This is for a long term review of the TerraMaster D2-320 Two Bay External HDD Enclosure. The first one I had purchased in October 2024 and installed 2x 12TB WD UltraStar Enterprise HDDs and have set it to JBOD Mode (Just a Bunch Of Drives). The second one I had bought in January 2026 and have installed 2x Seagate X22 22TB Enterprise HDDs in RAID 1/Mirrored Mode.
The TerraMaster D2-320 External 2 Bay HDD Enclosure measures 222 mm x 154 mm x 119 mm and weighs 1.3 kg or 2.9 lbs without any hard drives installed. It’s powered by a 40W power brick and has a USB C 3.2 Gen 2 data port. The drive bays support 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA HDD/SSD drives and up to 22TB per drive. Note that there is a list of compatible drives on the website and using a drive that is not on the white list will result in varying mileage of compatibility. There are 4 different RAID modes available for your different needs (RAID 1/Mirrored, RAID 0/Striped, JBOD/Just a Bunch of Disks/Spanning and Single Disk). It features an 80mm temperature controlled cooling fan to help regulate heat.
Software-wise, it is compatible with Windows MacOS and Linux, and can be formatted for these file systems: NTFS, APFS, exFAT, FAT32 and EXT4.
At the time of purchase in October 2024, it cost $500 CAD ($200 enclosure and 2x $150 for WD 12TB HDD) and January 2026 $1,200 CAD ( $200 enclosure and 2x $500 for Seagate 22TB HDD) All drives are refurbished enterprise grade drives. Sadly I had to pay a premium for the HDDs on the second enclosure as the AI Bubble has increased computer part prices to exorbitant prices.
I had chosen to buy enterprise grade HDDs for the increased longevity and durability of helium filled drives and for the large capacity storage capabilities. The drives can be a little noisy as they are hard drives with physical platters, actuator motors and a motor. With installation, it was a breeze as the HDD trays are tool-free for 3.5″ HDDs and you pop them into the tray frame. The noise is a minor drawback due to the increased build quality and durability. I find that the enclosure is a touch bulky but as they’re tucked away behind my computer and are not in the way.
With backing up data, there is the 3-2-1 Strategy that is highly recommended if feasible.
- 3 copies of data: Original copy and two backup copies
- 2 different media types: Storing backups on 2 different devices
- 1 offsite copy: One copy offsite at a different location to protect from power surges, theft or localized disasters
Over the past two decades or so, I’ve owned a few external backup drives ranging from 500GB to 1TB desktop external drives, 2.5″ portable USB powered HDDs and a USB C external SSD. Sadly a previous desktop drive had failed me in the past and was able to recover some of the data on there through recovery software. It was an expensive lesson to have multiple copies of important files. Currently in my wheelhouse of hard drives, I have the two 2 bay enclosures, two 2TB portable 2.5″ HDDs and a 1TB USB SSD. At this time, as much as I’d like to have a large capacity drive for offsite backup, it’s not feasible as HDD costs are high due to the AI bubble at the time of writing so I’ve resorted to using my portable drive as an offsite backup for the time being as I have ~700GB of files and have overbuilt the 2 bay enclosures for long term. Some people like to have backups on a cloud service, but others prefer to keep it offline due to security concerns. In conclusion if it’s possible, I’d recommend to have some affordable portable drives for backup on important personal files.
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