TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus ready to go with HexOS

[Suljaman]

Hi All,

I'm super excited about this project and I finally have all the components I need for my new NAS, I wanted something small, quiet and with decent power, here is the breakdown:

• TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus
• 48GB DDR5 RAM - TerraMaster says it only supports 32GB, but it seems to work fine
• 8 x 8TB WD Black SX850X NVME drives
• 512GB NVME Boot Drive - This is a 2230 nvme inside a small USB case and connected to the internal USB port on the motherboard where the TOS USB drive lives. The only downside is that this is only USB2.

Things to note:

There seems to be an incompatibility with the Debian backend which resulted in the system to go into a boot loop. To fix this I had to make the following changes in the BIOS

• Disable Secure Boot
• Disable VT-d
• Disable ‘Boot TOS first’

Once this was done I was able to install HexOS, all 8 nvme drives were detected and setup with raidZ1 giving me 56TB of total storage. The RAM and 10GB NIC also function correctly, though the dashboard icon displays it as 5GB, however I was able to confirm it is actually 10GB from the terminal.

I've setup my first shared folder and performed some basic copy and paste tests, I'll do some proper performance testing and report back. As the Intel processor has an iGPU I will also get Plex installed and test some transcoding.

I'll probably wait until version 1 is released before making the jump and migrating all my data from my Synology NAS. Until then, I look forward to testing new features as they are released.

Keep up the good work HexOS team 🙂

[Dylan]

@Suljaman - This is fantastic feedback, thank you! We have very similar build, although you went HAM on storage, I only got 4x8TB platters. Which specific CPU do you have? There has been some discussion about whether the N100 (what I have) can perform transcoding well, especially subtitles.

[planetbob99]

@Suljaman could not tell from the specs on the site, is there no separate disc for OS then, is it designed to be part of the 8 discs?

[Suljaman]

Hi @Dylan - It was an expensive month, luckily I have saved a little during the black Friday sales 🙂 I went with i3-N305 model. Transcoding does work, but with my current config it uses the CPU as disabling VT-d means the OS cannot pass through the integrated GPU. Until there is a driver fix the only way around this is the have only 4 drives connected as that seems to be limit that won't result in a boot loop with VT-d turned on.

Edited January 1 by Suljaman

[Suljaman]

Hi @planetbob99 - With the TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus there is an internal USB port with a 4GB USB key (its on the CPU side of the motherboard), this houses the install files for the TerraMaster TOS, and you are correct, this is designed to be installed on part of the first NVME that you install. 

However, as TerraMaster allows for third party OS's to be installed, you can remove TOS USB key and install your own and use it as the primary disk for the OS install, that way all the nvme's can be used for storage. As Truenas recommends an actual drive rather than a USB key, I decided to use a small 2230 nvme within a USB case with a short USB cable with a right angle port, it fits quite well and I have it stuck the the chassis with double sided tape. The only downfall to this approach is the internal USB runs at USB 2.0 speeds. 

Another approach is you want redundancy and don't mind using the nvme drives would be to reserve nvme port 1 & 2 in a mirror raid and use that for your OS, then you still have 6 nvme's to play with. 

For me, I just wanted to max out the system 🙂 I'll post a pic when I power off the NAS.

It has been running fine for the last couple of weeks, with Plex running in the background with a couple of movies and TV shows. Still plan to wait for V1 before migration.