TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus

[azrael]

Well, since the CPU doesn't support ECC, what would be the point of using ECC RAM?
Most Intel CPUs that aren't Xeon's don't support ECC RAM. I thought that was common knowledge by now.

Intel® Core™ i3-N305 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ i3-N305 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

www.intel.com

Actually, most Intel CPUs (again) support ECC, particularly since Alder Lake. However, Intel forces a particular chipset on you to enable that functionality. One would've thought Intel had learned from AMD. Apparently not.

And I wholly agree with @lexluthermiester on the subject of ECC. Most people are woefully uninformed when it comes to ECC. And, of course, the industry isn't in a rush to change that (for consumer products). Makes one wonder why.

 

[Pepamami]

I really believe the whole ZFS and ECC thing is a myth, as no-one has managed to prove that it makes a lick of a difference for your average user.

idk about ECC, but ZFS is matters a lot for me. Only because of zstd compression. I tried BTRFS, but it stinks right now.

 

[Rover4444]

I realised I messed up the graph a bit, updated it.

View attachment 394788


Well, since the CPU doesn't support ECC, what would be the point of using ECC RAM?
Most Intel CPUs that aren't Xeon's don't support ECC RAM. I thought that was common knowledge by now.

Intel® Core™ i3-N305 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ i3-N305 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

www.intel.com

Ryzen PROs should support ECC though. They have more lanes but hardware transcoding is trash compared to Intel. Wish Intel or NVIDIA would put one of their integrated GPUs on an m.2 and made this a non-issue for anybody with a spare slot...

Well, then they've changed that again. Even so, the N-series SoCs don't support ECC, so its not relevant to any NAS based around them.

This is really some bizarre paranoia thing that I don't really understand where it started, but it appears to come from the TrueNAS ZFS zealots that claims everything else is garbage.
I've had my NAS that runs OMV for seven years now and I've lost exactly nothing. Prior to that I had a basic QNAP NAS and once again, lost nothing.
I really believe the whole ZFS and ECC thing is a myth, as no-one has managed to prove that it makes a lick of a difference for your average user. If you're a big corporation, that's a different matter.
Then again, no-one is forcing anyone to buy something they don't want to buy, which is why there's a lot of choice out there. However, no consumer or even small business NAS out there, comes with ECC memory. A few models from QNAP supports ZFS though.

ZFS prevents bit rot and doesn't actually need ECC memory.

Sorry, but ECC memory won't save your data if a DIMM comes loose.
If data transfer to and from the RAM really were that unreliable, wouldn't every piece of electronics use ECC memory?
Fortunately, that isn't the case.
But each to their own, if you see a value in spending money on a use case because you have an unstable computer, good on you. I would fix the computer instead.

DDR5 actually does have some ECC capability though, and modern filesystems are much better nowadays. It may have not been a problem before, but with larger disks and denser chips ECC is becoming more and more relevant.

idk about ECC, but ZFS is matters a lot for me. Only because of zstd compression. I tried BTRFS, but it stinks right now.

I really wish btrfs had stable raid-5/6 support already! Native encryption too, but that's not happening...

 

[Chaitanya]

The funny thing is, everything we store on our PCs has really exploded in size. Even just games have really gone up in their install size, 100 GB is now a normal in AAA games, and we have seen much, much larger games - Digital Combat Simulator base game is "only" 200 GB, with some additional planes, terrains and missions and you're above 500 GB in no time!

And if you do any sort of audio visual productivity - 50 megapixel RAW images, 4K video, RAW video, high bitrate audio files have all gone up in size compared to what was standard half a decade ago.

But we're still hearing "gone are the days of hoarders who downloaded movies, music and stored large libraries on home computer, who needs large drives now?"...

I have an old habit of making sure atmost only 40% of the photos shot get imported and atleast 50% of those imported files are culled so at this point I only have 15000 RAW files(luckily highest resolution files that I have come from EOS 5D mark 4) from last 10 years on my storage drive. Only recently started sound recording(got a recorder that does 32bit float and mic) so not sure how files for those are going to start piling up.

