With the T-Force Vulcan SATA SSD, Team Group has introduced a solid-state drive that comes at amazing pricing. Just $120 for the 2 TB version is a fantastic offering when you're looking for a large drive and want to save money. Internally, the Vulcan Z uses a Silicon Motion SM2259 XT controller—a value-oriented design that we've seen on older drives like the Crucial BX500. The NAND flash used is Hynix's 128-layer 3D TLC, which we've seen on drives like the Hynix Gold P31 and Netac NV7000. This is a major difference to other value SSDs, which often use QLC flash, which is cheaper, but much slower than TLC, especially when it comes to write performance. As expected, also considering the aggressive price point, a DRAM cache is not included.

Most synthetic performance results of the Vulcan Z are low when compared to modern NVMe SSDs, but still "decent" for a value SATA SSD, "in-line with expectations". For example, sequential read, write and mixed are very similar to competing SATA drives, reaching 420 MB/s write and 500 MB/s read. Random IO write is a bit lower though, but not by much. A surprisingly low result is 4K Random Mixed performance. This test submits a read and write operation randomly, but with equal probability. This is a less well-known, but highly relevant test, as it's extremely unlikely that an SSD will be exposed to just read loads, or only writes. Rather the typical daily operating patterns on a consumer system involve mostly reads, with some writes sprinkled on top. If mixed IO is low, then this will affect both the read and write operations that execute at that moment in time.

Real-life performance of the Vulcan Z is not high, but it beats the QLC-based Samsung 870 QVO and Crucial BX500. More high-end SATA SSDs are around 30% faster, which is quite a lot, but these drives are more expensive, too. Entry-level Gen 3 M.2 SSDs are 50% faster and the fastest Gen 4 SSDs are up to 75% faster. If you're upgrading from a mechanical hard drive, then the Vulcan Z will give you amazing performance improvements that you will definitely feel subjectively.

Just like all other modern TLC drives, the Vulcan Z comes with an SLC cache that absorbs incoming writes at high speed, but uses three times the storage to do so. Our testing reveals that the SLC cache is sized at 660 GB, which is close to the theoretical maximum on a 2 TB TLC drive. This is a good thing, as it helps the drive handle incoming writes at full speed. However, once the SLC cache is full, write rates drop from 420 MB/s to only 90 MB/s, which is slower than many HDDs. Filling the whole 2 TB capacity completed at 145 MB/s on average, which is low, but better than drives like BX500 and 870 QVO.

Certainly the biggest selling point of the Team Group Vulcan Z is its fantastic price. Just $120 will get you 2 TB of SSD storage—on a TLC-based SSD, we paid that much money for a 1 TB drive not long ago. Even the Crucial MX500 2 TB is $150 nowadays, the Samsung 870 QVO 2 TB goes for $150, too, just like the WD Green SATA. There's really not a lot of options below $150 from reputable brands. Just to clarify, Amazon lists the Vulcan Z at $150, while Newegg has it for $120. At $150 the drive is too expensive, but $120 is a great offering. Strong competition comes from the Kingston NV2 2 TB, which is just $130—an incredible price for a 2 TB M.2 NVMe SSD. If you have a free M.2 slot then you'll definitely want to spend the extra $10. If you're upgrading a laptop, or building a consumer-type system for family and friends, then the Team Group Vulcan Z will be a fantastic choice, as it will give you a huge performance boost (vs a classic harddrive) for very little money. If you're using your PC a lot, also for gaming, I would probably spend a little bit extra for a more high-performance drive. Unfortunately, the Vulcan Z is not available in capacities larger than 2 TB, I'm sure a lot of people would love to have a 4 TB SSD for $240, or 8 TB for $500.