While quicker in some methods and slower in others than its cheaper 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 value

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

At the time of this writing, the MP44 was obtainable on Amazon at $58 for 1TB (the capability of our evaluate 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 can even be obtainable in a 2230 (22mm vast, 30mm lengthy) model–the MP44S, which can slot in smaller M.2 slots akin to these discovered on a Steam Deck.

The essential takeaway right here is that the MP44 is accessible in large capacities, albeit at a slight premium per terabyte for the 4TB model, and a big surcharge per terabyte for 8TB.

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

The MP44 is warrantied for 5 years, which is mitigated solely by some fairly fascinating, and total beneficiant TBW (terabytes that could be written to the drive) rankings: 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 rankings 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 quicker than their predecessors, that was not the case in each take a look at with the MP44. In artificial benchmarks the MP44 seems quicker by way of sequential throughput, but it surely fell effectively off the tempo in random operations and barely off in our 48GB transfers.

As you may see beneath, 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 assessments. AS SSD (not proven) provided an identical opinion.

However, except for 32-queue, single-thread learn take a look at, the MP44 was far much less facile throughout random operations, as proven beneath.

In the actual world, slower random ops means the MP44 might not run your working system fairly as shortly 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 excellent 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 assessments.

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

The Sabrent within the charts is amazingly quick on this take a look at, 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 problem 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 way in which by way of.

As distributors are bettering 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 knowledge.

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 beneath 800MBps in our first run and took solely 11 minutes and 44 seconds to write down the file. It did, nevertheless, drop to round 600MBps on the 80 % mark on subsequent 900GB writes. This nonetheless made for sub-12 minute occasions.

This form of sustained efficiency when a drive is sort of full is unprecedented. In truth, we reconstituted our massive information to make it possible for 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 completed, however hats off to the Maxio controller and Micron NAND people. If the pattern continues, it could change our advice to overbuy by 2X your wants by way of 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 no benchmark.

Should you purchase the Teamgroup MP44?

Though cut price and mid-range SSD costs have dropped by way of the ground, each penny counts and also you’re possible higher off with the cheaper, and in lots of circumstances quicker 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 should you plan to fill the drive additional than the 50 % that’s at present the trade advice.

How we take a look at SSDs

Internal drive assessments at present 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 assessments 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 take a look at 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 obtainable for secondary caching. Vendors additionally often swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.