TerraMaster D8 Hybrid review: 8-bay 10Gbps of up to 128TB NVMe + HDD RAID storage

You may remember back in early March when we reviewed the TerraMaster D5 Hybrid DAS (Direct Attached Storage), which is essentially a multi-disk enclosure for the purpose of external backup, or to expand the capacity of a NAS. That device could take two traditional HDDs (or two 2.5″ SSDs) and three M.2 NVMe SSDs for a total of five storage devices in one. The D8 Hybrid we’ve been given to review can hold four traditional HDDs (or 2.5-inch SSDs) and four M.2 NVMe SSDs for a total of five storage devices in one.

Here are the specs of this thing:

	TerraMaster D8 Hybrid
Dimensions:	222 x 179 x 154 mm
Weight:	1.9kg
Power:	72 W (100V to 240V AC) 50/60 HZ, Single Frequency
System Fan:	120 mm (x 1)
Max Noise Level:	21.0 dB(A) (Using 2 SATA HDDs)
Compatible Disk Types:	3.5″ SATA HDD 2.5″ SATA HDD 2.5″ SATA SSD
Compatible NVMe:	M.2 2280 NVMe Slot (x4)
Raw Capacity:	128 TB (24 TB HDD x 4 + 8 TB M.2 SSD x 4)
RAIDs Supported:	SINGLE DISK, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1
HDD Sleep:	Yes
Ports:	USB3.2 Type-C gen2 (10Gbps) DC IN 12V Barrelport
(MSRP) Price:	$299

Before we start, we should probably mention that aside from the extra storage options, it is essentially the same thing as the D5 Hybrid, so if you are familiar with that already then you will know roughly what to expect. If this is your first time here, read on!

First, we should mention a bit of the technical jargon in the specifications; the D8 Hybrid includes a beefier 72W power supply (versus 40WS in the D5 Hybrid) and claims that it tested it using four 22TB Seagate Exos X22 HDDs in read/write state, and recorded a max usage of 40.8W. The same setup used 9.8W in hibernation mode, which is what we assume is a combination of the power-saving mode of HDD Sleep and the Smart fan.

In addition, although the MSRP is currently $299 according to the official website, it can be purchased on a special website at TerraMaster at 33% off for just $199; however, you should be aware that my contact told me: “After the crowdfunding ends, the product will return to $299” sometime between May 7 and June, according to their own timeline.

What’s in the box

• D8 Hybrid (x1)
• USB Cable Type-C to Type-C (10Gb) 1 Meter (x1)
• Quick Installation Guide (x1)
• Power adapter (x1)
• Screws (several)
• Screwdriver and reset tool
• Limited Warranty Note x 1

I should mention that the “Quick Installation Guide” is simply a card with a QR code that links to https://start.terra-master.com that requests your email and product details which then opens to a full online User Guide. After getting to the end of the online User Guide (37 pages), which frustratingly encountered really slow page loads at times, there’s a link to download a PDF of the User Manual.

Design

The design of the D8 Hybrid is essentially a larger version of the D5 Hybrid, allowing for four HDDs instead of just two. The two sides with the TerraMaster logo also serve as a grill for air cooling.

Around the back is pretty much the same except for the addition of some helper text printed on the back for the storage slots and disk modes, which was absent on the D5 Hybrid. From top to bottom, there’s the power button, screw to set the HDDs into JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, or SINGLE mode, then there’s a Type-C 3.2 gen 2 port, and below that the barrel port for the 72W power connector. It’s essentially a black matt plastic casing that has a slightly textured feel to it.

Installation

While the traditional HDDs can be installed in the same tool-less manner as with a NAS, the NVMe M.2 SSD ports are a bit harder to access. On the official website, the manufacturer says:

Slide in M.2 SSDs with specially designed covers & screws for a speedy 5-second install!

Which is an update on the previous description, which suggested that no tools were needed to install the M.2 SSDs. You still have to remove two screws holding the side cover in place around the back as indicated by the red arrows that I added to the image below. This is also shown on the online Quick Install. I do think that TerraMaster could improve this drastically, even swapping out the two screws for PC case like knob screws would be a welcomed improvement.

