Team Group T-FORCE CARDEA M.2 480GB SSD Review

Memory (DDR4/DDR5) and Storage (SSD/NVMe) 367 Page 4 of 18 Published by

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The following images were taken at high-resolution and then cropped and scaled down. The camera used was a Canon DSLR shooting 24 MegaPixel photos. Right then, off we go.
 

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The sample we have at hand is the 480 GB M.2 model. Performance is listed as 2,650 MB/s for reads and 1,450 MB/sec for writes with roughly 150 IOPS at 4k random writes QD32 aligned disk access with our tested model. 
 


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Above, the tested unit; you should easily be able to place the M.2 unit into a compatible motherboard. Most Z97/X99/Z170/Z270 and AMD B350/X370 motherboards support it. You should however check out with the motherboard manufacturer if you have a x4 lane PCIe version with NVMe support.

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The compact M.2 2280 (2280 = 80 mm) form factor ensures compatibility with next-generation desktop and mobile platforms that support the M.2 PCIe slot and interface. 
  

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With the heatsink removed we see the top of the SSD, it holds two NAND chips on the top side, two on the back, a DRAM cache chip and the Phison controller.
  

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The PCB reveals a hard to read but uses a Phison Series 5000  likely E7 NVMe controller. The one supports 15 nm SLC/MLC/TLC as well as the latest 3D (vertically stacked) NAND. These controllers support up to 2 Terabytes today and will expand to 4 Terabytes in the coming future as well as supporting NVMe L1 sub-state with less than 5 mW in L1.2 low power mode. The 480 GB configuration uses a 1,024 MB DRAM buffer that the company deploys in a single package from Nanya.
  

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It's a bit washed out but that reads TA. It is a Toshiba 15nm MLC NAND flash memory. You'll find four flash NAND packages, two on each side of the PCB. Perhaps in the future a 1 TB version will be launched as the backside of the PCB reveals an empty SMT trace for another DRAM chip.
  

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