I’ve been using the TerraMaster F2-210 NAS since we reviewed it last year on VlogTehnica YouTube channel last year on VlogTehnica YouTube channel. Since then it has served it’s purpose as a file storage “dumpster” for every video presentation that I had to edit for the channel.

Basically, it had two services activated:

• Network File Storage – I had a 2Tb HDD shared on my local network & mapped on my computers
• SFTP started with a custom port & a special firewall rule to be accessible from outside

I’ve rarely used it for anything else but but backups and it did quite a good job. So what’s the problem? After all, people usually write stuff to brag or complain about stuff.

I need more. I need my NAS to serve as a web development environment, to be stable and ready anytime. The last two weeks have been quite an interesting and unexpected journey since the Oracle incident.

I clearly need to rely more and more on the little F2-210 and I’ve started noticing some issues and strange behavior.

The CPU inside it’s powerful enough but it’s ARM and some libraries and software’s don’t fully use this architecture at the moment. A simple example it’s Plex which should have hardware acceleration but in this case it doesn’t work.

The SFTP service has been reliable so far, being accessed maybe 3 times a month when I needed to backup something from a remote location but today it acted strange. The SFTP service was started but it didn’t remote connect, nor locally. The problem was fixed after a simple NAS reboot.

However, rebooting the NAS clears some of the settings I use in Transmission web interface. Some torrents that are supposed to be stopped are starting and I have to manually stop them and set the ratio limit again.

The FTP serice on port 21 (or whatever ports you want) and the passive ports don’t want to start. Strange because SFTP works. Couldn’t found any fix for this one and I really need those passive ports to backup my blogs from shared hosting directly to the NAS.

I currently tricked WordPress to send the backup to a FTP port range that’s actually forwarded in my router to the internal SFTP port. Hey it worked!

Since I need a web development environment I’ve tried to setup PHP, MariaDB and a webserver using the apps offered by TerraMaster store. They are very basic, very old and I can’t really use the versions I need. Really now. What the heck I supposed to do with PHP 5.6?

Soooooo I’ve tried the next best alternative, using Docker. It was the first time I’ve actually spent time learning a little bit of Docker but TerraMaster had Docker in the app list and Portainer in the beta list.

They both worked decent but I am definitely not familiar with them and the only web panel / web management software that I know it works with ARM it’s aaPanel. Sadly I couldn’t get it to start inside a contain. I’ve been trying for a week and I have no idea what I am doing wrong or why it doesn’t work.

So now I am thinking about a few things. Should I get myself a very cheap computer in a very small format like a NUC or USFF, should I search for a Intel based NAS or should I reach TerraMaster and ask it they want to help?

It’s clear to me that I need a device with a little bit more power and flexibility. I’ve been looking into the F2-221, it’s Intel based but if I get a new NAS, maybe one with HDMI would more interesting.

But in conclusion please don’t get me wrong. The TerraMaster F2-210 it’s a very good device. It’s very silent, it draws little energy and it can sustain good speeds even with Emby running and streaming a 1080p movie.

The issues I have are software related and has nothing to do with the brand. Whatever might be the case, I need to find a solution to some of the issues and problems I’ve encountered.