In a world where every other tech news story seems to be about the rising price of flash memory, then you’ll probably know that portable SSDs now cost a fortune. But there is a possible solution: an SSD enclosure. This is simply the casing and USB electronics of a portable SSD, minus the SSD itself. You're then free to fit a compatible SSD of your choice, which could be especially useful if you happen to already have an internal SSD that’s no longer being used.
Some enclosures can be basic USB 3 designs that could significantly bottleneck the SSD within, but not the Terramaster D1. This uses a super-fast 40Gbps Thunderbolt 5 / USB4 interface, which is capable of delivering blistering transfer speeds. Terramaster's testing with a Samsung 990 Pro SSD connected to a Mac mini M4 yielded sequential read speeds of up to 3853MB/s, and a 3707MB/s write rate. If you're not rocking a Thunderbolt 5 / USB4 machine, the D1 is also backward compatible to USB2 or Thunderbolt 3, though naturally max transfer speeds will be reduced. The drive is compatible with standard NVMe M.2 2280 SSDs up to 8TB in capacity, and requires no separate power source - the USB/Thunderbolt connection provides power.
As for the enclosure itself, that's made almost exclusively from aerospace-grade aluminium, which combined with the large cooling fins should offer excellent heat dissipation. Judging by the press photos, the color also seems to match the finish of silver Mac products rather well. On the base are anti-slip rubber feet, and the design requires no cooling fan, so operation will be silent.
Terramaster also bundles its TDAS mobile app with the D1 which provides easy photo and videos backup direct from iOS and Android devices. Alternatively, TPC Backupper software offers automated, scheduled backups for Windows systems.
The Terramaster D1 SSD enclosure is available now, priced at $89.99/£109.99.
