TerraMaster is back with another disk enclosure, this time for an SSD. I was offered the chance to take a look at their new D1 SSD Plus, which is a palm-sized enclosure that houses a single M.2 SSD with USB 4 support. It became available this month, and I have been putting it through its paces in the last few days.
Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: TerraMaster provided a free sample without any review pre-approval.
Here are the full specs of it:
| TerraMaster D1 SSD Plus | |
|---|---|
| Dimensions: | 112.5 x 60.0 x 33.0 mm |
| Weight: | 246g |
| Max Noise Level: | Noiseless |
| Compatible Disk Types: | PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 SSD |
| Raw Capacity: | 8TB |
| Reading Speed (max.) Writing Speed (max.) | 3853 MB/s (Samsung 990 Pro 4TB M.2 SSD) 3707 MB/s (Samsung 990 Pro 4TB M.2 SSD) |
| Power Consumption: | 7.5 W (Built-in Samsung 990 Pro 4TB M.2 SSD in read/write state) 5.5 W (Built-in Samsung 990 Pro 4TB M.2 SSD in hibernation) |
| Working Temperature: | 0°C ~ 40°C (32°F ~ 104°F) |
| Storage Temperature: | -20°C ~ 60°C (-5°F ~ 140°F) |
| Relative Humidity: | 5% ~ 95% RH |
| RAIDs Supported: | Single Disk |
| Certification: | CE, FCC, CCC, KC |
| Power saving: | Hibernation |
| Ports: | USB4 40Gbps |
| Warranty: | 2 Years |
| (MSRP) Price: | $109.99 |
With that out of the way, the D1 SSD Plus comes in a cardboard box, that when opened reveals the documentation envelope, a cardboard compartment for the accessories, and when lifting off the foam cover, the D1 SSD Plus enclosure sitting in a foam cushion.
What"s in the box
- D1 SSD Plus
- USB Type-C cable (C to C) 0.3m
- Screwdriver
- Quick installation guide
- Limited warranty notice
- Carry Bag
TerraMaster requires an email address and product details in order to access the official online user guide, and after getting to the end of the online User Guide (17 pages), which frustratingly encountered really slow page loads at times, there"s a link to download a PDF of the User Manual.
Design
I"ll just say it, the design of the D1 SSD Plus is really great. It is basically one big heat sink made from metal, and it is cold to the touch when not powered on. As can be seen in the specs, at just shy of a quarter of a kilo, this has a good heft to it as well.
Above you can see it from all angles, the underside has one screw that stays in the frame when loosened. On one side you have the port and certifications along with an indicator (white) light above the Type C USB port:
- Indicator light Blinking: Read/write status
- Indicator light Steady on: Idle status
Around the other side, the printed TERRAMASTER wordmark can be seen.
Teardown
After removing the four screws of the PCB, and turning it over, the ASMEDIA ASM2464PD chip can be seen along with a relatively large amount of SMD capacitors, this ensures voltage stabilization, power failure protection, and data safety. As well as its advertised USB4/Thunderbolt 4 20Gbps x2 speeds, the ASM2464PD chip is also backwards compatible with existing USB 3.2 ports and Thunderbolt 3.
The inside of the heat sink also includes a thermal pad to deal with the high speeds the chip generates.
Installation
For our review, I used an MP44Q 4TB NVMe SSD ($219.99 on Amazon or Newegg) that TEAMGROUP supplied us with. Installation is simple, simply unscrew the Philips screw on the bottom of the D1 SSD Plus and, pull apart to access and install your 2280 M.2 NVMe with an M2 screw. Yes, instead of a latch system, which I am a fan of, it uses a small M.2 screw to fasten the SSD.
Reattach the two pieces and secure with the screw (which does not fall away from the casing) and plug the provided cable into the D1 SSD Plus, and your USB 4 port.
TerraMaster also uploaded a video to YouTube that shows how to install the NVMe SSD.
Test System
Our test system consists of the following:
- Cooler Master MasterBox NR200P MAX
- ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4
- Intel Core i7-14700K with Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut Pad
- T-FORCE XTREEM DDR5 (2x16GB) 6000MT/s CL30 (XMP Profile)
- MP44Q 4TB NVMe SSD (installed to D1 SSD Plus)
- 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade SSD (local drive)
- Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.4652)
Benchmarks
For our benchmarks, hwinfo.com provided a commercial license of HWiNFO, and UL Solutions provided us with a Professional (commercial use) license for 3DMark.