TerraMaster also uploaded a video to YouTube that shows how to install the storage options.

The “hand-tightened screws” were exactly as described; they were relatively easy to remove without a screwdriver, and the screws themselves were large enough, even with my sausage fingers, to manage and carefully screw the NVMe M.2 SSDs into place.

Usage

For our tests, I am using a couple of 6 TB Seagate IronWolf NAS ST6000VN0033 HDDs, along with two 4 TB WD Red WD40EFRX HDDs. For the M.2 bays I am using three 2 TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSDs ($214.99 at Amazon U.S., £168.99 at Amazon U.K.) supplied by my contact at Sabrent, and a 500 GB wd_black SN750 SSD that my colleague, Chris White gifted me a couple of years ago, thanks guys!

To set the automatic RAID modes, turn the screw to the desired mode and:

Press and hold for 5 seconds to let the newly-set RAID mode take effect

If the D8 Hybrid is connected to Windows, you will hear the USB disconnect sound after roughly four seconds. After that, it reconnects, and the two disks are displayed in Windows as one.

As you can see, the NVMe can only ever be accessed as separate drives, and it is not possible to add them into a striped volume. More on that later.

On the official website, it is suggested to download TPC Backupper, which is not included in the box on a USB or onboard storage in the D8 Hybrid. There’s a card that also instructs to download TPC Backupper, but I find that a bit of a shame because even most Razer or Logitech keyboards and mice include the setup program for Synapse or Logitech Options when you connect these devices to your Windows PC.

Upon installing TPC Backupper by AOMEI a web page automatically opens in the default browser, thanking for a successful installation of what is actually a rebranded version of the free AOMEI Backupper Standard, and it “helpfully” suggests upgrading to a paid version for more features.

It seems like a missed opportunity for TerraMaster to use a first-party app with support for TRAID, and preferably without the nag to upgrade to a paid version of the software, which seems a bit desperate if you ask me.

RAID 0

However, back to the drive setup, first up, we selected RAID 0 which only makes use of the first two drives, in this case the two 6 TB drives, which gave us a single volume of 10.9 TB in Windows and ran CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5. A peak read of 242 MB/s and 234 MB/s write is not too shabby for HDD storage.

Next, I decided to emulate a daily backup that I usually do with the excellent SyncFolder, which is basically backing up my Documents and Picture folders from my main PC to my NAS’ Cloud drive. For this, I used the TPC Backupper app that I mentioned earlier.

The process took 4m9s to back up 15,261 files in 910 folders totaling 15,5GB into an .afi image file on the RAID 0 volume. Restoring back to the same local SSD only took 1m10s, which is impressive.

RAID 1

Next, I placed the D5 in RAID 1 mode and ran CrystalDiskMark again. As you can see, the read and write speeds are considerably affected by the unit having to account for the redundancy data on the 5.45GB volume. Below are some takeaways between RAID 0 and 1.

• sequential reads are up to ~3.2% faster on RAID 0 or up to ~3% slower on RAID 1
• sequential writes are up to ~6.75% faster on RAID 0 or up to ~6.3% slower on RAID 1
• random reads are up to ~5.8% faster on RAID 0 or up to ~5.5% slower on RAID 1
• random writes are up to ~11.76% faster on RAID 0 or up to ~10.5% slower on RAID 1

Then I ran the same backup job of Documents and Pictures in TPC Backupper, and this time, it was 30 seconds quicker at 3m39s. Restoring took the same 1m10s to complete. However, in a real-world setting, there isn’t a noteworthy difference in speed when it comes to backup operations with or without the redundancy of RAID 1, so it is up to you if you need it or not.

RAID with HDD 3, 4 and NVMe (Striped volume)

It is not possible to create a striped volume using the RAID array plus the two HDDs in bays three and four along with the four NVMe SSDs. You could probably use a third-party program if you wanted to maximize the storage space that all eight disks have to offer (which is totes something I would do, but my colleague Chris White would definitely not do), but then you would be tied to an operating system with that third party program installed on it.

