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just a fast 1 if u cant use the new options in windows 8 go back to 7 and smash your xbox 360 because everything going to get it weather we like it or not

What's the "weather" got to do with whether or not we'd like it??

The article in itself is a reflection not only of the perceived inadequacies of an OS that should be getting easier to use, but also delivers commentary from people who are au fait when it comes to these matters and also do not like what MS is putting on their plates!

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But he most probably only has the 64 bit Windows. If he had installed 32 bit Windows 8 like I have got, he would not have found it slow.But he probably did not know that either.

:huh: ?

He said that the charms bar is unusable. Well I did not find it so. And you can now disable the charms bar in the latest version of Classic Shell. But as I have the Windows XP start menu on Windows 8. I hardly ever use the charms bar. Which is just a shortcut to the Metro start menu. Andrea Borman.

But you just proved the point while trying to disprove it.

Also what the bleep is the point of installing a new OS only to have to install a number of tweaks and hacks to get the functionality back that you had in the last one?

If you have to hack bits back in the return your work flow then something is obviously very wrong here.

I am still not convinced, and I have the exact opposite of what most people accuse Windows 8 'haters' of having. An open mind. I am trying to like Windows 8, and have been using it a number of weeks now.

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I read that article. And what he said about the Metro theme. Well he obviously did not know that he could install Classic Shell or Start Menu 7.Then Windows 8 would have booted straight to the desktop. And he would have had the start button and Windows 7 start menu.And he would not have had to deal with the Metro theme very much.

And secondly,you don't have to use the Metro apps. You can use all of the non Metro software that you use on Windows 7,on Windows 8. I don't have any Metro apps on my Windows 8,I uninstalled them. Because they don't work on a netbook.

So I have never used a Metro app. But I don't miss them. As Windows 8 is running all of my Windows 7 and Windows XP software. And it runs all of the old Windows 98 and Windows 95 software.

** But he most probably only has the 64 bit Windows. If he had installed 32 bit Windows 8 like I have got, he would not have found it slow.But he probably did not know that either. :huh: What?? **

Windows 8 for me is like Windows 7. Not as fast as Windows 7. But once you install the start menu software like Classic Shell. You can work the same way that you are used to on Windows 7 or Windows XP. Andrea Borman.

You do know that what you said/wrote, is an utterly fallacious argument!

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The author of that article is an idiot. He's gotten this completely wrong.

No, he's right that it's designed and presented that way conceptually (even if not implemented that way technically). He is however wrong that you'd have to open the desktop before opening Steam (you could just open it directly from its own tile).

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Can you imagine when this thing is released to the general public...???

I don't think general consumers will have a problem. They will be happy to not click on Desktop on their all-in-one touch PC or tablet. Somewhat experienced users who live in the Desktop environment will have severe irritations.

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Windows 8 - HELLO to the new Vista!!! Have fun when your **** doesn't work right and you have spend a **** ton of money to upgrade your software and hardware to make it work down the road, and all the hours you are going to spend tweaking it to be just like windows 7, which you should have left on your computer in the first place. Now there is the "Windows 8 is faster" crowd, well of course it's faster it doesn't do anything because they took all the cool **** out of it...

Oh yeah. and that old sound card that worked perfect for 5:1 or 7:1 surround sound in Windows 7 finally after 2 years of driver updates, well you will be waiting about that long for the Windows 8 driver that will work just as well... I am going to pass, recommend my entire family passes especially the elderly members, god how do you explain to an old person how to shut it down? O_o Oh yeah my work place will not have it either, power in being the IT Manager. Windows 8 the new Fischer Price toy of computing, looks awesome until you get it out of the box...Enjoy your crap OS!

Everything seems to work fine on my computer. No issues with any software yet. Not need to upgrade either, since everything works.

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I don't think general consumers will have a problem. They will be happy to not click on Desktop on their all-in-one touch PC or tablet. Somewhat experienced users who live in the Desktop environment will have severe irritations.

