Some of Microsoft's original plans make complete sense now.


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I went to Target today to take advantage of Target's current deal in buy 2 get one free in all games in stock (including the PS4 games that are starting to roll out on store shelves)... Yes I know this is the Xbox Threads, but I have a point...

When I got home and looked at the back of CoD: Ghost and KillZone:SF packaging... I noticed some astronomical numbers in the back. How high you say? Ghost has a minimum 49GB HDD Space, and KZ:SF has a minimum 45GB.. Talk about hogs on the ol' data caps most of our ISP's the world over have.

Which brings me to my point.

When Microsoft, first announced the Xbox One, they said all games would be digital (including those on disc) and the games would follow you.

I never thought this was so important, until now... Microsoft knew the limitations of the pipe in some parts of the world,and the data caps most people have from their IPS's...

Using the disc as a medium, to get your games played quicker and easier than downloading and using up your precious data (and more time consuming depending on your download speeds) was a genius idea on Microsoft's part.

I hope Microsoft finds a way to somewhat, find a happy medium...

For those with slow internet speeds, you may want to stick with physical copies of your next gen titles.

Especially if you have to wait till 50% or so, of the game to be installed before you can play them.

I'm not looking forward to digital downloads on these new consoles. Internet infrastructure in the UK sucks, worse still for people with caps.

 

There is no way games like CoD need the 40 GB requirements either. I really hope that other devs are sensible in their sizing, especially when it comes to patches. It's bad enough with games like BF3 using 6 GB just to patch/make it compatible.

Microsoft should of gone about their 180' a tad bit differently... What do I mean by that?..

When buying a game off of store shelf and inserted into the Xbox One, an option should pop up on the screen asking if you want to convert the game into a digital title that follows you wherever you go (rendering the disc unless after install completes) or if you like for the game to be retained of the disc it occupies...

Good thing Microsoft is a Software company and may find a way to do this, in the future

I think something that people like to overlook on top of all the digital game features is what MS' overall plan might be.

 

MS is pushing hard to unify all of its devices under one OS and a similar UI.  WP and Windows have merged at the core and will be merging at the app and api level over the course of the next year.  The X1 is also part of that and it already has the windows core, windows api, and app support.

 

At the same time, MS is also eager to develop more of their software as services instead of stand alone products.  Gaming could be the next thing they develop into a service and not something tied to a single device like an Xbox. I think there is a decent chance that you see MS move to make the Xbox an extension of pc gaming and not its own island like previous consoles.  That could mean games that can be bought on pc or X1 and played on both, XBL services migrating to the pc to mirror what is on the X1, and even the game streaming idea that could be pushed to smaller, cheaper devices.

 

There is a lot we still don't know about their plans, but a lot of their steps as a company seem to be moving towards opening up the console platform vs keeping it closed.

I'm not looking forward to digital downloads on these new consoles. Internet infrastructure in the UK sucks, worse still for people with caps.

 

There is no way games like CoD need the 40 GB requirements either. I really hope that other devs are sensible in their sizing, especially when it comes to patches. It's bad enough with games like BF3 using 6 GB just to patch/make it compatible.

 

The horrible part for me is I live on an RAF Station, which has it's own Exchange. On that exchange I get about 6mb/s, the highest speed I've seen my download speed hit was 1.1mb/s in Steam. The annoying thing is the Village the RAF Station is in has it's own exchange and people get 20mb/s on it.

the Xbox One, an option should pop up on the screen asking if you want to convert the game into a digital title that follows you wherever you go (rendering the disc unless after install completes) or if you like for the game to be retained of the disc it occupies...

That's the problem. Just how do you render the disc useless? If it's done by telling Xbox servers that then it relies on another Xbox console being online to know that the disc is marked as useless.

Now if the online requirement for the console had been kept then you could install the game on disc and then connect to Xbox servers just to activate the installation. At this point, all games would have been digital except that you could load the files from a disc instead of having to download it over the network.

I remember when games were like 100mb in size. A game that calls for 50gb of HDD  is absurd. The Xbox One and PS4 better have plenty of HDD space for these games, at least 1TB

Microsoft should of gone about their 180' a tad bit differently... What do I mean by that?..

When buying a game off of store shelf and inserted into the Xbox One, an option should pop up on the screen asking if you want to convert the game into a digital title that follows you wherever you go (rendering the disc unless after install completes) or if you like for the game to be retained of the disc it occupies...

Good thing Microsoft is a Software company and may find a way to do this, in the future

 

Suggestions like that have circulated the internet for years, along with ideas like using USB drvies etc. Either way, discs are here to stay for the foreseeable future and already Sony and Panasonic are working on the next-gen "blu ray" disc with 300 GB capacity.

 

I think games like CoD really just want to "boast" about their install requirements and it'll come back to bite them when people refuse to download that much or simply can't download it. The game still looks like the 360/PS3 counterparts, so people aren't going to put up with ###### like that for long without seeing major improvements.

I'm not looking forward to digital downloads on these new consoles. Internet infrastructure in the UK sucks, worse still for people with caps.

 

There is no way games like CoD need the 40 GB requirements either. I really hope that other devs are sensible in their sizing, especially when it comes to patches. It's bad enough with games like BF3 using 6 GB just to patch/make it compatible.

 

I'm under the impression that caps on internet traffic are nothing short of anti-consumer. 

Q: How many here on neowin have say cable or fiber optic vs say DSL?

 

resaon why I ask is, caps on people internet usage is uber-control. totally against the consumer.

 

The OP may be on to something. would be interesting if MS went out and investing on internet infrastructure for xboxone users to by pass such nonsense

Yes, putting games on a disk was a revolutionary idea, I bet games manufacturers the world over are kicking themselves for not having thought of that one before Microsoft :D

 

Microsoft were never going to go all digital, nor would any console manufacturer, they still make money from offering their products in brick and mortar stores.

