TERRAMASTER D2-310 USB Type C External Hard Drive RAID Enclosure USB3.0 (5Gbps) 2-Bay RAID Storage Support RAID 0/1/Single (Diskless)

Pros: - Fast Shipping - Good Quality Build - Quiet Fans - Keeps Drives Cool - 2 USB 3.0 External Ports for Extra Drives. - Capable of Read/Write Speeds Greater than USB 3.0 - Easy Set-up - Provides Stable Array Storage for my Server. I have four HGST 6TB 7200rpm Deskstar NAS drives running in this enclosure as simple drives. I have the enclosure connected to a SUNIX USB 3.1 PCIe card in a 4-Lane slot on Lenovo ThinkServer TS-140 servers. This enclosure has provided very stable storage and Read/Write speeds up to 140 MB/sec in single drive mode.

Cons: - Only capable of RAID 0, 1, and Simple Drives. This is clearly stated in the Literature so no egg deduction for that. - Not Capable of using all 4 drives in a RAID 5 or 10 Array. This is also clearly stated in the literature. - Fans do not have a speed control that is operator settable. - Bottom Rubber Bumper/Vibration Isolation Pads are only attached with adhesive. They come off easily and can get lost. - Some of the drive bays are slower to be recognized so Windows OS can fail to recognize those drives immediately. This can cause the Windows OS to remove the drives from the Network Share when rebooting the system. - When other external drives are connected to the USB 3.0 ports, the Read/Write speed of any of the drives is much slower. I am uncertain why connecting other external drives to the USB 3.0 ports slows down the Read/Write speed of internal drives. I just observed that it does. With the external drives attached, I get maximum Read/Write Speeds of 85-90 MB/Sec. Without the other external drives attached, I have observed maximum Read/Write speeds of 135-140 MB/sec. for the same internal drives.

Overall Review: I have servers that need external attached storage for large video databases and video processing. Because of the size of the databases, high transfer speeds are important to me. Reliability and Stability are most critical to me but speed is #3. I have tried multiple enclosures from Sans Digital, Mediasonic, and Vantec using eSATA connections. Finding eSATA PCIe cards with Port-Multiplier function and stable, reliable connection to the enclosures in RAID configuration has been almost impossible. The enclosures keep dropping connection and requiring the array to be rebuilt. USB 3.0 connections were also unstable (but more stable than the eSATA) but, the speeds are usually slower than eSATA. When I saw this Terra-Master D4-310 was available with USB 3.1 I decided to try it out. Lenovo TS-140 servers have USB 3.0 ports running to a SATA III bus. In order to get the USB 3.1 speeds I needed to add a PCIe card with USB 3.1. I found a 2-Port SUNIX PCIe card here at Newegg on sale and purchased two of these cards (I should have bought more). The SUNIX cards installed easily in the server and were recognized immediately by all the Windows OS (7 64-bit Pro and Server 2012) after installing the driver from the included CD. The combination of the NOONTEC Terra-Master D4-310 with the SUNIX USB 3.1 PCIe card was a winning combination for me. So far, after a couple weeks of testing. The enclosure has not dropped from my server and I have transfered more than 20 TB of files to, and from the drives without problems. I did experience some slower transfer speeds and glitches which were due to the fact that I was using USB 3.0 enclosures from Sans Digital and those enclosures are less reliable. When I transfer files to, or from SSD's to the HGST 7200rpm HDD's in the enclosure, I get average Read/write speeds of 135-14 MB/sec with maximum speeds in excess of 180 MB/sec. The manufacturer states that the enclosure is capable of 400+MB/sec with RAID or with SSD's. I cannot verify that yet. One weird thing I did encounter was that the Read/Write speed of the D4-310 is significantly slowed down when I attached external HDD's to the USB 3.0 ports on the enclosure. The Read/Write speed for any drive (internal or external) drops down to 85-90 MB/sec maximum. The speed goes back up when I remove the external drives from the USB 3.0 ports. I am not sure why the enclosure works that way. I just observed it and reproduced it. If you want maximum speed from your enclosure, do not attach external drives, or devices to the external USB 3.0 ports on the back of the enclosure. Another thing to be aware of is the failure to recognize individual drive identities when using SeaTools. I put Seagate HDD's in the enclosure and initialized them then ran SeaTools to test the drives. SeaTools fails to recognize the identity of any drive in the enclosure. The software will still run drive tests, S.M.A.R.T. testing and the other drive tests on any type of drives in the enclosure. SeaTools does not recognize even Seagate drives to do firmware updates when in the enclosure. If you are getting new drives and want to do firmware confirmation and updates or, to register the drives with the manufacturer, you need to connect the drives directly to the M.B. of the computer where the SeaTools software resides. The Port-Multiplier function of these enclosures prevents SeaTools from recognizing the individual drives. In conclusion, I am satisfied with the NOONTEC Terra-Master D4-310 enclosure. So far it has met my primary criterion of reliability and stability when used in conjunction with the SUNIX USB3.1 PCIe card. Speeds were acceptable also. I recommend this enclosure.