I'm an experienced user and live in the Desktop 90%+ of the time, and I have no irritations at all. Most of the apps I use are pinned, and I very very rarely go into Metro.

When there are more quality apps available though, I'm sure that percentage will fall. Especially when replace my iPad with a Surface.

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I am for the most part happy with windows 8 however the start screen is a bit clumsy with mouse and keyboard and lack of a start menu is an a annoyance but its not to bad once set up your start screen how you like. The performance boost is nice and the desktop changes are great aside from the removal of the start menu. However i hope over time they they make usability tweaks to the start screen to make it more pleasant to use with a keyboard and mouse.

I think things will go alright when windows 8 launches it will fuel a tablet and hybrid pc explosion however desktop sales will probably lag behind. With programs like start8 and classic shell to please power users on desktops and most OEMs will likely will follow Samsungs route and include a start menu with non touch devices to keep confusion to a minimum for consumers and to please large corporations.

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I'm an experienced user and live in the Desktop 90%+ of the time, and I have no irritations at all. Most of the apps I use are pinned, and I very very rarely go into Metro.

When there are more quality apps available though, I'm sure that percentage will fall. Especially when replace my iPad with a Surface.

Not all will but many. The more you use Metro & desktop, the more issues. The more Metro apps you use, the more insufficient the app bar becomes. Leaving Metro apps open causes issues with using the app bar once you have several open when switching between apps. Having the Desktop be another app on the bar can add to the silliness sometimes. Irritations, not necessarily showstoppers. Over time it's clear it was designed for tablets.

The good side is I'm using a few more Metro apps. The Goals is interesting, Trackage is great! Mostly, it's games, and I will keep playing Metro games, lol. eBay monitor and message notification is nice as well. I didn't notice how annoying some of it is until I started using more Metro apps. The random quits don't help either. Since everything is an app??? Hopefully a lot of this can be fixed quickly. I think the Store itself needs an update and many Metro apps that should bring up IE, don't. Might be because desktop IE is my default. If so, that's an issue.

It will be nice when they add Windowing to Metro and get rid of the dual personality. Having said that, I can see if an app is designed properly, being snapped can be used quite effectively.

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Can you imagine when this thing is released to the general public...???

Seeing how they've had little quarrels now, they won't have many quarrels when it is released. The majority of tech users (aged 30 and below) know what's coming. Again, the Windows 95 paradigm is dead. Windows 9 will be an evolution of Windows 8.

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Seeing how they've had little quarrels now, they won't have many quarrels when it is released. The majority of tech users (aged 30 and below) know what's coming. Again, the Windows 95 paradigm is dead. Windows 9 will be an evolution of Windows 8.

~yawn~

Guess we'll see..... but if microturd ever wants to sell a new os to business, it had better not be taking advice from you.... :woot: :laugh:

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@TCLN Ryster Have you tried to grab and drag something at top of your desktop and accidentally started closing the desktop environment? :D Just little annoyances.

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I've been told that, WIN8 is a step forward. I have to ask how? we got away from the desktop GUI and now are forced to utilize key combos to work in win8.

I just think Microsoft wants to throw this out there in hopes of capturing innovation and try and set a standard. This will backfire.

:huh: ?

But you just proved the point while trying to disprove it.

Also what the bleep is the point of installing a new OS only to have to install a number of tweaks and hacks to get the functionality back that you had in the last one?

If you have to hack bits back in the return your work flow then something is obviously very wrong here.

I am still not convinced, and I have the exact opposite of what most people accuse Windows 8 'haters' of having. An open mind. I am trying to like Windows 8, and have been using it a number of weeks now.

open mind... I used win 8 for awhile and got down alot of jist of things. However, based on what I'm used to, this is alot like the war in Afghanistan. a quagmire..

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I've been told that, WIN8 is a step forward. I have to ask how? we got away from the desktop GUI and now are forced to utilize key combos to work in win8.

