Teratrend TS432U 4 Bay RAID Enclosure Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

When we look at the price increase for the TS432U over the smaller 2-bay TS231U that I looked at previously, for an extra £50 or so, the advantage that you gain, not only in capacity but also in functionality is well worth the extra cost. For users that are not so worried about having the display, there is also a model without a screen that is available for around £15 less at ~£115.

Overview

Repeating a few lines from what I found with the TS231U, the TS432U has got a solid build quality as we would expect from Silverstone with its SECC and aluminium frame. Unlike the TS231U however, there are one or two items that I would like to highlight with this unit. The first of these is in regards to the rubber feet that the unit sits on. On my sample, the feet simply fell off as soon as I took the unit out of the box. After some contact with Silverstone, it appears that they are aware of a manufacturing flaw when attaching the feet and more specifically the glue that was used to attach them. Silverstone have advised that this is only likely to affect early shipments of the unit and if you were to experience this problem then they will send out a new set of feet to you free of charge with the improved adhesive pads

The only other item that I can’t get my head around with the TS432U is the need to have three ways of configuring the RAID arrays. By this I mean that you can either configure the system from the downloadable management utility, a set of DIP switches on the back of the unit or by using the buttons on the front panel. To me this would add too much confusion for a number of people as to how to set up the RAID configuration or finding out what method is actually being used. Rather than having all three options, I feel that the software option should be opted for and the other two methods dropped from the units design entirely. Software utilities are far more user-friendly and will give the unit a far less complex feel.

Putting these items aside, the performance that you do get from the unit is not too bad for a USB3.0 device. Granted USB3.0 has its limitations, but we do know that speeds of close to 260MB/s are obtainable over this interface from flash drives so yet again there is still some improvement to be made to the USB and RAID controllers here.

I’m not going to completely put this unit to rest though and say that it is useless. Like I found with the TS231U, users who run with SFF systems are going to find units like the TS432U ideal for extending their storage capabilities short of getting a far more costly NAS and with the ability to have this unit usable in under 5 minutes it’s not going to need to much playing around with to get it going.

I really wanted this unit to wow me more than the small 2-bay unit did, but there is just something about it that is holding me back from giving it an award. For an external hard drive enclosure it’s a great product, but with one too many items that still need fine tuning and polishing, sadly the TS432U won’t be seeing an award today.

Pros

• Low power usage
• Compatible with 4TB drives
• RAID 5 capability
• Solid construction

Cons

• Too many ways to configure RAID
• Screen feels like a redundant feature with not much info on hand

“With the ability to offer up RAID5 storage on a USB3.0 platform, the TS432U is ideal for SFF users who don’t want all the fuss and cost of getting a NAS, but there are still one or two items that need fine tuning and polishing to make this an award-winning product.”

Thank you to Silverstone for providing this review sample.