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It's not really like that though. but the world is a lot more alive. and the fact it's p2p and not f2p cuts the moron factor by about 99%

 

I disagree with that last part. There is still an abundance of stupid people playing the game.

 

I'm enjoying the game so far but I'm really questioning it's long term viability. We're lead to believe the game starts at level 50 with veteran ranks and I really hope that's true.

Anyone else notice their armor breaking extremely fast? I repair my armor fully, go out and kill 4 or 5 things and after that it's already taken 10% damage. I'm really not fond on the entire armor degrade use on mechanic and there's a good reason why it isn't that way in any other modern mmos. It's annoying and frustrating and serves as a huge money sink.

Anyone else notice their armor breaking extremely fast? I repair my armor fully, go out and kill 4 or 5 things and after that it's already taken 10% damage. I'm really not fond on the entire armor degrade use on mechanic and there's a good reason why it isn't that way in any other modern mmos. It's annoying and frustrating and serves as a huge money sink.

 

because very little armor binds so you can sell it all, all of it can also be used to increase your balcksmithing or clothing skill and get components. 

 

basically it's there. to keep the economy healthy and avoid ridiculous prices on everything and making everyone rich.  generally I only notice armor degradation if I die though not from just fighting. 

because very little armor binds so you can sell it all, all of it can also be used to increase your balcksmithing or clothing skill and get components. 

 

basically it's there. to keep the economy healthy and avoid ridiculous prices on everything and making everyone rich.  generally I only notice armor degradation if I die though not from just fighting. 

 

I get all that. But when you're taking 10% armor degradation before you make it 50 feet from a town that's a little too much.

I'm still not behind the armor degrading "feature". It's stupid and makes it annoying to play the game and I'm not even level 50 yet. I can't imagine how bad it's going to be when I have high end armor to repair.

 

They just need to get rid of that mechanic altogether and add some different money sinks into the game. Thinking on it there really isn't all that many money sinks. Outside of buying your mounts, armor repairs, and teleport fees (I usually go to shrines to save on that fee) I can't think of any.  No dye system, no item transmute system. And I already have a 17k and 42k mount and I'm just level 43.

 

I really like the game but it's missing quite a few mechanics that come standard in the majority of mmos (auction house), and there are reasons why they do. I feel like maybe this game came out about six months to a year too early.

 

Also I'm not sold on the megaserver thing. At least how they have it done where you have to do a certain amount of damage to tag mobs. Most public dungeon bosses die within 2-3 seconds of spawning making it really hard to tag them. They really need to add some scaling as far as those go. Quest items aren't shared. It's frustrating as hell going to pick up a quest item, only to get attacked by a mob that chased you across the map and have some random stroll up and take it from you while you're stuck in combat. Nor are gathering nodes. At least GW2 has those things down so the mega server feature won't be as much an issue in that game.

a lot of those features have been left out on purpose though and won't make it in. 

 

I don't see a problem with armor degrade anyway, it takes a long time and a couple of deaths before it actually affects the armor. and you're ot supposed to die :) if you don't die I haven't really seen it affect the armor before 2 levels when you need to upgrade anyway. 

 

and bank and inventory slots is probably the biggest sink in the game. 

a lot of those features have been left out on purpose though and won't make it in. 

 

I don't see a problem with armor degrade anyway, it takes a long time and a couple of deaths before it actually affects the armor. and you're ot supposed to die :) if you don't die I haven't really seen it affect the armor before 2 levels when you need to upgrade anyway. 

 

and bank and inventory slots is probably the biggest sink in the game. 

 

I rarely die unless I stupidly decide to try to solo a skull boss. And yeah, as you are leveling you upgrade your armor so often that it degrading isn't so much a problem but I can see it being one when we reach veteran ranks when we're going to be wanting to use epic and legendary armor.

 

At 40+ things start to slow down a bit and my armor is degrading (not from deaths) in 30-40 minutes. It's way too quick and not much will convince me it's good for the game to have it stay like that. When I play with my friends they've taken to not wearing armor at all while doing quests or pub dungeons because it breaks so often. It definitely makes things a bit harder but then they're not being hit with 2k gold repair fees every hour or two.

Hawk and tragedy, if you had to pick the biggest difference between Elder Scrolls Online and Oblivion/Skyrim, what would it be? Very cautious when it comes to MMOs, not a fan at all...but am tempted by this cause do love me some meaty RPGing.

Dunno I haven't played skyrim in a long time now.

But don't expect it to be skyrim or such, it's not. It's an MMORPG dressed as a TES game. It's got the universe, graphics, lore and story, but it's a different game even if it's closer to Skyrim than other MMOs in play style.

Personality I find it fun though and the PVP is actually fun. Even if I think maybe it should be possible to change ownership of castles quite as fast as it does.