Because as the role of the PC expands (Tablet devices, HTPCs, kiosks, etc), emphasis of the desktop makes less sense. Heck, I don't even really need it on my laptop. I can sit comfortably in OneNote MX and have IE MX docked to the side of the screen for quick access during school.

With Windows 8, we finally have a UI that can take advantage of new technologies, and and fit itself to multiple devices, without becoming a burden on the user.

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Because as the role of the PC expands (Tablet devices, HTPCs, kiosks, etc), emphasis of the desktop makes less sense. Heck, I don't even really need it on my laptop. I can sit comfortably in OneNote MX and have IE MX docked to the side of the screen for quick access during school.

With Windows 8, we finally have a UI that can take advantage of new technologies, and and fit itself to multiple devices, without becoming a burden on the user.

You are talking about a different type of operating system though. With my job, emphasis of the desktop WILL NEVER CHANGE. Why does a server admin need the new UI by default? Why isnt there an option to boot directly to the desktop in at least the server version?

When a new OS is said to take advantage of new technologies, I expect it to work better with useful technologies for EVERYONE. Multithreading and multicore, SSD trim support, and others (from Windows XP to Windows 7 for example). Support for touch does not benefit me. I have no intention of ever getting touch interface on my desktops or laptops.

I am sorry I do not blindly accept everything Microsoft ever does. With my job, keyboard and mouse will ALWAYS be the best option.

Why is it so hard to have a freaking option on install/first boot? You win. I win. If I am in the new metro interface, I should NOT see aero. If I am on the desktop, I should NOT see metro. Right now is it like somebody with multiple personalities.

I have no need and gain no benefits of the start screen. It is irritating to me, and I am not the type of person to sit there for hours staring at the "live tiles". They have no benefits. So you tell me to delete all the metro apps and install third party apps to regain the functionality I use on a daily basis in Windows 7. No thanks, I would rather use Windows 7 without clogging up my installs with third party stuff.

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You are talking about a different type of operating system though. With my job, emphasis of the desktop WILL NEVER CHANGE. Why does a server admin need the new UI by default? Why isnt there an option to boot directly to the desktop in at least the server version?

First, never say never. I'm sure IT folk said the same thing when the Mainframe/Terminal disappeared, and the GUI killed the CLI. Not to mention, business laughed at the mouse when it first appeared too, now look. They're laughing at touch now, but I can guarantee you, it'll start to work its way into businesses soon enough.

When a new OS is said to take advantage of new technologies, I expect it to work better with useful technologies for EVERYONE. Multithreading and multicore, SSD trim support, and others (from Windows XP to Windows 7 for example). Support for touch does not benefit me. I have no intention of ever getting touch interface on my desktops or laptops.

Last time I checked, it is working for everyone. It's not fair to those who want to use touch or any other of the new I/O tech on the desktop to be forced to use an outdated UI paradigm. The role of the PC is advancing, but being hindered by the OS. It's time for the OS to advance too.

If you don't want touch, the desktop is still there, so there are no issues here.

I am sorry I do not blindly accept everything Microsoft ever does. With my job, keyboard and mouse will ALWAYS be the best option.

Again, never say never.

Why is it so hard to have a freaking option on install/first boot? You win. I win. If I am in the new metro interface, I should NOT see aero. If I am on the desktop, I should NOT see metro. Right now is it like somebody with multiple personalities.

Few things here, you start adding in UI options, and support goes straight to Hell. You're running Windows 8, ok, now are you running in classic mode, or are you running in the new mode? Plus, I can guarantee Windows 8 is just the start. Windows 9, will be more Modern, less classic. Switching over helps clean the OS of legacy code that just shouldn't be there anymore.

I have no need and gain no benefits of the start screen. It is irritating to me, and I am not the type of person to sit there for hours staring at the "live tiles". They have no benefits. So you tell me to delete all the metro apps and install third party apps to regain the functionality I use on a daily basis in Windows 7. No thanks, I would rather use Windows 7 without clogging up my installs with third party stuff.

