TerraMaster Announces D8 Thunderbolt 3 Device

TerraMaster has introduced their newest device and this time it’s not a NAS but a DAS. The new device is the D8 Thunderbolt 3 which gives most features away in the name. It has 8 drive bays and it connects via high-speed Thunderbolt 3 ports.

TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3

TerraMaster units are always easy to recognise as the feature the same kind of design. A beautiful aluminium shell and pinhole LEDs. The D8 is a little different though as it is a vertical unit and not a horizontal. That gives it a very small footprint for an 8-bay device which helps with the tidiness on your desk. To top it off, it also features carry handles on the top. A feature which might sound silly, but is very useful as a device loaded with hard drives gets quite heavy.

The D8 Thunderbolt 3 features hardware raid with support for RAID 0/1/5/10/50. The performance will naturally depend on the installed drives and setup, but it can easily reach a throughput of up to 1600MB/s. Whether you install speedy 2.5-inch SSDs or large-capacity 3.5-inch HDDs is up to you.

A perfect unit for tasks such as video editing, whether it’s simple 4K or the latest 8K type. High-res photo and graphic designers will also love it.

Connection Options

Since the TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3 device is a DAS, there aren’t a lot of connection options. That said, while there are few, they’re worth it. There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a DisplayPort connector. This allows you to not only connect 8 drives to a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 port, but it also allows you to daisy-chain more units to the port through the second Thunderbolt 3 port. This could be other storage devices or even another monitor.

While it might sound silly to connect a monitor through a data port, it isn’t. For example notebook users, such as those with the MacBook, don’t have a whole lot of ports available. With Thunderbolt 3 and a unit such as the D8 Thunderbolt 3, these users can easily attach two 4K monitors to their system.

It’s also worth mentioning that the unit has an internal power supply which makes the setup cleaner than with an external power brick.

Pricing and Availability

The new TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3 unit isn’t listed yet on Amazon UK and US, but I’m sure it won’t be long until then. A thing we do know already is the MSRP which comes in at $1599.99. Until it becomes available, you can also read up on the unit on the official product page.