TR-002-A-US 2 Bay USB Type-C Direct Attached Storage (DAS) with Hardware RAID (Diskless)

I spent an embarrassingly huge amount of time researching options for my needs. I know reading this you could probably name 2 or 3 other options that would easily fit my criteria, but I'll explain why I chose this one. To start, I use a Mac Mini as a home network server. I run Home Assistant and Jellyfin, primarily, for now. I wanted a DAS that had a physical on and off switch. This one has that; in case of a power failure (it should be connected to a battery backup UPS anyway), it will power back on when power restores. Although I don't store Home Assistant data on this enclosure, I do store Jellyfin media, and I didn't want my family to have to go reset this device in case of a power interruption. I did not want an internal power supply. Some people prefer that, but I figured there's more heat and internal components to fail with an internal power supply. Plus, an internal power supply of a DAS is likely proprietary and not easily replaced like a desktop computer's power supply. This has an in-line power brick, meaning it goes from the DAS to a brick, then uses a traditional C13 (I think, I actually can't remember if it's grounded or not) cord to the wall. I wanted the enclosure to accept 2.5" and 3.5" drives, and both HDD and SSD. This one does. It was not clear in the product description for me if it accepted 2.5 SSDs, but the manual confirmed it, and I am successfully running a combination of HDD and SSD. Though I am not using the hardware or software raid, I wanted the option for that. Right now I have it configured to be individual drives. I cannot attest to the software, but the hardware raid is working for me with the setting I have (configured via switches on the back side of the unit). I also wanted either thunderbolt or USB C, which this has the latter. I wanted to use the Thunderbolt port on my Mac Mini because there are only two USB that I wanted to leave open. I realized I am not getting Thunderbolt speeds, but using spinning hard drives, my bottleneck was those anyway. It is quiet! The hard drives spinning is louder than the fan on the unit. No complaints there. I have the four drive option, and it is about a hard drive wider and taller in dimensions. It's a good size, and isn't too obnoxious sitting in my office. The lights aren't bright, and they could easily be covered with a piece of electrical tape if they are bothersome. As I mentioned, I am using it with a Mac, so it is compatible with that OS. It does also work with Windows. Set up was really easy. I slide out the cages, and if you're using HDDs, there are no tools required. If you want to mount a SSD, you do need to use screws and you will also need to remove one of the side clips that hold in a traditional HDD (you'll see what I mean if you do it). Slide the trays back in, lock if you'd like with the included key, and boot it up! My mac instantly recognized all the drives as external volumes, and they automatically mount any time I need to restart the system. I have transferred many, many TBs so far, and all have been hash verified to be copied perfectly, with no interruptions or disconnects. 10/10 would recommend, at least so far. Again, I cannot speak for the RAID aspect of this, so you're on your own there. Will report back if there are any issues. I guess it would be nice if the enclosure was a nice aluminum, but I think the fan does a good job of drawing out heat from the unit. I don't plan on moving this thing around at all, so once it's set up and just sitting there, the durability aspect is fine. Oh, and it was also packed very well. It arrives in a box much bigger than the unit itself, and the DAS is surrounded by plenty of foam.

Been using this for the past 2 years for RAID for a plex server, among other things. At first I thought it was just going to be junk as compared with some other devices it was pretty cheap. But I'm pleased to say this has been a workhorse and stable. I've got mine connected to a Mac Mini that I use for home networking stuff and I've had no issues at all. Just bought a second one for individual backup drives. Great value for the money.

This review is for the 4-bay TR-004 model and covers my very early impressions and experience with initial set up. Summary: So far, I am fairly impressed with how easy this is to set up and use. Performance is as expected and I had everything up and running in under 30 minutes. Time will tell in terms of reliability. Pros: - Ease of set up - Easy to use RAID Manager software - Good read/write performance Cons: - Drive caddies are all plastic - the TR-004 unit only has a USB 3.0 connector (max 5 Gbit/s) while the smaller 2-bay TR-002 unit has the faster USB 3.1 Gen 2 (max 10 Gbit/s) Unboxing: This comes very well packed and includes the external storage unit, power supply, USB-C to USB-A cable, keys, a USB cable clip, and screws to attach hard drives to the drive caddies. The housing is all metal and feels sturdy. The drive caddies, however, are all plastic and feel flimsy. I'm not loving this, but only time will tell if this becomes an issue and they break. Setup: There are two fairly quick parts to setting this up - the physical installation of the drives and connection to the computer, and software set up. I found this to be very easy and straightforward. Installing the hard drives is very simple and doesn't absolutely require securing them with screws. These slide easily into the drive slots and close securely. Software set up was similar fairly simple - I'm using this with a macOS Ventura workstation. I downloaded the External RAID Manager from the QNAP web site, installed it without issue (it does require a reboot), and used it to set up the RAID volumes (I left the unit in Software Control mode). Starting the unit takes about 30-45 seconds to boot and for the drives to be recognized. Creating the RAID volume using the software manager was trivial and I had a usable drive ready to go in a few minutes. After getting this set up, I used the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to get a sense for real world read/write performance - I'm getting about 230 MB/s write speeds and 240 MB/s read speeds, which is more than adequate for backup storage. Not blazing fast, but should be sufficient for back ups and retrieval. Of note, I am using four 10 GB Western Digital Red Plus NAS HDD's (7200 rpm, SATA6) and decided on RAID 10 for redundancy and performance and formatted as APFS. The obvious loss was overall storage space: with a total of 40 TB drive space, I have about 18 TB of usable space. Closing Thoughts: I am really looking forward to using this - I have about 12-15 TB of digital images and photos that I would like to copy to a centralized storage unit. The 18 TB of usable storage should be more than enough for my current needs and I can easily upgrade to larger drives as needed. I'll plan to leave an update once I've had more of a chance to use this.

Work as intended also a great feature to the TS-464 as it’s supported as an expansion

Very easy to install hard drives, simple to set up as a RAID 5 storage on a Lenovo ThinkStation (Windows 11) with four WD Red Pro 18TB HDDs. USB interface.

Muito bom, fácil configuração, atendeu expectativas.

Funciona perfectamente, plug & play. Muy recomendable para ampliar almacenamiento.

Setting up is a breeze, using the clips to secure the hard disks to the trays. The fan is also quiet while doing its job. A small detail I appreciate is the inclusion of a cable clip for the USB wire to avoid pulling out of cable by accident or unnecessary stress on the port due to cable weight. The LEDs are also dimmed, but bright enough to see. Does not annoy people like other brands of enclosure that uses super bright LEDs. I join the long list of other users wishing for a way to disable the startup diagnostic beeps. This is perhaps the only ‘on the fence’ point I can think of. Other than that. It works well and looks nice.