Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The Team Group Cardea A440 Pro is available in three different storage capacities: 1 TB ($190), 2 TB ($360), and 4 TB ($900). The endurance of these models has been set at 700 TBW, 1400 TBW, and 3000 TBW, depending on the model. With the A440 Pro, Team Group includes a five-year guarantee as standard. The combo of the fast and popular Phison E18 controller (paired with Micron's latest 176L TLC NAND) makes this among the faster drives available. The performance of this drive is noticeably higher than that of other drives, including the Samsung 980 Pro. 

Endurance

We've talked about endurance previously; it's the number of times NAND cells can be written before they begin to malfunction. It is sufficient to remark that the values for QLC written (4 bits saved in a single NAND cell) are not particularly good at it. On this point, however, I always like to paraphrase Einstein: "Relativity, my man," he said. You can improve endurance by increasing the volume of your training sessions. 98 percent of your data is stored in a 'cold' state on your SSD and does nothing, and it is only the 2 percent of data that is written that is important. Volume sizes that are larger result in more NAND cells, and more NAND cells result in greater endurance. The SSD  however uses TLC written NAND and our 2TB model has a proper 1400 TB written capacity for endurance, 800 TBW (1GB) / 1600 TBW (2TB) / 3200 TBW (4TB). As a result, our tested 2 TB SSD generates 1400 TBW. Now, if a NAND cell fails, it does not necessarily indicate that your data is lost. Many algorithms are constantly monitoring and managing your data; for example, if a cell's lifetime is about to expire, the bits inside that cell will be relocated to a more healthy cell. How long does a 1400 TWB storage unit last before NAND flash cells go the way of the dodo? Well, if you are a really extreme user, you might be writing 50 GB per day (really normal users probably won't even write that per week), but based on that value, 50GB x 365days= 18.25 TB per year written. You get 1400 TBW, so that's almost 77 years of usage and half that for the 1TB SSD version. Let me make it very clear, 50 GB per day each day of the year is a very ambitious number.

Performance

Taken just by its performance indices, the A440 PRO is among the fastest drive for mainstream trace and sustained workloads. Keep in mind that the synthetic benchmarks, in which the SSD does exceptionally well, skew the picture; in real-world testing, the SSD remains one of the fastest, but the competition is close. Trace testing show excellent numbers, the random 4K IOPS in queues go through the roof. The linear performance remains great as well as sustained. 

Concluding

TeamGroup has a fast offering with the A440 PRO, that said it's among a broad niche of others that are producing nearly the same thing. At 369 USD for the 2 TB model you hover at 18 cents per GB, we do find it slightly costly. Then again, this version has the included heatsink as well as an endurance value of 1400 TBW, which we feel is worth a little extra money. TeamGroup unveiled its product with read/write speeds of around 7 GB/s, often we're a bit below that value though, the sustained and linear throughput of this unit is really good. Of course, to get the best out of it, you'll need a PCIe Gen 4 infrastructure, and at the time of writing, that means a compatible Ryzen processor on, say, a B550 or X570 chipset-based platform. Intel started with PCIe gen 4.0 as well for Rocket Lake and Alder Lake (Z590/Z690). This SSD shivers in performance given the right conditions, and for the rest of them, on some workloads, you are down to high-end class NVMe performance. Team backs the storage unit with a proper five years, that or the TBW value reached. And there you have it; at ~20 cents per GB, Team does offer a compelling but expensive product series. It's plenty capable for any workload you fire off at it.  The A440 PRO is a compelling option for consumers searching for a top-of-the-line Gen4 M.2 SSD at a somewhat competitive price.  All of this adds up to an amazing release and a drive we can suggest for enthusiasts and content makers alike. This SSD performs admirably under the correct conditions. TeamGroup guarantees the storage unit for five years, or until the TBW value is reached. At 18 cents per GB, TeamGroup does offer an attractive but somewhat costly product series. It is more than capable of handling any workload you throw at it though. Concluding, the A440 PRO is an enticing alternative for consumers looking for a top-tier Gen4 M.2 SSD at a somewhat steep price. This all adds up to an incredible release and a drive we recommend to aficionados and content creators alike. It does need cooling though, the included heatsink works really well, other than that I'd advise you to install it underneath a motherboard heatsink cooler.

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