 

[TheLostSwede]

DDR5 actually does have some ECC capability though, and modern filesystems are much better nowadays. It may have not been a problem before, but with larger disks and denser chips ECC is becoming more and more relevant.

That's not the same though, that's only ECC for data in the RAM, not for transfers between the RAM and the CPU or the other way around.

I really wish btrfs had stable raid-5/6 support already! Native encryption too, but that's not happening...

How have I tested with btrfs and RAID-5 in this review, if it's not stable?

 

[Pepamami]

How have I tested with btrfs and RAID-5 in this review, if it's not stable?

native btrfs raid support is not stable right now. In review its brtfs over lvm/mdadm

 

[Rover4444]

That's not the same though, that's only ECC for data in the RAM, not for transfers between the RAM and the CPU or the other way around.

Okay but you also asked "wouldn't every piece of electronics use ECC memory?" and that's one example of electronics using ECC memory. If you want higher density ECC becomes more relevant, not less.

How have I tested with btrfs and RAID-5 in this review, if it's not stable?

It's not stable, the other guy explained how.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Okay but you also asked "wouldn't every piece of electronics use ECC memory?" and that's one example of electronics using ECC memory. If you want higher density ECC becomes more relevant, not less.

It's not the same though. The ECC in DDR5 is there because otherwise it wouldn't work at higher frequencies, which is kind of worrying on it's own.

It's not stable, the other guy explained how.

Ok sure, I guess that's why every single NAS appliance maker supports it then, because it's not stable and they want their customers to lose data. Makes perfect sense. Glad someone in a forum knows better than them. There's no way they would allow for it to be an option, if it wasn't reliable enough, as they'd get sued to kingdom come.
Also, based on your links, that's not RAID-5 or RAID-6, it's something else they call RAID56, that is similar, but not the same.

 

[unwind-protect]

Ok sure, I guess that's why every single NAS appliance maker supports it then, because it's not stable and they want their customers to lose data. Makes perfect sense. Glad someone in a forum knows better than them. There's no way they would allow for it to be an option, if it wasn't reliable enough, as they'd get sued to kingdom come.

It's a safe bet that the appliances use BRTFS over md raid's raid5/6, not BRTFS' built-in raid.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It's a safe bet that the appliances use BRTFS over md raid's raid5/6, not BRTFS' built-in raid.

Yeah, that seems to be the case.

 

[Rover4444]

The ECC in DDR5 is there because otherwise it wouldn't work at higher frequencies, which is kind of worrying on it's own.

Don't forget for higher densities, too.

Ok sure, I guess that's why every single NAS appliance maker supports it then, because it's not stable and they want their customers to lose data. Makes perfect sense. Glad someone in a forum knows better than them. There's no way they would allow for it to be an option, if it wasn't reliable enough, as they'd get sued to kingdom come.

Uhh... okay? I really don't know what else to say here, I linked the LITERAL BTRFS DOCUMENTATION and raid56 is unstable. FS-level RAID =/= hardware RAID.

Also, based on your links, that's not RAID-5 or RAID-6, it's something else they call RAID56, that is similar, but not the same.

It's filesystem-level RAID.

 

[TheLostSwede]

FS-level RAID =/= hardware RAID.

None of the consumer and SMB type NAS devices use hardware RAID, but they're also not using the weird btrfs RAID implementations.

 

[Ultron1337]

I run somewhat similar 4x m.2 SSD NAS box QNAP TBS-464. It's small, quiet and powerful enough to run variety of tasks. Besides being traditional NAS, I have discovered it's pretty convenient box for running my containers and other stuff. I really like those kinds of small m.2 NAS boxes.
Hopefully TerraMaster adds SMART support, disk health monitoring tool is quite critical part of any NAS software.

 

[Pepamami]

Glad someone in a forum knows better than them

That's the problem with modern premade NASes, that simply by making own NAS, and installing something like Free/TrueNAS, or Debian/Ubuntu you will get a far more better product.

