Labthrift Labthrift Buy the boring upgrade. Skip the rest.

Notes / First NAS

Editorial, 22 Aug 2026. Specs from maker pages and named street reports. We have not burned these units in. Affiliate tags are not live. Confirm the diskless SKU before you click — Amazon is full of drive bundles.

TerraMaster F4-424 Pro: 32 GB DDR5 4-bay for Docker or TrueNAS

The affiliatable 4-bay with an i3-N305 and 32 GB. TOS in the box. x86 people actually re-image. Not a TrueNAS Mini X+ buy button.

Official spec: Intel Core i3-N305 (8C/8T, burst 3.8 GHz), 32 GB DDR5 non-ECC in one slot, officially not upgradable past 32 GB, dual 2.5GbE with LACP, dual M.2 2280 NVMe (PCIe 3.0 x1), four SATA, HDMI 2.0b, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps. 90 W brick. 2-year warranty. 222 × 179 × 154 mm. Official power with four Seagate 4 TB ST4000VN008: 33.0 W read/write, 13.0 W hibernation. Noise claim 21.0 dB(A) standby. Dual 2.5GbE LACP “linear transfer speeds up to 283 MB/s” is TerraMaster’s number (they have also cited that figure on 4× 18 TB RAID 0). Maker claim, not our iperf.

Non-ECC RAM — say that. 32 GB soldered-in-practice is the pitch versus every 2–6 GB Plus box. TOS runs out of the box. The board is x86, and people put TrueNAS or Unraid on it. We have not re-imaged one. That is a community path, not a Labthrift burn-in.

iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is the ECC / 10GBase-T comparison, not the CTA. Official product is real: C3758, 32 GB ECC, 5× 3.5" + 2× 2.5", dual 10GBase-T, buy path is the iXsystems configurator (USA/Canada). A 2026 TrueNAS forum report put the US configurator around $1909 diskless. Historical Amazon ASIN B08FCWBVWX is not a stable Associates target. Do not treat Mini as the hero SKU on this page.

Drives stay CMR. Skip EFAX / EZAZ / BarraCuda 3.5" 4 / 8 TB SMR. IronWolf 1–6 TB is 5400 RPM — the 4 TB IronWolfs in TerraMaster’s own power test are that class. For a ZFS pool you still want CMR; 7200 helps more than the badge. HDD picks. Appliance vs re-image: DIY vs appliance.

Street, 22 Aug 2026

PathWhat we foundNote
TerraMaster store, diskless$730.99 (listed $859.99) on 22 Aug 2026. Comparison table on the F2-425 page matches $730.99.terra-master.com/products/f4-424-pro. nashq PDF cited $699.99 class. Datacenterdisk $687.99. Confirm live.
Amazon disklessASIN B0CPPD51B9B0CPPD51B9.
Newegg14P-006A-00066Official-store diskless only.
Mini X+ (comparison)iX configurator; forum 2026 ~$1909 disklesstruenas.com/truenas-mini. Not the buy button.

Skip

Skip if you need ECC and a supported TrueNAS appliance — that is Mini, and it is a different budget. Skip if you wanted 10G onboard; this is dual 2.5G. Skip if TOS-or-bust is a worse Sunday than DSM. Skip SMR in ZFS. Skip a used LSI HBA scavenger hunt as the “cheaper” DIY; that is not a first backup box.

Sources

TerraMaster F4-424 Pro spec page (i3-N305, 32 GB DDR5 non-ECC, 33 / 13 W, 283 MB/s, $730.99, fetched 22 Aug 2026). Amazon B0CPPD51B9. iXsystems Mini page. TrueNAS forum, 2026, US configurator $1909. We have not sat with a unit and we have not installed TrueNAS on one.

Also in this lane

DS224+ vs DS423+: 2-bay or 4-bay Synology PlusSame CPU. Same 1GbE. Bays and M.2 decide. SHR vs RAID 1 on a 2-bay or 4-bay SynologyTwo identical disks: SHR ≈ RAID 1. RAID is not backup. NAS HDDs 2026: Red Plus, IronWolf, N300 — skip SMR and 5400 RPM for VMsCMR in any RAID or ZFS. Skip SMR and 5400 RPM for VMs.