TeamGroup MP33 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD Review

Today we're having a look at a more budget-oriented drive. It isn't everyone who needs the best and fastest drive, nor can afford it. And there's no shame in that. Sometimes you just need a good and affordable drive which brings us to the MP33 M.2 NVMe SSD from TeamGroup. TeamGroup MP33 NVMe SSD The TeamGroup MP33 is a classic M.2 2280 drive with maximum compatibility thanks to its clean design. The bare module will fit your laptops, SFF systems, and standard PCs as long as they support PCIe M.2 drives with a length of 80mm. The MP33 is available with a variety of capacities ranging from 128GB to 2TB. I have the 512GB model in the office for some tests today which is right in the middle of the 5 models. TeamGroup built the drive with 3D TLC NAND and an SLC cache. The PCIe drive supports the latest NVMe 1.3 protocol. Performance and Endurance Let us talk performance for a bit. The 512GB TeamGroup MP33 has a sequential performance rating of 1700MB/s reading and 1400MB/s writing. The random performance is rated at 220K IOPS reading and 200K IOPS writing. Endurance is also important. This 512GB model has a TBW rating of 400TB, an MTBF of 1.5 million hours, and it is backed by a 3-year warranty. What Does TeamGroup Have To Say? "TEAMGROUP MP33 M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive uses high speed PCIe Gen3 x4 interface and complies with the NVMe 1.3 standard. With 3D nand flash memory, the transfer speed is 3 times faster than SATA III. Suitable for players who have needs in speed, and it is the top choice when it comes to upgrading PC/laptop." You can read more about the drive and its details on the official product page. Feature Highlights Standard M.2 2280 form factorAvailable from 128GB to 2TB capacityPCIe NVMe 1.3 protocol3-year warranty Specifications Package and Accessories TeamGroup packs the MP33 in a simple cardboard envelope-type box. The advantage here is that the included drive is shown off, allowing you to see what you purchase. The front has the name along with the capacity and basic features listed. The rear side has a few more details such as the rated performance figures and warranty. Testing & Methodology In a bid to make our testing as thorough and as accurate as possible, we have devised a testing methodology that will give us the maximum amount of data. While this means that testing each drive will take considerably longer – easily up 36 hours – the overall picture that we can gather is bigger too. It helps both you as the reader and us as the reviewer’s to gain a clearer view of the drive’s overall performance, strengths, and weaknesses. It also provides a more accurate analysis of how each drive performs under different conditions. Data Fillage There are many ways to test a storage drive, and we have chosen to include close to every test possible. We will start with a typical benchmark analysis of the formatted drive with various village scenarios. However, depending on how a drive is built, the performance may differ depending on how much data it is already storing. Testing this, the drive will be tested empty as well as with 25%, 50%, and 75% space usage. For these tests, we will be using Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark. Application and Gaming Besides these synthetic fill tests, the drive is tested with PCMark 8’s storage benchmark to get real-world performance results. Plain Drive Performance Following the fillage tests, the partition gets removed, and we check the drive’s raw performance. These tests will determine the hardware’s capabilities while eliminating any interference from the set file system. AIDA64’s storage benchmark and IOmeter are both great tools for this, and they help us paint an even clearer picture of the drive. The IOmeter tests I run are quite different from the rest as they will give a final result after a longer performance test rather than a maximum or average score; this gives us yet another view of the tested drive over the regular tests. Drive Conditioning Durability is a vital factor when it comes to NAND-based drives as the chips only can be rewritten so many times before they’ll stop working properly. Modern SSDs come with wear-level algorithms to increase the lifetime and reduce this factor as much as possible. We also take this into consideration in our reviews even tho it would take years to simulate this under real-world conditions. Luckily, Anvil’s Storage Utilities comes with an endurance test that can perform this action much faster, but it is still a time-consuming process. Depending on the hardware, this can easily take several days, and we write thousands and thousands of small files in various sizes and compressibility to drive over and over. Following this conditioning process, all of the previous benchmarks will be run again in the same scenarios and the same order. This will give us a great view of how a drive will perform after prolonged usage, and that is a very vital factor when you pick out your storage drive. The Preparation and In Between The drive will be formatted as NTFS with default settings, as most users will do. The quick format option isn’t used as that might affect the performance the first time data is written. Modern operating systems all take care of the TRIM command in the background and it isn’t something to worry about for regular users. However, for these reviews, I will add a waiting period between each benchmark to make sure that the TRIM command has been fully executed and finished. After all, we want a clear picture of the drive’s performance with minimal interference from the operating system. On each page that follows with the benchmark results, I have inserted result screenshots from the benchmarks, created drive analysis chart for the fill-level performance, and added drive comparison charts where possible. Hardware Supermicro C7Z270-PG Intel Core i7-7700KCrucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400MHz (4x8GB)Toshiba OCZ VX500 512GB SSDbe quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (1200W)Noctua NH-D15SCooler Master HAF XB EVO with Noctua NF-A14 FLX fans Software AIDA64 Storage Benchmark Anvil's Storage UtilitiesAS SSD BenchmarkATTO BenchmarkCrystalDiskMarkIOMeterPCMark 8 Storage BenchmarkWindows 10 AIDA64 Storage Benchmark AIDA64 is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users with a broad range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. The app has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives and is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also has a disk benchmark tool, and that is the one I’ll be using. Fresh Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access Time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Conditioned Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Drive Analysis Anvil's Storage Benchmark Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a complete benchmark solution used to test any writeable storage drive. It also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to deliver days, months, and potentially even years of use in a shorter period. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. AS SSD Storage Benchmark The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD, and they aren’t using the operating system cache. The copy tests are cached and as such not viable results at this time. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. ATTO Disk Benchmark The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customise your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD and SSD benchmark utility that allows you to measure a drive’s sequential and random performance. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. IOmeter IOMeter is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterisation tool for single and clustered systems. As a benchmark and troubleshooting tool, it is configurable to replicate the behaviour of many popular applications. One commonly quoted measurement provided by the tool is IOPS. Sequential Tests Random Tests Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark PCMark 8 Storage benchmark tests the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and SSHD hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of games. You can test any recognised storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. Pricing and Final Thoughts At the time of this review, the TeamGroup MP33 512GB SSD is listed on Amazon UK for £95.99. The smaller 256GB version is listed for £58.77. Final Thoughts Normally, giving out my verdict on an SSD is quite easy. Either it does what it promises or not, either it's cheap for what you get or not. The TeamGroup MP33 is a bit tricky in that regard. Let us start with the performance. The MP33 delivers what it promises and even a little more in some instances. So you can't fault the drive anything in that regard. I have no doubt that customers of this drive will be happy with it. And that is whether they're going to use it as an OS drive, for their game library, or something else. So what is my issue with this drive? Well, to be direct, it's the price. You can get a 1TB drive from competitors which performs better for the price of this 512GB version. The specifications are also a little confusing when it comes to the warranty. The product page and EDM list the MP33 as having a 5-year warranty while the drive itself and the package list it as having a 3-year warranty. Should I Purchase One? If you find a great deal, go for it. It delivers what it promises and I'm sure you'll be happy using it. Pros High compatibility with standard 2280 form factor and no heatsinkDelivers what it promises and sometimes a bit moreCapacity range from 128GB to 2TB Cons High price at the time of this review "The MP33 from TeamGroup delivers what it promises and sometimes a little more. However, it is a little pricy at the time of this review." Thank you TeamGroup for providing us with this sample.