RAID, Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, is a data storage virtualization technology that has been around for decades. While the term was first coined in the 1980s, certain aspects of the technology emerged in the 1970s.
The idea is to use multiple hard drives to speed up data access and / or create redundancy if one drive fails to avoid data loss. Most PCs can run hard drives in a RAID configuration, but few are configured to do so and there is a good reason for it. But this is something you should consider.
The main reason why your PC probably doesn’t have drives configured using RAID technology is that you need multiple hard drives to do it, preferably identical ones. For a decent RAID setup, you need to have more than three identical hard drives. It takes up space. More importantly, from your PC manufacturer’s perspective, those extra hard drives don’t necessarily mean extra storage space.
With the TerraMaster D5-300, users can configure a RAID array with up to five hard drives connected to a PC or Mac via a USB 3.1 Type-A cable. The D5-300 can be used for several different RAID levels, as needed. The unit can also be used to host up to five disks operating normally in JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) configuration, depending on your normal internal PC configuration.
The silver chassis of the D5-300 is a sturdy unit with five drive carriages in the front. On the left side there is an on / off button above which are the five drive status lights. At the back there are two fans to keep things cool.
The device does not come with a hard drive installed. Up to five drives can be installed, these can be traditional 3.5 “or 2.5” hard drives or SSDs. For RAID configurations, I would recommend using identical drives.
Installing the drives is straightforward. The caddies can be easily unclipped and the discs screwed into place, using the included screwdriver and screws (for 2.5 “and 3.5” discs). Once the discs are screwed into the caddies, they are reinserted into the frame and clipped in place. There are no cables or connections to worry about.
To configure the D5-300, the TerraMaster RAID Manager application must be downloaded from the company website. The application is simple to use, you just need to select the required RAID configuration and the disks you want to use. In addition to JBOD, the D5-300 supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10. It can also be used with a single signal drive, as well as two run together to create a clone drive.
The simplest RAID level is RAID 0, which the D5-300 can configure if multiple disks are present. RAID 0 combines the disks into a single volume by spreading the data across the physical disk. This can give the advantage of faster access to data as it can be read from multiple disks at the same time. You also get the combined amount of storage space for all disks in the array. The downside is that there is no redundancy. This configuration is used when performance is important, but data loss is not an issue.
RAID 1 creates a mirrored copy on a second drive. The array will continue to operate as long as a drive is operational. This means that even if a drive fails, data is not lost. This configuration halves the amount of disk storage space in the array to create redundancy. Data transfer speeds will be those of the slowest drive in the array. This is the simplest “right” RAID array you can use, requiring only two disks.
Requiring the installation of at least three drives in the D5-300, RAID 5 offers both redundancy and faster data transfer speeds. Storage space is reduced by approximately 5-10% because parity information is distributed throughout the array. Parity data can be used to calculate data lost in the event of a single drive failure.
RAID 10 is what is called a combination of nested RAID levels of RAID 1 and RAID 0 (RAID 1 + 0 = 10). It is a RAID 0 array of mirrored disks. This level requires a minimum of four disks. The configuration should provide better data throughput and latency than other RAID levels, making it better suited for heavy I / O applications.
After I configured the RAID array using the RAID management tool, I opened Disk Management in Windows 10. Here I was asked to initialize the RAID array (as as drive), as you need them with all newly installed drives. Once initialized, I was able to format and label the ready-to-use RAID drive.
For my review, I used NAS drives, but you can use any drive including SSDs if you want. Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives are enterprise grade drives designed for 24/7 use and are a bit more rugged than consumer drives. It is also possible to have more than one drive configuration in the D5-300. By removing one of the NAS drives (which I had borrowed from my media server), I inserted an old 120GB SSD into the spare caddy and made it run in JBOD configuration in tandem with the RAID array. 1.
Being a separate unit, setting up and reconfiguring the TerraMaster D5-300 is easy and fairly foolproof. When reconfiguring RAID arrays on a PC, I have always been afraid of accidentally setting up the wrong drives and losing all my data. RAID management software guides users through the process with appropriate warnings that data will be lost on reconfigured drives. The D5-300 can be easily disconnected from one PC and connected to another giving instant access to stored data.
I’m puzzled as to why the D5-300 has a USB Type-C jack on the actual unit but comes with a USB Type-C to USB Type-A cable to connect to your computer. The instruction manual also states that users should only use the supplied cable to avoid data loss. The ability to connect to my PC via a USB Type-C socket would have been nice.
However, connected to the PC, the D5-300 performed as it should. It provided additional storage space in the various RAID configurations without any issues.
The TerraMaster D5-300 is simple to use and offers users a robust and very easy to configure way to provide a RAID storage solution for critical data and backups. If you are looking for the security of an easy-to-use RAID system for your data, the TerraMaster D5-300 is definitely worth a look.