Though apparently AD, the alliance I'm in, totally owns the PVP maps in the US server , we usually have half of it while the other two share the other half and we often get up to owning 2/3rds or so

To bad GW2 looks like GW2 though. the graphical style and gameplay are neither anything I like. It's got way to much asian inspiration on the faces/models and armors. Also this thread isn't about GW2 so ;)

 

Screenshots also don't portray the looks very well

You don't have to like GW2 to appreciate the animations. ESO's animation quality is rigid, similar to that of maybe SWTOR. Was one of the things that actually bothered me while I was playing in the beta the past couple weekends. I was really hoping for the fluidity of GW2 with the great backstory or lore of the Elder Scrolls.

 

Anyway, I'm still undecided about ESO currently. I've seen plenty of mixed reviews, and having had my own hands on it even, I'm really worried about dropping $60 plus a sub just for this, mainly because MMOs usually have that honeymoon phase in the beginning where everything is awesome because it's new and fresh. I think I'd rather see how well the game will work out in the long run, after some of the existing issues have been patched up and more people have gotten to the end game to test the depth of the game.

Even if you only last the honeymoon phase, it's worth it for the buy in. so many hours of fun. 

As for the animations, they bugged me in beta but not anymore, not sure if they changed them. and SWTOR's animations seemed like some of the most fluid to me, as god as WoW's which the animations are one of the good things I can say about that game. 

 

I also like how things actually take time in this game, and the animation won't get interrupted by something else. 

Hawk and tragedy, if you had to pick the biggest difference between Elder Scrolls Online and Oblivion/Skyrim, what would it be? Very cautious when it comes to MMOs, not a fan at all...but am tempted by this cause do love me some meaty RPGing.

 

I would say that everything is different from Skyrim. The only thing they have in common is the lore. Game play is completely different in just about every way. 

 

I said it before but if people go into this game expecting an mmo version of Skyrim they're going to be disappointed.

Dunno I haven't played skyrim in a long time now.

But don't expect it to be skyrim or such, it's not. It's an MMORPG dressed as a TES game. It's got the universe, graphics, lore and story, but it's a different game even if it's closer to Skyrim than other MMOs in play style.

Personality I find it fun though and the PVP is actually fun. Even if I think maybe it should be possible to change ownership of castles quite as fast as it does.

Though apparently AD, the alliance I'm in, totally owns the PVP maps in the US server , we usually have half of it while the other two share the other half and we often get up to owning 2/3rds or so

 

I would say that everything is different from Skyrim. The only thing they have in common is the lore. Game play is completely different in just about every way. 

 

I said it before but if people go into this game expecting an mmo version of Skyrim they're going to be disappointed.

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback guys, to be completely honest an MMO Skyrim is exactly what i was hoping for so you helped me a lot...i can't afford to buy every game that comes out though i give it a good effort :|

 

Appreciate the candid and succinct overviews, i think i know what this game is all about now and it's not something i would personally enjoy, though it sounds like lots of people are having a great time with it, which is nice.

Yeah, an 'MMO Skyrim' is exactly what myself and people want tbh. They probably would've been better off developing that idea into reality.

 

An MMO is not what I want from them. What I want is a cooperative Elder Scrolls game. 2-4 players tops. That way mechanics wouldn't need to be changed at all. I think an MMO was a bit of a mistake.

An MMO is not what I want from them. What I want is a cooperative Elder Scrolls game. 2-4 players tops. That way mechanics wouldn't need to be changed at all. I think an MMO was a bit of a mistake.

 

See I think coop RPG expesically on this scale rarely if ever works. there's so little time when 2-4 peopel have time to play at the sime time that you'll never finish the game, an MMO there's always someone around to play with and you can play it as a coop game. 

I guess that really depends. A co-op game should never require other players to be completed. So it'd essentially be just another Elder Scrolls game but friends could join you if they wanted to.

SKyrim gameplay doesn't translate well directly to an MMO which is why they didn't. honestly this is as close as it gets.

 

Understandable. It's their project and baby so they get to do whatever they think is right, perhaps it's one of those occasions where what a big chunk of the user base thinks is good would not be workable. The FPS Command and Conquer comes to mind. Everyone thought it would be a great idea, so Westwood made it. Yeah.

"Regardless of whether you assume the guise of an orc or an elf, Elder Scrolls Online is the story of an adventurer in search of his or her soul. It's a fitting setup for a beloved single-player franchise that finds itself taking its first shaky steps in the unfamiliar massively multiplayer roleplaying game genre, and just moments past the character creation screen you can feel it struggling to reconcile its heritage with its new duds. Just as the adventurer tries to learn the truth of their past, ESO itself struggles with its identity through each leg of the lengthy leveling content."