Like, some people on THIS forum may even find this product insulting. Because again, people on this forum "knows better than them".

And these NAS makers may cry, how its hard to get a proper CPU with ECC, how u can't have ZFS because of licensing problems, how only 1 dude per year buys their products, so they have to triple the price, to stay even, etc etc. But nobody cares about these problems, especially when u can make a better one urself.

This one is fine btw, but only for 400$ price tag.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Glad someone in a forum knows better than them.

We're the buyers and part of the target audience. If they're missing features and specs we want, then yes, we know better and we're not giving them our money. Simple as that. But you can continue arguing against us. Not gonna do you any good because we know what we want in a feature set.

 

[Rover4444]

We're the buyers and part of the target audience. If they're missing features and specs we want, then yes, we know better and we're not giving them our money. Simple as that. But you can continue arguing against us. Not gonna do you any good because we know what we want in a feature set.

It's why I fucking love AOOSTAR, you see their new 7 bay? It's crazy good.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I run somewhat similar 4x m.2 SSD NAS box QNAP TBS-464. It's small, quiet and powerful enough to run variety of tasks. Besides being traditional NAS, I have discovered it's pretty convenient box for running my containers and other stuff. I really like those kinds of small m.2 NAS boxes.
Hopefully TerraMaster adds SMART support, disk health monitoring tool is quite critical part of any NAS software.

The big advantage of the F8 SSD Plus is the 10 Gbps Ethernet interface vs. 2.5 Gbps on the TBS-464, plus you get a much more powerful processor, which should prove handy in your usage scenario. You also have to option to add more RAM, which the QNAP doesn't offer.

 

[DragoonAethis]

I have this box for ~6 months now, it's great. You can install something more useful instead of the stock TOS after unlocking some options in UEFI (Boot TOS first, VT-d off) - and with that HDMI port you can use it as a media box behind a TV.

 

[unwind-protect]

I have this box for ~6 months now, it's great. You can install something more useful instead of the stock TOS after unlocking some options in UEFI (Boot TOS first, VT-d off) - and with that HDMI port you can use it as a media box behind a TV.

How dare you bring first-hand facts into a perfectly fine flamewar?

 

[DragoonAethis]

How dare you bring first-hand facts into a perfectly fine flamewar?

The joys of having a new account: even if I get banned for pissing someone off, I don't lose much, and maybe someone learns they don't have to use the flaming garbage that is TOS

 

[bug]

Actually, most Intel CPUs (again) support ECC, particularly since Alder Lake. However, Intel forces a particular chipset on you to enable that functionality. One would've thought Intel had learned from AMD. Apparently not.

A particular chipset? DRAM hasn't gone through the chipset since Core2.

 

[azrael]

A particular chipset? DRAM hasn't gone through the chipset since Core2.

That doesn't stop Intel from requiring a certain chipset to enable ECC functionality. It's the W series of chipsets. Which one in particular depends on the generation. Currently W680, W790 and W880 are in use (going back to Comet Lake it's the W480 and the W580, both of which are discontinued at this point). Good luck finding a (cheap) board.

BTW, before the W series it was the C series, but that was so long ago that it barely merits a mention now.

 

[bug]

That doesn't stop Intel from requiring a certain chipset to enable ECC functionality. It's the W series of chipsets. Which one in particular depends on the generation. Currently W680, W790 and W880 are in use (going back to Comet Lake it's the W480 and the W580, both of which are discontinued at this point). Good luck finding a (cheap) board.

BTW, before the W series it was the C series, but that was so long ago that it barely merits a mention now.

Weird, I need to read up on it. Idk what's the chipset's role in this.

 

[azrael]

Weird, I need to read up on it. Idk what's the chipset's role in this.

Call it a dongle. That's about what it is, in this context. Remember that all single socket chips are the same die (be it Core or Xeon), just binned and with the (in?)appropriate features fused off. Artificial segmentation ftw.

 

[unwind-protect]

Weird, I need to read up on it. Idk what's the chipset's role in this.

There is no technical requirement for this chipset, just a marketing one.