Question 1

What if the device fails. i get raid so a drive fails we can swap it, but if this device fails, two years down the line, can we load the drives in a new raid box?

Accepted Answer

Redundant hardware is the way to avoid this problem.  I bought 2 of these and keep one in a closet as backup.  I tested moving the 4 drives i have in the main terramaster to my spare and back again.  It worked fine.  I also have a spare hard drive and tested removing one of my drives and putting in the spare.  That worked as well although the rebuild  can take a day or so if you have a lot of data.

If this unit fails years from now and you can't buy the same exact model again, it it might not work to buy an different RAID 5 capable system and plug the drives in, then again it might.  You'll have to do some research on the Internet to see if others have been successful at it.  I'm not taking any chances and an extra $160 to buy a spare is worth the piece of mind.  But once i start running on the spare unit, I'll need to look for another backup solution it case it dies.

Question 2

Can this be used without RAID so that the computer will just recognize each of the drives in the enclosure as a stand alone drive?

Accepted Answer

Yep, that is how I'm using it right now. I did install their software, but didn't see a JBOD setting, so I'm not even sure that was necessary.

Question 3

Going to Terramaster webpage it shows this unit supports 18tb drives. Is the product listing correct that this only supports 8tb drive?

Accepted Answer

The product listing specifies that the TerraMaster D5-300 can support a drive capacity of up to 20TB, and a total storage capacity of up to 100TB (with 5 drives).

Question 4

Is this Unit compatable with USB 3.1 Type-c?

Accepted Answer

No, it utilizes the Type-C connection, but only at USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) speeds

Question 5

Could this be used to hold 5 optical drives instead of 5 disk drives?

Accepted Answer

The trays are fitted to a 3.5 or 2.5 HHD which are both smaller than a standard optical drive. not sure if the firmware would even recognize them.

Question 6

Does D5-300 supports hot-swappable hard drives?

Accepted Answer

Yes, I had a drive fail in a RAID-5 configuration and replaced it and added it to the set and it re-synced

Question 7

Can newly purchased D5-300 be used when the hard drive is installed?

Accepted Answer

No! If you install new hard drive, the hard drive needs to be initialized and formated prior to use. As the factory default RAID mode is SINGLE disk mode, please refer to the guidance of the user manual if you require using other modes.

Question 8

Can two or more sets of RAID be created in D5-300?

Accepted Answer

D5-300 only supports one set of RAID! Creating two or more sets of RAID may cause RAID errors and data loss on the hard drive.

Questions & Answers