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/31/the-elder-scrolls-online-review

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    • TerraMaster F4-425 Pro review: an octa-core Intel NAS that ships with AI (OpenClaw) by Steven Parker It has been a while since I reviewed a TerraMaster NAS, but the company reached out to me asking if I was willing to test the F4-425 Pro, which goes on sale today. It is an upgrade on the F4-425 Plus, which I reviewed back in October 2025 What you need to know is that it basically follows the design principles of the four-bay F4-425 series, with its all-metal exterior. Here are the most important specifications: TerraMaster F4-425 Pro CPU Intel Core N350 (8x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.9 GHz) Intel Core N305 (4x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.8 GHz) TDP: 7W / 9W (Base) Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 32 EUs (1.35 GHz) Intel UHD Graphics 24 EUs (1.25 GHz) Memory 1x slot 16 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) 1x slot 8 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) Disk Capacity 120 TB (30 TB x 4) Supported RAID Types TRAID, TRAID +, RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 6, RAID 10 Network 2x RJ-45 5 GbE Internal storage 3x M.2 2280 NVMe Slot (PCIe 3.0 x1) Bootloader 2Gbit 256 GB NAND Flash card (MX30LF2G28AD) USB port (internal) USB Ports 1x Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) 3x Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) HDMI 1x (HDMI) Hardware Transcoding Engine H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, VC-1 Maximum resolution: 4K (4096 x 2160); Maximum FPS: 60 Size (H/W/D) 219 x 181 x 150 mm Weight 2.9 kg System Fan 150 x181 x 219 mm Power 90W, 100V - 240V AC, 50/60 Hz, Single frequency Power consumption (HDDs) 45W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in read/write state) 14W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in hibernation) Noise Level: 20.9 dB(A) Using 4 SATA HDDs/SSDs in standby mode; Test environment noise: 17.3dB(A); Test distance: 1m Warranty 2 Years OS TOS 7.0.0706 (Beta) MSRP £639.99, $699.99, €739.99 / £739.99, $799.99, €839.99 As you can see above, there are two variants of the F4-425 Pro releasing today. The lesser variant has the slightly weaker N305 CPU and iGP, and 8 GB less RAM, although it also costs $100 less than the top variant we are testing today. In addition, these new F4-425 Pros are shipped with the as-yet-unreleased TOS 7 beta. So what is TOS 7 exactly? During the device initialization, you are warned not to use it in a production environment, which we'll get into later. My contact told me that TOS 7 exits beta today, June 23 with version 7.0.0746. The clear difference with the F4-425 Plus is that it contains the more powerful N350 Intel CPU released in the first quarter of 2025, with support for DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, LPDDR5 (4800), DDR5 and DDR4, and a max TDP of just 7W. It also supports AV1 decoding, as well as H.264, VP8, VP9, H.265 (8 bit), and H.265 (10 bit). The different capabilities in the Alder Lake-N (and Twin Lake) series are listed below. Processor E-cores L3-cache Turbo clock GPU GPU-clock TDP Intel N355 8 6 MB 3.9 GHz 32 EUs 1.35 GHz 9 W Intel Core 3 N350 3.9 GHz 1.35 GHz 7 W Intel Core i3-N305 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 9 W Intel Core i3-N300 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz Intel N250 4 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 6 W Intel Processor N200 3.7 GHz 0.75 GHz Intel N150 3.6 GHz 24 EUs 1 GHz Intel N97 1.2 GHz 12 W Intel Processor N100 3.4 GHz 0.75 GHz 6 W The CPU is part of the Alder Lake-N series that sits just below the top N355 offering, albeit with an impressive TDP (less than the N355 and N305) for the features it offers. It is designed for low- powered systems and entry-level laptops. As before, we are seeing another NAS with an acceptable, if not great, amount of RAM. It should be noted that the F4-425 Pro only has one SODIMM slot, so if you are planning to upgrade the already 16GB included in this NAS, it will have to be on one module of Single Rank DDR5. As a reminder, up until a couple of years ago, it was commonplace to only get 2 or 4GB max on a flagship Synology or QNAP home NAS. Ever since the likes of TerraMaster and more have entered the market with ample RAM sizes included in their NAS offerings, it has gone a long way in forcing the hands of the traditional makers to up their game a bit. Before we dive in, you can view the different SKUs released so far since the 2025 series launched for Home and SMB users, with the most important specifications listed along with the MSRP listed below: SKU CPU Cores Memory Link Price F2-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $249.99 F4-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $369.99 F2-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $399.99 F4-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $569.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N305 8 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $699.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N350 8 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $799.99 The F2 in the product name means two 3.5-inch HDD bays, where F4 is four 2.5-inch bays. First impressions Like with the F8 SSD Plus packaging, the F4-425 Pro is using the upgraded box materials, which certainly look better than a plain cream colored box with TERRAMASTER stamped on the sides. The box gives off a premium feel and certainly adds a positive vibe to first impressions. 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.
    • well you can add a GPU for around $500, that's still around the price of Steam Machine but overall significantly better in performance.
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