Ethernet can’t deliver all the insane performance offered by NVMe SSDs, even the 10 gigabit (10 Gbe) variety offered by the F8 SSD Plus. But it has obvious advantages over hard drives, especially in terms of seek time and random operations. This can be a huge advantage when multiple requests from multiple computers are processed simultaneously.

Did I mention much greater physical robustness? Let’s move on to the review.

TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus Features

The TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus is an 8-bay/slot NVMe NAS enclosure with an 8-core Intel Core I3 processor, 32-threaded GPU (part of the CPU), 16GB of DRAM, and 10Gbe Ethernet connectivity .

Ports include said 10Gbps Ethernet, three 10Gbps USB ports (two Type A, one Type C), and an HDMI port which is currently intended for diagnostics rather than direct video output.

The approximately 7-inch-high, 2.25-inch-wide, and 5.5-inch-deep F8 SSD Plus enclosure opens via a single thumbscrew and sits on rubber feet. It’s not particularly heavy, weighing just 1 pound, 10 ounces with eight SSDs installed.

You can add just under 5 ounces of extra weight using the eight included heat sinks (nice TerraMaster touch). Whether or not you need heatsinks depends on the traffic the fan-cooled case is subjected to, but they can’t hurt.

Despite its vertical orientation, I did not find the F8 SSD Plus particularly unstable, that is to say easy to tip over. That said, you may want to lay it on its side if it is in a location where it could be knocked over. Of course, SSDs aren’t as delicate as the hard drives that normally inhabit NAS enclosures, so a fall probably wouldn’t be catastrophic.

The F8 SSD Plus offers the full range of NAS/server features such as security, user control, file sharing, media streaming, Bittorrent downloads, video surveillance, Docker and VM hosting. All this requires the installation of applications from the collection curated by TerraMaster. There are also many backup solutions available and the file manager allows you to add remote folders from various online storage services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and Amazon S3/S3 compatibles.

While the features are there, TOS 6.0 isn’t as polished as the operating systems offered by the QNAP and Synology of the world. One disappointment was the lack of multitasking in TOS 6. For example, I couldn’t run the file manager or anything else while I installed an app. There are eight hearts guys…come on!

Additionally, the program doesn’t seem to immediately save things like a deleted storage pool, an added online destination, or a new volume. I ended up rebooting each time for these changes to save.

In the end, I found TOS 6 attractive, quite intuitive, relatively easy to use and stable. But it could use some tweaking (and multitasking), even if none of the problems are particularly deadly.

TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus Price

The Plus version of the F8 SSD we tested costs $800, but there is a simple version with “only” a 4-core CPU and 8GB of DRAM that costs $600. We can’t say how much fewer cores will affect overall performance without testing this build. But it’s likely that four cores will be suitable for most one-, two-user, or home office scenarios.

If you want to explore the more advanced server features of TOS 6.0, such as hosting virtual machines, running Docker, and home monitoring, I recommend the additional performance of the Plus.

TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus performance

Using the F8 SSD Plus was a very dynamic experience, from the HTML (browser) interface to file downloading. I filled the F8 Plus with eight 2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 (overkill) SSDs. Two were used for the OS and system folder, while the other six were grouped into RAID 0 and then RAID 1 using BTRFS as the file system (the FS in BTRFS).

TerraMaster also offers its own advanced RAID configurations under the name TNAS, which provide redundancy, spares, and a host of other modern RAID features.

Tests were run from a Mac Studio M1 Max over its 10Gbe connection, via two 10 Base-T to SPF+ transceivers on a QNAP QSW-308-1C unmanaged switch to the F8 SSD Plus. You might see slightly better performance with 10 Base-T on both ends. Maybe not.

As noted, the Ethernet connection will be a limiting factor, but the superior and above all fantastic sequential performance of NVMe SSDs will squeeze every ounce out of it. As you can see below, Disk Speed ​​Test managed over 1GB/s read and well over 900MB/s write in RAID 0.

AmorphousDiskMark wasn’t as optimistic about the F8 Plus’s write speed, but actually rated it higher in read speed. This is normal for benchmarking with network locations, and much closer to what I see with actual copies in the box. Note that Disk Speed ​​Test uses a much smaller data set of 5 GB, so you’ll get better performance with smaller writes.

You don’t lose much performance from the F8 SSD Plus when mirroring in RAID 1. But we’re not as worried about the NVMe SSD failing as we are about the hard drives failing, so we don’t consider RAID 0 verboten on this box.

That said, you can keep a pair of SSDs mirrored and put your vital data there, while using the rest in a faster striped RAID 0. The ideal configuration will depend on your data set.

AmorphousDiskMark also showed a drop in write speed with the F8 SSD Plus in RAID 1. As Disk Speed ​​Test only writes 5GB, ADM may be closer to the mark. I also saw around 250 MB/s writing PCWorld’s 450 GB file to the F8 SSD Plus in RAID 1.

Although it seems obvious, the F8 SSD Plus will only offer a major advantage over other NAS solutions when used on a 10 Gbe network by multiple users. I still like it on my 2.5Gb/s home network (which I use to reduce heat production and energy costs from 10Gb), but 250MB/s read and write is something something I can get with modern HDDs or SATA SSDs. Some NAS enclosures offer M.2/NVMe slot SSDs for caching tasks, which can provide performance close to the performance of the F8 SSD Plus in light conditions.

Then again, having lived through the hard drive era and having experienced at least half a dozen failures, including data loss, I appreciate the relative peace of mind that modern NVMe SSDs offer. I haven’t had one in many years, and the failures I experienced early on were due to controller hangs and the data was recoverable, albeit at great expense.

In fact, I’m so optimistic about the reliability of the NVMe SSD that I wouldn’t hesitate to run the F8 SSD Plus in RAID 0 (while regularly backing up vital data, of course!).

I mentioned the heatsinks, so I should mention that the fan on the F8 SSD Plus wasn’t extremely loud, but it wasn’t as quiet as I’d like. Sitting near my quiet Mac Studio, I could hear it. I don’t care, but if such things bother you, you are now informed.

Note that buying the high-end SSDs for the F8 SSD Plus is a waste of money; Ethernet limits you well below the speed of even an older PCIe 3.0 SSD. Go for capacity and save money with non-DRAM (Host Memory Buffer/HMB) types. Their built-in secondary caching is quite fast as a group (and probably even individually), even though the F8 SSD doesn’t support HMB primary caching.

A few of the previously mentioned bugs related to Disk Manager. It took a while to recognize that I had deleted a volume and wouldn’t let me delete the RAID 1 storage pool it was occupying for several minutes. It then threw a stupid error about the deleted storage pool being degraded, showing one of the drives in it. The rest was in a new RAID 0 array. Irritating sure, but again, not deadly.

Should you buy the F8 SSD Plus?

Obviously, the F8 SSD Plus isn’t your cheapest storage option, even when it comes to NAS. But if you want the fastest possible, ultra reliable, physically resilient network/workgroup storage with all the benefits a server can provide (Docker, virtual machines, etc.), I can’t think of a better option current.