Pros: Fit and finish are both good, installation is easy. I set the selector to RAID1 for my intended use, put two previously RAID1 configured drives into it and it immediately showed up in Mac OSX Sierra. Quiet fan, that was the #1 reason I purchased it for. The previous Orico housing was awfully loud. This costs quite bit more but as the saying goes "you get what you paid for". Absolutely cool running unit, I have it configured as a RAID1 4TB unit for storing processed digital photographs on it.

Cons: None

Pros: * Solid, solid aluminum casing. This is by no means flimsy. * Whisper quiet fan in the back. Only audible in an absolutely silent room. (At least, my unit is inaudible.) * Plenty of instructions and warnings. Following them will lead to happiness. * Sturdy plastic hard drive trays do not cover hard drive spindle motor, and leaves plenty of exposure for logic circuits. * "Single/JBOD/RAID" switch is impossible to accidentally switch; requires supplied flat-head screwdriver to change. * Five-second turn off function prevents accidental power-off from untrained individuals in your vicinity.

Cons: I have no complaints as of this time (6/1/17), will be back in six months to update if necessary. See NOTES below.

Overall Review: NOTES FOR POTENTIAL PURCHASERS: * The price of a sturdy enclosure is the weight. This is much heavier than it looks. * This review is based on my "Single Drive" setting for this enclosure, I have not tried the JBOD or RAID settings. * If you are using Linux, your File Manager (for the purposes of unmounting) may not recognize this as two drives--it will just see the one USB connection. With my Ubuntu Studio 14.04.5 (XCFE), Thunar had trouble unmounting one drive, and then properly unmounting the other one. The safer solution seemed to be to log out, restart, or shut down the system. Not sure if this issue would arise in the other settings (JBOD/RAID). * My Windows 7 saw this as both a removable USB device and two hard drives, unmountable either separately or as a whole. No problems there.

Pros: Works as advertised. At first I was not sure because it was showing both drives in my system. Once I re-read the instructions and set the screw in the rear to raid 1 and then held reset for 5 seconds. Only one drive was seen and raid 1 was set. I get between 145 and 175 mbps transfer rate. Transferred 20GB to it in less than 5 minutes.

Cons: None

Overall Review: For data protection, this is worth the buy and when I had questions, I got a reply within 24hrs.

Pros: I dropped five hard drives in it and started it up. It was Instantly recognized and had been running without problems since installation.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I would buy it again.

Overall Review: I've owned this product for almost 2 years now. I trusted the Terramaster name because it is a well-known brand, but sadly it didn't perform well. In the two years that i've owned it, it has been nothing but troublesome. It was intended to be a RAID-1 storage for my important files. It had failed 4 times. Each time I had to get a new drive OR make a copy of the data, then fix it. FIx it means, i had to reformat the drives, change its RAID configuration. It always indicated that I had a bad drive in slot #1, but i independently test the drive, it was good. I swapped the drive slots and the good drive is now bad and the bad drive is now good. I can't return it or request support because it's beyond the waranty period. I will never buy this brand again.

Cons: instructions are very poor would have had problems if not for prior exp. with RAID enclosures.

Overall Review: would recommend unit

Pros: After setting the unit to JOBD (dial selector on rear), it simply plugs into any of my PC's and is seen as an external USB drive(s). All partitions on the five drives appear with drive letters. It's a five bay docking station.

Cons: The shell is aluminum, but front, back & drive racks are all plastic. A thin metal frame, as you’d find in a computer case, and certainly not what I expected given the price. In addition, it appears that the ‘Terramaster’ logo has either been air brushed out of the listing photo or they took a picture of a prototype. I say this because there’s a large logo on each side and there wasn’t on the image Newegg displayed at the time of my purchase. The logo is painted on, and not a decal which might be removed. The racks need a flat head screw to anchor the hard drives, and can’t use the standard hexhead. They do provide screws, but don’t include any extra. So if you strip or loose a screw… Noisy! All five of my drives had been in an open computer case for several years, and their noise level was never an issue. This little case acts like an echo chamber and it’s nothing short of obnoxious. Given this effect, it would have made sense to provide power buttons so that unused drives could be powered down… but again, they took the cheap route.

Overall Review: In all, it works but falls far short of expectations. Mine was purchased at a very good sale price, and I still feel like it was over priced. Several hundred dollars for a five bay docking station…. That’s all it is, and with the logo’s & noise, I wouldn’t buy another, but also didn’t return this one. Not good, not bad, just ok and there might be a better buy, particularly if your just docking drives and don’t need raid. Update May 2018: Came home to hear a soft, nasty, plastic grinding whir. The house was quiet, but for this sound and it was alarming.... Yep, it was the terramaster. It had been left on, and though the drives were all powered down, the fan continued to run and was the source of the awful sound. The noise when the drives are active precludes it being left on while watching a video. What is to be viewed is copied to the local drive, and the Terramaster shut down. After months of use, and the recent exposure to just how much noise comes from the fans alone... I would definitely not buy another one of these.