Drive speed
| CrystalDiskMark 9 | ||
|---|---|---|
I ran CrystalDiskMark 9.0.1 in Windows 11 24H2 with the D1 SSD Plus attached to a USB 4 port three times with an 8GB workload, and also recorded the disk temperature using HwINFO, it never went above 38C with averages of 33C showing off how great the heat sink and thermal pads are performing.
CrystalDiskMark numbers show the random reads are great and the random writes are decent, about what you would expect from a DRAMless drive, and that too off a USB interface, so nothing much to complain about here.
AS SSD
We also did a run of AS SSD and the performance figures put up are good. The drive has performed as expected in both sequential and random throughputs here too. The speeds make it a really good option for 4K/8K video editing projects that would benefit from fast transfer speeds and rapid access times; add to that the benefit of the cool temperature.
Aside from that we also test gaming and how the enclosure can affect it.
I ran the Storage Benchmark from the 3DMark suite. This is a feature test that measures the impact of the storage disk on the various gameplay actions. It comprises game file copying/moving, installing, loading, 1080p60 OBS gameplay recording, and saving.
As you can see in the data above, the D1 SSD Plus does well in all the areas above, with the best access time being on Overwatch. That is understandable considering the textures and other game assets in the title are not as heavy as in the others. Meanwhile, the highest speed when moving Counter-Strike: Global Offensive game files was recorded at over 1140 MB/s, which is also quite good.
Our final benchmark was the DirectStorage feature test that measures game data transfer speed with and without DirectStorage. The DirectStorage feature allows faster data movement during gaming by removing as much of the OS overhead as possible, and this leads to faster game asset loading that in turn helps to improve the overall gaming experience.
The test clearly shows a huge boost in throughput (nearly two and a half times) with DirectStorage enabled. While that is indeed great, DirectStorage is very much game-dependent, and so the title itself has to support the feature, and unfortunately its adoption so far is not all that widespread.
Heat
| Side (opposite port) | Top | Bottom |
|---|---|---|
Using my FLIR ONE Gen 3 thermal camera throughout the testing, I was not able to record a temperature above 32.8C anywhere on the casing (matches our HWiNFO reading above), which means this enclosure will stay pretty cool with even the most demanding workloads.
Real world gaming you say? Yes. I decided we needed another testing scenario, so I fired up Steam and added a new library location pointing to the D1 SSD Plus. Then I installed Quake Champions, which utilizes image-based textures heavily, especially in its character models and environment details. And, let"s be honest, this is not a new game (early access testing began in 2017) but it is still being updated and developed, therefore relevant!
Personally speaking, I haven"t really had much time to play it. I used to play at least a couple hours each night to wind down, and well, it shows from my score, but I also recorded the gameplay with HWiNFO running in the background, and what does it tell us? Well, my i7-14700K, with 32GB of XTREME DDR5 6000 MT/s with a cache latency of 30 does not even break a sweat.
As for the D1 SSD Plus, it does not go over 32C in the 10 minutes of gameplay, and 12 minutes I recorded, and that"s with a total writes of 5,7GB and 32.1GB read. This despite the Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD reaching a peak of 72C (*reminds self to buy a heatspreader for it).
Sorry, the provided cable is really short, so I didn"t get a lot of "in-use" shots.
Conclusion
USB 4 SSD enclosures aren"t cheap, but this TerraMaster D1 SSD Plus is definitely not the most expensive you can find online right now (they can run into $200+). I feel what you get here is an extremely competitive, quality piece of hardware. Not only is it utilizing premium materials, but it is also backed up by several certifications that would allow it to be used in enterprise environments. At the heart of it all, it utilizes the tried and tested ASMEDIA ASM2464PD chip.
That along with it reaching or even exceeding the advertised speeds of 3200MB/s and up to 3800MB/s, perfectly meets the needs of 4K/8K video editing along with potentially large amounts of data transfers.
Personally, as I said already, I think it looks great, and I believe me saying "it"s cool" is perfectly accurate given our test results. I can"t really fault it, well maybe I would have liked to have a longer cable, and I reckon I can knock off half a point for not utilizing a latch system for placing the M.2 SSD, but that"s me nitpicking. Thumbs up from me!
You can purchase the TerraMaster D1 SSD Plus for $99.99 on Amazon, that"s after applying an in-page $10 off coupon.
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