If you’ve ever been midway through a 4K timeline and watched your external drive bog down as it got hot, TerraMaster’s new D1 SSD Plus is the sort of product that makes you wonder why more companies don’t treat heat like a feature problem. The D1 is less “puck-and-cable” portable SSD and more “mini heatsink on the desk” — a USB4 enclosure built around the idea that cooling and silence matter as much as headline transfer numbers.

At its heart, the D1 SSD Plus is a single-bay M.2 NVMe (2280) enclosure. It accepts PCIe NVMe 2280 SSDs up to 8TB, and when you pair it with a fast Gen4 SSD it can push very high sustained throughput thanks to a USB4/40Gbps bridge — TerraMaster quotes peak figures in the neighborhood of ~3.8GB/s read and ~3.7GB/s write in their test rig. That’s the kind of bandwidth that turns external storage into a working scratch disk for multicam 4K or even 8K timelines.

If you’re picking drives to slot into it, TerraMaster’s own numbers — and early reviews — show Samsung’s 990 Pro as an example of what the enclosure can unlock. The enclosure is broadly cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux) and TerraMaster lists compatibility with USB4 and Thunderbolt 3/4/5 hosts — the company also highlights use cases like expanding a Mac mini or acting as a macOS boot disk.

The D1’s design is its headline. Instead of a tiny fan, TerraMaster wrapped the M.2 board in an aerospace-grade aluminium body whose sides are essentially a pair of big cooling fins — the whole chassis is a heatsink. That gives it three practical benefits: it runs silently (no fan noise in a recording booth), it keeps SSD temperatures lower for longer, and it reduces the risk of thermal throttling during heavy sustained writes. TerraMaster’s marketing claims — both came away impressed with how the enclosure manages heat under real workloads.

A small caveat: to accomplish that cooling the enclosure needs to be larger and heavier than the smallest M.2 dongles. It’s not a pocket-wallet drive you’ll forget in your coat — it’s a small, dense slab that wants to sit on a desk or live in a padded bag for transport.

Numbers are only useful with context. Benchmarks and early reviews show the D1 delivering near-4GB/s reads in ideal setups (Samsung 990 Pro on an Apple M4 Mac mini in TerraMaster’s tests). But reviewers also note the real world depends on the SSD you choose and the host system — on macOS setups, testers often saw very strong read/write consistency, while Windows results can vary more depending on the machine and drivers. In short: the enclosure supplies a 40Gbps highway; the car you drive on it is your SSD.

Features you might actually use

• Tool-assisted installation (one small screw and a thermal pad) and rubber feet to keep the unit from sliding around.
• A subdued micro-perforated LED that won’t light up like a Christmas tree in a dim edit suite.
• Software: TerraMaster bundles its TDAS Mobile app (iOS/Android) for one-tap phone photo/video backups, and TPC Backupper for scheduled Windows backups; macOS users can fall back on Time Machine. Those extras position the D1 as more than a raw enclosure — it’s a small backup hub when you’re on the move.

Gaming and consoles — the PS5 question

TerraMaster lists PS5 compatibility, and the box can certainly act as USB external storage for consoles. But here’s the important nuance: Sony’s official guidance still requires certain internal M.2 upgrades to run PS5 titles directly from the console’s internal expansion slot. External USB drives can be used for storing and transferring games (or for running PS4 titles) but you can’t replace the PS5’s internal, certified expansion slot behavior with an external enclosure for running PS5 games directly. If you intend to use this primarily for PS5 gaming, make sure you understand those PlayStation limitations.

Price and availability

TerraMaster lists the D1 SSD Plus at $109.99 on its store; it’s also appeared on Amazon and other retailers, often at promotional prices. (Remember: this price is for the enclosure only — an SSD is extra.) Retailers have been carrying it since the launch, and early discounts make it an attractive buy for pros who need better thermal behaviour than typical tiny enclosures.

Buy this if:

• You edit lots of high-bitrate video and need an external scratch/working drive that won’t throttle.
• You work in audio and need zero fan noise.
• You want a rugged, desktop-friendly portable SSD solution where cooling and durability matter more than ultimate pocketability.

Skip it if:

• You want a tiny ultra-light dongle to live in your pocket.
• You don’t want the extra cost of a high-end NVMe SSD to pair with the enclosure.

TerraMaster isn’t reinventing NVMe or USB4 — but the D1 Plus is an honest response to a common pain point: cheap, compact enclosures are fast on paper but usually choke under heavy, sustained loads. The D1 trades a little portability for a lot of thermal headroom and quiet operation, which is exactly the compromise creative pros and serious gamers will understand.