Review of the hybrid TerraMaster D8
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid
3.0/5 Buy on Kickstarter
If you need a lot of storage space in as small a package as possible, the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid combines a hard drive and an SSD — but with a critical speed limit.
It's been a quiet evolution, but external drive enclosures have changed significantly over the last ten years. Ten years ago, expensive, high-speed Thunderbolt enclosures or inexpensive USB 3 enclosures were all the rage. USB-C has changed things a bit.
But class divisions still exist. Thunderbolt and USB-4 now have speeds of 40 gigabits per second and are expensive.
The alternative is still USB-C, but with USB 3 in different incarnations. This is scaling from 5 gigabits to a practical maximum of 10 gigabits on the Mac.
The TerraMaster D8 Hybrid has a lot of bays, four of which are dedicated to super-fast storage. Yes, that’s a lot of storage in a small space, but there’s no real way to take advantage of the high-speed storage slots effectively.
It still offers pretty good value for money, though, provided you buy it very soon or on sale.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid Review – Features and Design
The TerraMaster D8 Hybrid is an 8-bay hybrid RAID array. It’s designed to expand your Mac’s available storage by accommodating multiple drives. The downside is that they all connect via USB 3.2.
The device is called “Hybrid” because of the type of disks it can store. The four trays can accommodate four 24TB SATA hard drives, called cold storage, and the device's main storage.
It can also accommodate four NVMe M.2 SSDs, which the company calls hot storage. The idea is that users can choose to store data in slower cold storage or faster hot storage, depending on their needs.
In fact, this is an artificial distinction. Users have been distinguishing for a very long time between what should be on fast storage and what should be on slower storage. There is no urgent need to break it now.
And besides, two different types of media will not deliver information much faster or slower. The USB connection is the main limitation.
This means a total storage capacity of 128 TB, of which 96 TB is HDD and 32 TB is SSD. Retail prices will be around $3,200 for SSDs and $1,800 for HDDs. If you're going to spend $5,000 on hard drives, you're probably also looking for higher-performance cases.
At 8.74 inches by 7 inches by 6 inches, the device is quite compact for what it contains. The power supply is external, which is normal.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid Review: Case and Power Adapter
Its 4.1-pound unloaded weight is heavy, but not out of line for a case for discs coated with metal and plastic. It's roughly twice the size when filled with disks, with most of the weight coming from the rotating metal and accompanying housings.
The rear panel fan automatically adjusts speed based on hard drive temperature and is quiet at just 21 decibels. In practice and under load, our testing showed noise levels of 40 decibels at a distance of one meter from the device. Some of it is drive noise, but mostly it is fan noise.
Review TerraMaster D8 Hybrid – Drive mounting and RAID configuration
There are four hard drive slots on the front panel. Each uses a tool-free tray with an automatic push-lock system to prevent accidental removal.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review: hard drive trays
The trays are pretty good. I've seen kennel pulls before and generally like them.
They are not designed for regularly installing and removing drives if you tend to replace storage frequently. This is not a major crisis considering that most disk enclosures are installed with storage and only occasionally removed in the event of a failure or upgrade.
A cover and a few screws hold the M.2 drives to one side of the device. If you've ever built a PC, you'll have a good understanding of how drives are installed.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review: M.2 slots
If you haven't already, it's pretty simple. Insert the M.2 drive into the slot, push the drive shank down, and screw it in.
With M.2 drives, there is no room for bulky heatsinks. There is also no need to buy storage for it, which requires these sinks, given the speed of the case.
At the rear is an old-fashioned drive mode switch that we don't particularly like. This allows users to switch between four different processing methods.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review: RAID switch and back panel TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review: RAID switch and back panel
It can support JBOD mode, turning drives into a single storage location. We don't recommend this, really. There is no gain in speed, and the failure of one disk will lead to the failure of the entire array.
Unified mode allows you to store each disk independently. This is what we recommend for the most part. Set this switch to single mode, forget about it, and let macOS Disk Utility handle the RAID 0 or 1 configuration.
Raid 0 and Raid 1 modes are selected by this switch for two of the four hard drive bays. Again, we don't recommend this.
