Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro with Aluminum Heatsink 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD $190.25 Delivered @ Amazon US via AU

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O O on 30/05/2023 - 02:50 amazon.com.au (300 clicks)
Last edited 30/05/2023 - 03:05

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Pretty good deal for a PCIe 4.0 DRAM-based SSD. The SSD controller is Phison E18 with Micron 176-layer TLC NANDs.

Specifications

• Model: CARDEA A440 PRO
• MPN: TM8FPR002T0C128
• Interface: PCIe Gen4x4 with NVMe
• DRAM Cache: YES
• Terabyte Written (TBW): 1400TBW
• Performance Crystal Disk Mark Read/Write: up to 7,400/7,000 MB/s
• IOPS Read/Write: up to 1,000K/1,000K IOPS Max
• Warranty: 5-year limited warranty

Price History at CamelCamelCamel.

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• 

  Brrrrt on 30/05/2023 - 03:07

  Woah this price and this kind of spec is fast approaching the ‘buy it now’ price I had in my mind. Just not sure about temps on this thing with that huge heatsink since Im going to be using it inside a lappy with at best a thin heat spreader.

  • 

    incipient on 30/05/2023 - 03:13

    I'm actually not sure I would use a thin heatsink like this in a laptop. With the terrible airflow I'm not sure how much it would do to the controllers temp, but what it absolutely would do is make a nice thermal connection between the hot controller and cooler memory chips, which is not good for their life/endurance.

    • 

      MasterScythe on 30/05/2023 - 09:43

      +1

      Other way around; NAND likes to be warm, and controllers like to be cool. (or to be more correct; one doesnt like to be cold, but neither likes to be HOT)
      You can actually see the trend quite dramatically on some drives where they 'accelerate' if they've been idle for a long time as the storage warms up.

      Usually heat spreaders are preferred since the warm controller wants to be cool, and the cool nand (at idle) wants to be warm.
      They strike a happy medium on most cards.

      Those CARDER graphene stickers do a pretty good job of dissipating heat too; I saw a 3c drop in my case.

• 

  GreenRomeo on 30/05/2023 - 03:26

  -1

  So the difference in price between these “B tier” high end ones and the top tier ones such as WD SN850X is about $40 ($200 vs $240). I just wonder if it’s worth going with the top tier ones for the peace of mind.

  Imagine there will be a firmware bug in a year, like what happened to the 990 Pro, I think we can still count on Samsung or WD to provide a decent fix, but I’m not sure I can trust Team Group or PNY or Silicon Power to provide the same level of support and/or warranty.

  Personally I feel like these ones must be at least $150 i.e. the price difference is $100 or more before I can be convinced to take the risk and buy and use them as my main storage (One wouldn’t buy them just for storing games or so I suppose, as there are plenty of cheaper options for that).

  • 

    O O on 30/05/2023 - 03:32

    +6

    The brand you didn't hear of doesn't means belong to 'B tier', it's based on the SSD controller and NANDs used. Here's the Linus' SSD tier list

    https://linustechtips.com/topic/1092033-ssd-tier-list/

    • 

      furythree on 30/05/2023 - 04:12

      +8

      which makes this a440 pro A tier given its phison controller for anyone too lazy to check

    • 

      GreenRomeo on 30/05/2023 - 09:03

      -3

      Yes, I'm aware of this Linus tier list, and some other lists as well. But as mentioned in the list itself, "THIS LIST IS BASED ON THE COMPONENTS (CONTROLLERS & NAND FLASH) THAT THE SSD CAME WITH AT THE TIME OF LAUNCH." It is not based on build quality, firmware reliability, quality control or customer service… of the makers. Anyone can source a Phison E18 or Phison E26 and some good quality TLC flash, and use the out of the box reference designs to make a product in a hurry, undercut the more reputable ones to make some quick bucks and then move on (or come back and replace the originally high quality components with inferior ones.)

      Using the same methodology, one can rank some Lenovo Thinkpad and Ideapad laptops in the same tier purely based on the CPU and RAM they have, but we all know how different in price and quality they can be. And that's just different models of the same manufacturer.

      • 

        Joker042 on 30/05/2023 - 09:44

        I'll keep that in mind next time I put my SSD in my backpack and take it on a bus.

