Introduction

Team Group is a well-known Taiwanese memory and flash storage maker with a long history of catering to the needs of users from all over the globe. Today, we have for review the Team Group MP32 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD in the 512 GB version.

The drive uses the compact M.2 form factor with a PCI-Express x2 connection to the rest of the system. This is in contrast to the majority of M.2 NVMe drives which use a x4 connection for twice the theoretical throughput. As we'll see later in our testing, this only matters for write speeds. Another cost-optimization is the lack of a dedicated DRAM chip. On SSDs, the DRAM chip typically stores the mapping tables for the SSD to know where its data is located. Of course, the cost saving comes with a performance hit, but pricing matters a lot in this market segment.

The MP32 is available in capacities of 128 GB ($50), 256 GB ($70), 512 GB ($120), and 1 TB ($260). It is powered by a Phison E8 controller and uses Toshiba TLC flash chips. Endurance is rated at 100 TB, 200 TB, 400 TB, and 800 TB respectively.