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I remember when games were like 100mb in size. A game that calls for 50gb of HDD  is absurd. The Xbox One and PS4 better have plenty of HDD space for these games, at least 1TB

500GB each, that has been well known for months.

With high end graphics/textures and high quality 5.1 ch + surround, that's what you get..

500GB each, that has been well known for months.

With high end graphics/textures and high quality 5.1 ch + surround, that's what you get..

 

Yeah, I think these games also come with multiple audio tracks from basic 2.0 stereo up to things like 7.1 uncompressed (yes uncompressed audio can get big) to DTS and so on.   

I honestly think that the size you need on the disc doesn't equal the size you'll be downloading from them if you go digital.  The game on the disc is, in order to help with load times and so on, uncompressed, thanks to the size BD offers us it doesn't have to be compressed.   The install on the HDD is also uncompressed, or it shouldn't be for the most part.   But the files you download online could be, then they are extracted and installed to your HDD.   If a game takes up 40GB of HDD, uncompressed, it could be a 20GB download, or less.     There's no reason not to compress things if you can.

 

Guess we'll know in time.

I'm not looking forward to digital downloads on these new consoles. Internet infrastructure in the UK sucks, worse still for people with caps.

 

There is no way games like CoD need the 40 GB requirements either. I really hope that other devs are sensible in their sizing, especially when it comes to patches. It's bad enough with games like BF3 using 6 GB just to patch/make it compatible.

 

I agree with the issues pertaining to downloads. For some(like me, right now atleast) it'll be no issue, but for others with caps they could only download maybe one or two games a month.

 

I also agree with the problem with game sizes. There's no reason CoD requires 40GB and no reason for patches to be as big as that bf3 one you say. Unfortunately though, i wouldn't be surprised if file sizes continue to be bloated like this. Now that both consoles have blu-ray discs it's much easier for developers to just lazily throw things on the disc without much concern for the file size.

I agree with the issues pertaining to downloads. For some(like me, right now atleast) it'll be no issue, but for others with caps they could only download maybe one or two games a month.

 

I also agree with the problem with game sizes. There's no reason CoD requires 40GB and no reason for patches to be as big as that bf3 one you say. Unfortunately though, i wouldn't be surprised if file sizes continue to be bloated like this. Now that both consoles have blu-ray discs it's much easier for developers to just lazily throw things on the disc without much concern for the file size.

 

well consider the data detail with 1080p resolutions, textures get heavier and the data gets larger.

 

erm .. even 720p for that matter..  :huh:

I do wish would of done 90 degrees, not a 180.

Offer physical copies of games, and digital only that follows you around similar to steam, family sharing, etc. 

 

That way they offer both business models and might have the chance to gain the trust of gamers with a digital model without scaring gamers with limited broadband, caps, et / gamers that still like to collect games No internet requirement for physical disc, internet check for pure digital for digital versions. 

 

I'm also a bit caught off guard a the installation size of some of the newer games.

Its interesting that pc games have not moved to bluray discs at this point. 

 

They just keep chugging along using dvds and no one really cares.  For as much as games have grown in size, you would think there would be a huge push to adopt blurays for pc gaming.

Its interesting that pc games have not moved to bluray discs at this point. 

 

They just keep chugging along using dvds and no one really cares.  For as much as games have grown in size, you would think there would be a huge push to adopt blurays for pc gaming.

 

True, BF4 is on 3 DVDs and other games as well.    Still I think PC gamers don't care because you HAVE to install the whole thing to the hdd anyways, no messing with discs after that.

Its interesting that pc games have not moved to bluray discs at this point. 

 

They just keep chugging along using dvds and no one really cares.  For as much as games have grown in size, you would think there would be a huge push to adopt blurays for pc gaming.

 

I imagine it's just a cost-saving thing, even if those costs aren't much anymore.  PC game devs don't need to put their games on blu-rays because you install the game to the hard drive anyway.

 

I hope Microsoft rolls out it's original digital plans over time.  If companies don't start pushing this stuff out, ISPs won't have any reason to beef up their infrastructure and update their services to deal with more data.  Not to mention the convenience going digital provides.

I'm not looking forward to digital downloads on these new consoles. Internet infrastructure in the UK sucks, worse still for people with caps.

 

There is no way games like CoD need the 40 GB requirements either. I really hope that other devs are sensible in their sizing, especially when it comes to patches. It's bad enough with games like BF3 using 6 GB just to patch/make it compatible.

Apparently there is a reason for 40GB of data or else it wouldn't be the requirement, they don't just say "oh hey uh... yea 40GB looks good" they gain nothing from that. The high resolution textures and other data (sound etc.) are why the files are so huge. Really sucks my Xbox One will only have a 500GB HDD, unlike the PS4 that can be upgraded...

Apparently there is a reason for 40GB of data or else it wouldn't be the requirement, they don't just say "oh hey uh... yea 40GB looks good" they gain nothing from that. The high resolution textures and other data (sound etc.) are why the files are so huge. Really sucks my Xbox One will only have a 500GB HDD, unlike the PS4 that can be upgraded...

 

Although not available at launch, the Xbox One supports external drives via USB3, and they allow game installs to those, if I remember correctly

Its interesting that pc games have not moved to bluray discs at this point. 

 

They just keep chugging along using dvds and no one really cares.  For as much as games have grown in size, you would think there would be a huge push to adopt blurays for pc gaming.

Most computers have a DVD-Rom at least, Most computers do not have a Blu-Ray player.

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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 the Control Panel, initially I did not 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 Control 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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