TerraMaster Official Forum

Given that we are not getting TOS 5.x and development on TOS 4.x for ARM has long-since stalled, despite new crypto malware threats, I am requesting that TerraMaster provide official documentation and tooling to enable folks to make their own custom bootable images for their ARM TOS units so that we can once again get on an operating system with a supported kernel and much needed security fixes and updates.

I'd think a great starting point would be either OpenWRT or Alpine, given that TOS is based off an older version of OpenWRT.

This thing is not as easy as you think. There is a lot of work to do to port a system to an ARM base platform, not just a boot image. You better give up such a wish.

I can't afford to give up on trying to secure my NAS against ever-increasing attacks, and neither can your team. Until you don't have ARM TOS users, you should be supporting the ARM units with the same frequency of updates and important security fixes as the x86 units are provided.

High frequency of updates doesn't mean it's a good thing.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that low frequency of updates with many known vulnerabilities and missing critical security improvements isn't great, either.

I understand that we're not getting TOS 5. I would however think, that backporting of critical security fixes like updated dependencies, current kernel, 2FA, etc would be on the list to ensure that the ARM devices left behind on TOS 4 can at least have some measure of continued protection informed by developments to x86/TOS 5.

Count how many updates the x86 platforms have had since the last ARM update and tell me again that TerraMaster isn't dropping ARM support.

Saijin_Naib wrote: ↑10 Aug 2022, 11:21 Count how many updates the x86 platforms have had since the last ARM update and tell me again that TerraMaster isn't dropping ARM support.

If you are comparing both architectures on TOS 4.2.×, the ×86/×64 series is exactly one release (4.2.39) ahead of the ARM series, since the ARM series & ×86/×64 series both have a 4.2.32 release.

If those same fixes in 4.2.39 could at least makes their way to the ARM series devices, then they'd be on par with each other, on TOS 4.2.×.

TOS 5 on ×86/×64 has had many releases due to the initial alpha/beta testing phase and the current growing pains of the official releases, which an ARM equivalent TOS 5 would likely match if feature similar.

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Charlie_Croker wrote: ↑06 Aug 2022, 19:13 I would be surprised if they were dropping ARM, as ARM seems to be the way forward, I'm certainly bloody impressed with the M1 based Macs and iPad Pro I own.

The Apple Silicon M× SoC is drastically different then the RealTek RTD1296 application specific SoC in the Terra-Master ARM series devices. Unless Terra-Master is moving to a much newer ARMv8.×A or ARMv9 solution with capabilities similar to the M× SoC series, that's not remotely the same thing.

It appears that Synology may have a RealTek RTD1619 based NAS forthcoming, based on their package downloads (however, DSM doesn't have any RTD1619 based images, yet); RTD1619 has a newer architecture than RTD1296, which is more likely to be the kind of solution that Terra-Master (& other NAS manufacturers) would use, however it's nowhere close to what the M× series offers.

The point I was making (and what you seem to have missed) is that ARM's move from mobile into the Desktop has been bloody impressive, especially for someone like me who cut their teeth on the 6502, 68000, PowerPC, X86 CPUs. I honestly expected Apple would release a 12" Macbook style device with similar performance to the Intel Core M CPUs, what I didn't expect was a SOC faster than the i9 in my 16" MBP. And when you consider I also have a Surface Pro X, which despite similar spec (8 Core SOC, 4xHi/Lo) and clockspeeds,is leagues away in terms of performance (my little M1 Mac Mini can run Windows 11 ARM faster than my SP X). Anyway, I was making the point that from a business point of view, not developing an ARM based TOS5 would be crazy.

Charlie_Croker wrote: ↑10 Aug 2022, 19:45 The point I was making (and what you seem to have missed) is that ARM's move from mobile into the Desktop has been bloody impressive …

Didn't miss it at all; that has nothing to do with application specific solutions like NASes to which Terra-Master specializes.

Charlie_Croker wrote: ↑10 Aug 2022, 19:45 Anyway, I was making the point that from a business point of view, not developing an ARM based TOS5 would be crazy.

It all comes down to the cost of development of such a solution for their likely small company in comparison to other NAS brands like Synology and QNAP.

With the majority of their sales assumed as being the ×86/×64 series devices (which has a larger selection versus the two ARM series devices), narrowing their focus away from ARM, as they appear to be doing, makes sense with their limited resources; all their competitors similarly have very few ARM series devices, with the majority of their lineups also being ×86/×64 solutions.

Unless the BoM and general acquisition costs of volumes of the RealTek based ARM SoC Terra-Master uses is drastically lower (like 2+ or 3+ times less) than that of any Intel Celeron SoC series, at least for Terra-Master, having an ARM based TOS 5 is probably not in the cards in the near future.