Teamgroup MP44 SSD review: Up to 8TB of good PCIe 4.0 performance

While sooner in some methods and slower in others than its inexpensive MP44L cousin, the MP44’s use of 232-layer NAND permits it to ship as much as a whopping 8TB of capability. It additionally delivered a pleasant shock throughout our drive-nearly-full testing.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best SSDs to find out about competing merchandise.

MP44 design and worth

Aside from being a 2280 (22mm extensive, 80mm lengthy) M.2, PCIe 4.0 SSD, the MP44 is a bunch reminiscence bus design (your machine’s reminiscence is used for major caching duties) just like the older MP44L. In this case, nonetheless, using a brand-spanking-new Maxio MAP1602A controller and 232-layer TLC NAND.

At the time of this writing, the MP44 was out there on Amazon at $58 for 1TB (the capability of our overview unit), $110 for 2TB, $267 for 4TB, and $820 for 8TB. There’s additionally a 512GB model, although it was not listed on Amazon.

Note that the MP44 will even be out there in a 2230 (22mm extensive, 30mm lengthy) model–the MP44S, which is able to slot in smaller M.2 slots reminiscent of these discovered on a Steam Deck.

The predominant takeaway right here is that the MP44 is out there in large capacities, albeit at a slight premium per terabyte for the 4TB model, and a major surcharge per terabyte for 8TB.

Considering that the faster-in-some-ways MP44L is out there for $42.49 for 1TB, and $77.98 for 2TB, that drive could be the higher discount within the decrease capacities (see the efficiency part under).

The MP44 is warrantied for 5 years, which is mitigated solely by some somewhat attention-grabbing, and total beneficiant TBW (terabytes that could be written to the drive) scores: 700TBW for the 512GB, 1,450TBW for the 1TB, 2,500TBW for the 2TB, 3,000TBW for the 4TB, and 6,000TBW for the 8TB.

Considering the additional cash you pay for the 2 bigger capacities, their TBW scores are merely first rate. In fact, most customers by no means come near exceeding even a low TBW ranking.

How does the Teamgroup MP44 carry out?

Though successor drives are usually sooner than their predecessors, that was not the case in each check with the MP44. In artificial benchmarks the MP44 seems sooner when it comes to sequential throughput, but it surely fell properly off the tempo in random operations and barely off in our 48GB transfers.

As you may see under, the MP44 beat up on its MP44L cousin, in addition to two equally priced drives, the Sabrent Rocket Q4 and WD SN580, in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential throughput exams. AS SSD (not proven) provided an analogous opinion.

However, aside from 32-queue, single-thread learn check, the MP44 was far much less facile throughout random operations, as proven under.

In the true world, slower random ops means the MP44 might not run your working system fairly as rapidly as another drives. Not that it’s potential to discern a sluggish NVMe SSD from a quick one nowadays with the bare eye.

The MP44 turned in superb occasions in our real-world 48GB transfers, even when it misplaced by two seconds to the older MP44L, which is a really quick drive in these exams.

Note that 1TB drives typically undergo a bit in our 450GB write (proven under) as a result of much less NAND to make use of in secondary caching (writing as one-bit SLC, somewhat than QLC on this case).

The Sabrent within the charts is amazingly quick on this check, but it surely’s a 2TB drive that by no means slowed down an iota from its frenetic 3GBps switch charge.

You can inform from the next picture simply the place the difficulty within the 450GB write was–the purpose at which the write slowed. The MP44L slowed to 1.6GBps simply previous the midway level, whereas the MP44 slowed sooner, a few third of the best way by way of.

As distributors are enhancing HMB and secondary caching, and the aim of our massive file write is to pressure the SSD to write down NAND natively, we’ve began writing much more information.

This is the place the MP44 shocked us. While writing 900GB to the 1TB drive, it by no means slowed dramatically as did the MP44L, to not point out each different drive we’ve “exhausted” secondary cache on. Native writing can drop to 100MBps with QLC, and we usually see 200MBps to 500MBps with TLC.

The Phison-based MP44L ultimately drops to 140MBps (or much less) and took 43 minutes, 24 seconds to write down the 900GB. The MP44 by no means dropped under 800MBps in our first run and took solely 11 minutes and 44 seconds to write down the file. It did, nonetheless, drop to round 600MBps on the 80 % mark on subsequent 900GB writes. This nonetheless made for sub-12 minute occasions.

This kind of sustained efficiency when a drive is nearly full is unprecedented. In truth, we reconstituted our massive recordsdata to guarantee that de-duplication wasn’t an element, or at the very least not a significant one.

We’re undecided how the long-term, high-rate sustained writing was achieved, however hats off to the Maxio controller and Micron NAND of us. If the pattern continues, it could change our advice to overbuy by 2X your wants when it comes to capability, to one thing much less drastic.

Overall, the MP44 is quick, however a combined bag performance-wise in comparison with its Phison-based MP44L sibling. We had been mightily impressed by the 910GB write, however that kind of operation is extraordinarily uncommon, and the random numbers had been subpar. Again, not one thing you’re more likely to discover with out a benchmark.

Should you purchase the Teamgroup MP44?

Though discount and mid-range SSD costs have dropped by way of the ground, each penny counts and also you’re possible higher off with the inexpensive, and in lots of instances sooner MP44L as much as 2TB of capability. If you want 4TB or 8TB, then the MP44 is the SSD you need. Also, go for the MP44 in the event you plan to fill the drive additional than the 50 % that’s presently the business advice.

How we check SSDs

Internal drive exams presently make the most of Windows 11, 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are built-in to the again panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB switch exams make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB of whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB which additionally runs the OS. The 900GB file is learn off of a Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 SSD.

Each check is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency will lower as a result of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different components.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can range by capability as a result of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Vendors additionally often swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.