Introduction

TerraMaster is a comparatively new player in the storage and NAS market, with the company launching its first product in 2010. The D8 Hybrid that we'll be taking a look at today is part of its Home/SOHO DAS lineup of products. DAS stands for Direct Attached Storage and is more or less an advanced external hard drive. TerraMaster has offered a range of DAS products for a few years now and the D8 Hybrid is its second DAS to support NVMe drives. In total, it can house eight drives, hence the D8 name. This breaks down to four SATA drives and four NVMe drives.

The D8 Hybrid doesn't rely on a SoC or similar to handle the drives, instead, TerraMaster has built it around multiple chips from Realtek. We'll go into these once we take a closer look at the hardware in this review, but this isn't unusual when it comes to DAS enclosures, although the way TerraMaster has configured the D8 Hybrid isn't something we've seen from its competitors. The D8 Hybrid can also be used as a NAS expansion unit, although it's unclear how well it'll work with NAS appliances from brands other than TerraMaster.

Specifications

Packaging and Bundle

TerraMaster shipped the D8 Hybrid inside an outer shipping carton made of regular brown corrugated cardboard.


Inside the shipping box was plain retail packaging with a single sticker being the only giveaway of what was inside.


Opening the retail box, we find the DAS wrapped in plastic and held in place by some foam inserts. A box of accessories completes the package.


In the accessory box we found the power adapter, a one-meter long USB Type-C cable, a small screwdriver, screws, a SIM card tool (more on that later) and some stickers, as well as some basic documentation.