      • 

        MasterScythe on 30/05/2023 - 09:51

        +1

        Anyone can source a Phison E18 or Phison E26 and some good quality TLC flash, and use the out of the box reference designs to make a product in a hurry, undercut the more reputable ones to make some quick bucks.

        That would make it equally as good, yes.

        and then move on (or come back and replace the originally high quality components with inferior ones.)

        Then it would no longer fall into that 'A Tier' since we're talking SPECIFICALLY about the core components.

        Firmware will be from the controller manufacturer, like always (some people like to wait for the 'brand' to release one, but thats not neccisary).
        Quality Control and Customer Service can be damned, because I'm buying through Amazon, and thanks to ACL, that's who I'd deal with, in the case of a fault.

        • 

          netsurfer on 30/05/2023 - 14:21

          +1

          @MasterScythe: His points are valid and he actually + voted this deal. Furthermore, chatGPT used that classification on Kingston, PNY, Silicon Power etc… and people were okay with it (i.e. naming those makers B-tier SSD makers, mostly due to higher degree of component lottery, reliability, etc…).

          Firmware support is one important aspect and while I agree E18 with Crucial 176L TLC NAND chips are good components, it is fine to be a bit more cynical on this. Don't get me wrong, I do have a Team Group product and this deal is enticing to some people. However, expecting lower price on average due to the brand and not being an SSD maker that's fully vertically integrated (like Samsung and WD) isn't a harsh assessment.

          Go to the Web site for this product. Team Group could polish the support side of the Web site.

  • 

    Sleepycat3 on 30/05/2023 - 09:36

    +1

    I have a Teamgroup MP34, and they issued a firmware update to address the SMART data error reporting issue (similar issue to 990 pro). The difference would be that the bigger brands such as WD, Samsung and Kingston would have a monitoring program which also carries out the firmware update. Teamgroup on the other hand will have an exe package file which you run to update the firmware. Neither is better than the other, they all used to use exe packages ages ago back in the day when we didn't have bloatware running in the background. For convenience, if you don't mind bloatware running in the background, then the solution from Kingston/WD/Samsung/Seagate will inform you when a new firmware update is issued.

    • 

      MasterScythe on 30/05/2023 - 09:48

      +2

      Honestly, I'd say the executable solution is notably better, since it tends to run well in WINE, the 'packages' often don't and require you to install Windows to run them.
      I'd rate the broader compatibility.

      • 

        netsurfer on 30/05/2023 - 16:15

        -1

        You are suggesting people should run WINE to upgrade the SSD, instead of using Windows? That's brave.

        Some of these exe programs from less known SSD makers don't check the SSD properly and could lead to bad flash. Expecting T-Force Cardea A440 Pro to have a big audience and issues would be reported promptly and fixed is wishful thinking.

        However, from the support page, my guess is Team Group now has an equivalent app for their newer SSDs. Otherwise, it looks like Team Group is really slack on firmware upgrade.

        • 

          MasterScythe on 30/05/2023 - 23:14

          @netsurfer: No. I'm not suggesting anyone do anything; simply stating that its advantageous that standalone firmware updates work so well if you dont run windows.

          Ive found most firmware executables are self contained. They dont call any windows system files, so run flawlessly in wine.

• 

  test123123 on 30/05/2023 - 09:01

  Will it operate without heatsink for the laptop?

  • 

    Steakz on 30/05/2023 - 09:40

    Yes

• 

  Robmatho on 30/05/2023 - 12:03

  Ordered 3 times and got cancelled immediately. Amazon support said there was no shipping method (?) for the item and to try in 24-48 hours. Oh well guess it's not meant to be.

• 

  mikezillakind on 30/05/2023 - 12:15

  how dos this thing deal with Burst Writes / if it gets full ? or say around 200 to 400 gbs ? compared to say a 970 ?

• 

  moonphase on 30/05/2023 - 12:42

  Would this be good for PS5?

  • 

    Darkvolcos on 30/05/2023 - 18:29

    Wondering the same. Wondering if the heatsink would be sufficient?

    • 

      Robmatho on 31/05/2023 - 13:01

      +1

      I was wondering the same thing as it looked a little large. Luckily my purchase didn't go through on Amazon as I found this article from Push Square that states you will need to purchase the Graphene version that has a smaller heatsink for it to fit. (or remove this one and install your own)
      https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/best-ps5-ssd-2023-boost-yo…

      • 

        moonphase on 02/06/2023 - 11:47

        Thanks! I'll look for another one