TerraMaster claims that their new D5 Hybrid is the first in the industry to integrate two series of slots for both traditional HDDs and M.2 NVMe SSDs, enabling hot and cold storage.

The D5 Hybrid is not TerraMaster’s first drive to handle both NVMe M.2 SSDs and SATA HDDs/SSDs, but it is the first designed for active, everyday use. Earlier this month, the company unveiled the F4-424 Pro NAS to challenge Synology’s dominance in the network-attached storage market, which features an 8-core, 8-thread CPU, integrated GPU, and 32GB of RAM, as well as the ability to use two NVMe ports for SSD caching.

Its latest drive is designed for active usage rather than NAS and claims to take use of the enormous and more affordable capacity of HDDs while also combining them with the high-speed capabilities of M. 2 SSDs.

According to TerraMaster, the D5 Hybrid supports up to 10 Gbps transfer bandwidth over the USB 3.2 Gen 2 protocol. With two HDDs set to RAID 0, which provides no backup protection but prioritizes speed, the enclosure can achieve up to 521MB/s. With two SSDs in RAID 0, the read speed can reach 960MB/s, whereas NVMe M.2 SSDs can achieve 980MB/s. Notably, the RAID configuration for the HDDs is governed by a hardware switch.

However, it is not limited to USB 3.2 Gen 2. The company claims that it is compatible with a number of protocols, including USB 4 and Thunderbolt. However, compatibility does not imply full support, so photographers should not expect the high speeds associated with USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4, even if cables and connections do function.

The array and administration tool are compatible with Windows 7 and later, macOS 10.6 and later, and Ubuntu 16/18/20.

Aside from speed, TerraMaster is boasting what it terms “2+3 RAID Array Mode,” which is unique to this platform due to its configuration. By placing two SATA HDDs or SSDs in the two main trays, users can arrange them in RAID 1 for convenient backup while using the three NVMe M.2 SSD slots exclusively for quick data access. The firm refers to this as a single drive that allows users to quickly access both “hot” data (files that are actively in use) and “cold” data (files that are simply stored and not actively used).

TerraMaster’s D5 Hybrid sells for $220, but it does not include any HDDs or SSD.