NVMe benchmark

As a final test, I recorded the speed of one of the NVMe SSDs. Given that they are already quicker than the USB 3.2 gen 2 link, I didn’t find it important to bench all three, but you can expect to see the following:

• sequential reads on single SSD are up to ~255% (~3.55x) faster or ~71.8% slower on RAID 0
• sequential writes on single SSD are up to ~310% (~4.1x) faster or ~75.65% slower on RAID 0
• random reads on a single SSD are up to ~103x faster
• random writes on a single SSD are up to ~111x faster

The same TPC Backupper job of Documents and Pictures took 3m45s, which is only a few seconds slower than the RAID 1 job and perhaps indicates a bottleneck in the program rather than our D8 link speed. Restoring took 1m10s, which again is not a noticeable difference between RAID 0, 1 HDD, or SSD speeds.

Throughout the tests, I could hear the HDDs, however, the noise went away once power saving kicked in after a few minutes of inactivity. TerraMaster also has what it calls an “Intelligent Hard Disk Sleep,” which appears to be a Sleep mode that turns off the unit when the PC is put into Sleep mode.

I tried to measure the noise, but it did not register over the (roughly) 50dB of ambient noise of my work-from-home office. The peak in the graph is me picking up my phone to quit the measuring. Without specialist equipment or adequate space to do the measurements, I will have to take TerraMaster’s word for “noise levels as low as 21dB“. The D8 Hybrid is definitely quieter than the D5 I tested, I could not hear the whirring sound that the other unit produced.

Conclusion

Like last time, I feel disappointed I was not able to natively combine all eight storage options into one volume. For me, this would have been a cool way to tout this as external backup on steroids; however, you are only ever going to get the chance to combine two HDDs out of the box, which seems odd to me in a disk enclosure where you can install a total of eight. TerraMaster says:

[…] slots 3 & 4 and M.2 NVMe SSDs stand strong as independent guardians, catering to your every storage whim

So like I said last time around, I am not really sure what use the NVMe slots really serve because they must all be accessed independently; they cannot be configured to a striped volume. TerraMaster says it is for “hot data” (frequently accessed data). Given the increased cost of SSD storage, this larger unit then offers a means to pool a bunch of smaller-sized SSDs together into one enclosure, okay kewl.

Therefore, plugging the D8 Hybrid into your PC potentially gives you access to seven or eight storage disks, depending on if you use RAID 0 or 1. It’s a cool way to absolutely ensure your data isn’t lost due to an HDD failure. One disk can fail, and you will still have your data on an arguably cheaper than a NAS option with less of a headache to set up. Simply add your two HDDs, turn the screw to RAID 1, and power on (hold reset down for 5 secs to ensure RAID mode).

A single external HDD solution runs between $134.99 (4TB) and $499.99 (22TB), and the D8 Hybrid currently costs $199 (special launch price) without any storage, so you would have to want this multi-disk setup. I can see this being for people who want the safety of RAID 1, perhaps as an alternative backup to a NAS.

I feel like it could be improved with TRAID support so that different-sized HDDs can be used, and I would have liked to see TerraMaster use a first-party solution for backup software that is prompted to install when plugging in the unit into Windows for the first time. And for me, a true hybrid would have been a means to use the HDD and SSD together as one, but this isn’t possible. It definitely has a use case, but it’s very specific in that someone will want redundancy with their external backup or as a small footprint to add a bunch of different drives.

So I said in the title, this is an external backup on steroids you wanted, a cluster of eight storage devices in one enclosure; however, I do feel that with a few tweaks here and there, it could be improved to be the backup on steroids we all wanted.

You can purchase the TerraMaster D8 Hybrid for a special Kickstarter Crowdfunding price of $199, ahead of its availability from May 7. My contact told me it will return to its MSRP of $299 once the crowdfunding ends, which is sometime between the May 7 launch and June when the crowdfunding ends, but I will check and update.

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