You can also configure Raid 2+6 mode, which dedicates two hard drives for use in Raid 0 and 1. The other two hard drives and four NVMe drives act as one drive.
As you would expect with direct storage, there are a number of indicator lights on the front panel. They flash blue happily and are easy to disguise with duct tape. There is no way to turn them off.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review – case characteristics
Although it looks like a network-attached storage device, and some advertising copy hints at it in part, it is actually designed to connect directly to a computer. It connects via a USB-C port on the rear panel, running at USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds of 10 Gbps.
TerraMaster claims the D8 Hybrid delivers read speeds of 560 MB/s on a single SATA SSD, or 1,016 MB/s when accessing all four SSD bays. Write speeds are a maximum of 520 MB/s for a single drive and are limited to 960 MB/s for four due to limitations of USB 3.2 Gen 2.
M.2 drives are reported to offer read speeds of up to 980 MB/s to a separate disk, and the write speed is 880 MB/s.
Our testing confirms the company's claims. This isn't surprising given that only four high-speed hard drives can saturate a USB-C connection.
We like that there's no additional software to install, as is the case with some Thunderbolt RAID enclosures. We don't like that the USB-C type 3.2 connection holds back the device's performance.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review – buy it at the right price
I've tested a huge number of drive cases. They all have different prices and characteristics. It's hard to find a good balance.
While I like the build and design of the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid, it's not what you'd call a high-end case. It can fit a lot of storage into a small space, which is nice.
When using any peripheral, you are limited to the slowest component, be it drives or cable. In this case, there's more than enough storage for massive speeds, but that USB-C 3.2 connector could be a problem, depending on how much you pay for it.
At the time of publication, the Kickstarter for this case is still ongoing. The special price for the case will be around $200 with a promised retail price of $299.
I would be comfortable paying $199 for this, but $299 wouldn't make me happy. If you need data density, Amazon has enclosures with four and even five hard drive bays for $200 or less. This will suit most everyday storage needs.
And if you want, you can go crazy. The enclosure, which holds 10 3.5-inch SATA drives in one 10-gigabit enclosure, costs about $600 at full retail price.
Terabyte for terabyte, SSD storage in the form of SATA or M.2 is much more expensive than HDDs. Obviously, you get much better speeds from SSDs. It feels like putting four M.2 drives in this unit isn’t worth the cost plus $100 for the enclosure at retail compared to a HDD enclosure from another vendor for the performance you get.
All things considered, TerraMaster has done a pretty good job of designing this enclosure. It doesn’t run hot, it’s not particularly loud, and it’s powerful enough for light use and storage.
And I get it. 40Gbps Thunderbolt and USB 4 connections require a lot of engineering.
At best, enough drives to completely fill the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid, unencumbered by cables slowing things down, could deliver speeds of around 12GB per second for the aforementioned roughly $5,000 price tag. But instead, they’re funneled through the system at a gigabyte per second. What we have here is like trying to drain a pool with a garden hose.
With the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid, you'll get there inexpensively. But you'll have to be patient.
Sometimes a garden hose is enough, because the price can be right.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review – pros
- Relatively Quiet
- Works great
- Lots of storage in a small space, but…
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid Review – Cons
- All that storage is severely limited by USB 3.2 bandwidth
- Full retail price for performance is low.
In our ongoing battle with Google's de facto star ratings, the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid is once again hard to beat at full retail price. result” is not very good. For 199 dollars it is much better. According to the procedure, our main rating is based on the retail price of the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid at 299 dollars. If you buy it for 199 dollars. dollars during Kickstarter or subsequent sale on Amazon or the like, that's a good 4 out of 5 just for data density.
However, we are not sure what the sales prices will be after Kickstarter. So perhaps, if it suits your needs, now is the best time to buy.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Where to buy the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid
As of May 30, the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid project is ongoing and has long been funded on Kickstarter. Customers can still purchase the device for $199 plus shipping. The company promises a retail price of $299, which is likely what it will typically sell for on Amazon.
The implementation of any crowdfunding project is not guaranteed. We do not support Kickstarters for which we do not have the equipment.
However, TerraMaster is a reputable company with a long history. We are almost sure that the product will be shipped.
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