Than stick to Windows 7. No, seriously. But just be aware that Modern isn't going away. You can wish it all you want, but there are huge benefits to it, even on the desktop, and live tiles are one. You might not think they are beneficial, but to me they are. On my screen, I have my calendar, social updates, and mail updates all at a glance, They update without me having to waste system resources and time opening up each app or have it running in the background. I can get weather alerts, again without having to open the app.

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First, never say never. I'm sure IT folk said the same thing when the Mainframe/Terminal disappeared, and the GUI killed the CLI. Not to mention, business laughed at the mouse when it first appeared too, now look. They're laughing at touch now, but I can guarantee you, it'll start to work its way into businesses soon enough.

Last time I checked, it is working for everyone. It's not fair to those who want to use touch or any other of the new I/O tech on the desktop to be forced to use an outdated UI paradigm. The role of the PC is advancing, but being hindered by the OS. It's time for the OS to advance too.

If you don't want touch, the desktop is still there, so there are no issues here.

Again, never say never.

Few things here, you start adding in UI options, and support goes straight to Hell. You're running Windows 8, ok, now are you running in classic mode, or are you running in the new mode? Plus, I can guarantee Windows 8 is just the start. Windows 9, will be more Modern, less classic. Switching over helps clean the OS of legacy code that just shouldn't be there anymore.

Than stick to Windows 7. No, seriously. But just be aware that Modern isn't going away. You can wish it all you want, but there are huge benefits to it, even on the desktop, and live tiles are one. You might not think they are beneficial, but to me they are. On my screen, I have my calendar, social updates, and mail updates all at a glance, They update without me having to waste system resources and time opening up each app or have it running in the background. I can get weather alerts, again without having to open the app.

I highly doubt touch will replace mouse/keyboard....ever. I do not want to program for 8 hours a day with my hands up in the air. I do not want to have to select a portion of the code by having to select it on the monitor. I do not want to work on photoshop where touch is not as precise as a mouse is. I do not want to type a 20 page paper with my hands in the air.

You cannot honestly believe the mouse/keyboard will be replaced by touch in graphic design and programming.

Few things here, you start adding in UI options, and support goes straight to Hell....

I am sorry, don't we already have this situation? Two control panels, two internet explorers, two different interfaces. We are already there. An option will not suddenly make Windows 8 impossible to support. All it will do is make the start screen not appear right away. Why is that so bloody hard to do? It saves us (the people that work on the desktop environment) an extra step. It does not make it suddenly harder to support, because once a user clicks Desktop, they are in the same situation. Explain how an option to avoid the start screen on boot makes it harder to support? When I boot into Windows 7, the start menu is not open by default. I do not want the start screen to be open by default either.

How can you think Live Tiles are beneficial? Do you sit staring at the start screen just waiting for something to update? Probably not, you are probably doing something else. I do not see how live tiles can be beneficial. Everything they do has been done for years. New emails? Outlook has provided little popups when you get a new email for years. New messages? Windows Live Messenger and other IM clients have provided little popups when you receive a new message for years. Weather? I would rather look out the window thanks.

