TerraMaster F4-423
We’re big fans of the TerraMaster F4-423 as the NAS offers great value at the MSRP. Knocking $100 off the original listing price further sweetens the deal as one of the best-value NAS for running Plex.
Creating your very own Plex Media Server is a great way to catalog, stream, and enjoy purchased media content, be it music, shows, or movies. To make the most out of Plex, it’s important to consider just how much media you have available to store, what kind of processing power you’ll need for transcoding (if at all), and how many people will be accessing the server. TheTerraMaster F4-423is one of the more affordable Intel-powered four-bay NAS options from the company with 2.5GbE networking and other highlights that make it a powerful enclosure.
We often recommend this NAS against competitor enclosures, even at full price. You’ll find the F4-423 in a few of ourbest NASbuyer guide collections and seeing $100 discounted off the MSRP forPrime Daysimply makes it almost a steal of a deal.
Why I would buy the TerraMaster F4-423 at this price
TerraMaster doesn’t get enough love largely due to the slightly rougher operating system and weaker marketing compared to its competitors, but the company is responsible for creating some excellentNASservers, and the F4-423 is among them. This enclosure is powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N5095 processor with 4GB of RAM preinstalled at the factory. It’s possible to expand this memory up to 32GB but 4GB is more than enough for getting started with Plex. The four-drive bays can be kitted out with up to four 20TB drives for a maximum raw capacity of 80TB before creating a RAID.
The Intel Celeron N5095 processor is the star of the show, however. When shopping around for a NAS to run Plex, it’s important to consider the possibility of needing to transcode content. This is when the receiving client device does not support the format or resolutions present on the NAS. It’s on the system running Plex to handle this resource-intensive process, which essentially converts the file into another format, so the client is capable of receiving and playing the media. It’s recommended an Intel processor be used to ensure support for up to 4K transcoding, and the N5095 ticks this box.
There are plenty of NAS enclosures out there with Intel processors, and the F4-423 from TerraMaster has tough competitioTerraMaster F4-423n with the likes of theQNAP TS-464andSynology DS923+in the same field. Where TerraMaster’s F4-423 wins is value, undercutting the competition considerably, especially when one looks at the specifications. It’s not often you’d come across a NAS with 2.5GbE networking, M.2 SSD slots, upgradeable RAM, and decent performance for less than $400, thanks to this Prime Day discount.