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In the box F4-425 Pro TNAS device Power adapter LAN cable (CAT 6) Quick guide [full online guide] Limited warranty notice Screws (for HDD bays) Stickers 2x rubber feet (spares) Design As has become kind of common with TerraMaster, certainly in the last three years, the 2025 F2- and F4-series have received a makeover that really adds to the premium feel of the NAS. Gone are the plastic shells, now replaced with an aluminum outer shell, with the front and back retaining the textured black plastic we saw on the 2024 models. Some key differences from the 2024 series include placing the power button back on the front, along with the addition of a Type A USB port. It's not much bigger or heavier either; in fact, it weighs 500 grams less than the F4-424 Pro. It's slightly shorter in height and depth (length), but only by a few millimeters. The front and back do retain a similar style to the 2024 series. On the front, you just have your four bays along with LED indicators for the HDDs and power. The welcomed change is having a USB port on the front for quick access, should you need to back up a USB drive, for example. Around the back, from top to bottom, you have a reset pin hole, an HDMI port, two 5 GbE Ethernet ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type A ports with a Type-C port below them, and a connector for the barrel port power source. Again, there's no Kensington Security Slot present, which is a bit of a shame considering it's a data storage device. Left side Right side On the left and right of the F4-425 Plus, it is completely smooth aluminum with a TERRAMASTER logo printed on both sides. On the bottom, there are some holes to assist ventilation. Unlike with the F4-425 Plus, the rubber feet did come unstuck during the teardown, which was also an issue on the 2023 series. It seems like other customers have lodged complaints about them, as TerraMaster now includes two spare rubber feet in the box, in case any of the preinstalled ones are lost; however, this seems more like a papering over the cracks solution rather than actually fixing the issue with better quality rubber stand-offs. There are also four screws that must be removed in order to access the internals. Teardown Upon removing the four screws, you can slide the device out of its shell to reveal the three NVMe M.2 slots (PCIe 3.0 X1) and single SODIMM slot connector, which is populated with a single 16GB DDR5 4800MT/s module. I added a couple of MP44Q M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs (2 x 4TB) that can be availed on Amazon for $492.99 that TEAMGROUP supplied us with, along with a 250GB 970 Evo Plus that my colleague Chris White sent me by accident and let me keep a few years ago. As I have said in previous reviews, TerraMaster support staff actually encourage installing whatever you want on their devices, and happily, the USB port for the bootloader is now easily accessible should you want to use it for your own flavor of NAS OS, such as TrueNAS, Unraid, or maybe Xpenology. Yes, because TerraMaster has now switched to a 256 GB NAND Flash card (3rd photo above) for the TOS bootloader. This is also replaceable, but you can also simply add a USB bootloader, access the BIOS, and tell the F4-425 Pro to boot from that instead of the Flash card. Unlike earlier iterations of TerraMaster NAS, you don't have to tear this down any further than the four screws on the outer shell in order to be able to access and manage the memory, NVMe slots, and USB bootloader. However, if you need to access the NAND Flash card or CMOS battery, then eight more screws (four on each side) need to be removed in order to take off the rear panel with the 120mm fan, and then the motherboard can be lifted off and removed from the SATA connector PCB. There's also no risk of threading the screw holes, because the four that hold the shell in place are metal on metal, while the screws that hold the rear panel on do screw into plastic. Either way, like last time when I reviewed the F4-425 plus, I was just happier to see larger screws being used. Overall, it follows some great improvements in build quality from the 2024 series and earlier. Setup BIOS The F4-425 Pro includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2], and you can setup pretty much everything here including the boot order, which is locked to the UEFI OS, however above that choice you can enable or disable booting to the USB bootloader so this would still allow you to switch to a USB stick with an alternative bootloader and boot from it, or disable it to instead always start from the first disk with an OS installed on it. Initial Setup Setup is roughly the same as the F4-425 Plus, along with the new TOS 7 setup dialogs, so there will be no surprises here. Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the F4-425 Pro can be reached by navigating to http://tnas.local. If that doesn't work, you can use the local address assigned via DHCP, which you can find using the TNAS PC desktop application, which is essentially a TerraMaster NAS finder. The setup process is pretty straightforward, through a wizard, and in full below: TOS 7 Initialization As you can see, TOS 7 received a new coat of paint, and the initialization requires fewer interactions. Happily, TOS no longer decides to throw all disks into the same Storage Pool; 2.5-inch HDDs are allocated into Storage Pool 1. This is because two of the HDDs are allocated to hold system files. Previously (with TOS 5 and 6), if you pre-installed HDDs and SSDs, they were all placed into Storage Pool 1, even if you did not select the SSDs for inclusion during the onboarding. TOS 7 Setup On first boot, there is a tutorial and some steps to take to harden the TNAS (or not), which includes an immediate update from TOS 7.0.0616 to 7.0.0706, of which the changelog screenshot is also included in the above gallery. It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to a "Start panel", initially I didn't see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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