TeamGroup Cardea Zero Z340 M.2 NVMe review - Introduction

TeamGroup Cardea Zero Z340 review
A super-fast NVMe 1.3 PCIe Gen 3.0 M.2 SSD

TeamGroup recently released a very fast PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD, but also the Z340 which promises to set a few records on the PCIe Gen 3.0 interface. Advertised at 3400 MBs and a 1665 TBW value it immediately draws our attention.

Not just the specification draw attention, on top of the controller and NAND ICs there's a slim copper plate attached with graphene, which is extremely conductive. We'll see how that pans out temperatures wise later on in the review. 

TeamGroup is offering Cardea Zero Z340 series that leverages PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe 1.3 technology. For the Z340 SSD, they use 64-Layer 3D NAND, which is written as TLC (Triple level cell). For our tested 1TB variant, the manufacturer specifies a lifespan of 1665 TBW  (total bytes written). 

The specs overall are more than enough for your average end-user, but will this unit deliver what it claims? M2 is the interesting form factor, these small storage units are evolving from being "just as fast" as a regular SSD towards double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple and perhaps in the future even octuple that performance. It comes in a different package, M.2. Using the PCIe lanes interface it is so much more capable as it can deal with way more bandwidth using PCI-Express lanes. As such, M.2 solutions are intended for high-end and enthusiast-class motherboards and laptops.  These M.2 units use the NVMe 1.3 protocol and that means storage technology at millennium falcon hyper-fast speeds while remaining competitive in pricing. 

• Max Sequential Read - Up to 3400 MBps
• Max Sequential Write - Up to 3000 MBps
• 4KB Random Read - Up to 450,000 IOPS
• 4KB Random Write - Up to 400,000 IOPS
• Endurance (TBW) up to 1665 TBW (1 TB model)

While the stability and safety of your data have become a number one priority for the manufacturers, the technology keeps advancing at as fast a pace as it does, the performance numbers a good SSD offers these days are simply breathtaking. You get between 450 MB/s to 500 MB/sec on SATA3 which is the norm for a single controller based SSD. Now in the year 2018 by combining advanced NAND Flash controller with PCIe Gen 3(8Gb/s) x 4, NvMe 1.3 interface and 3D NAND Flash, PCIe M.2 delivers sequential read speed up to 3400MB/s and sequential write speed up to 3000MB/s. 

Type	Solid State modules (SSM)
Form factor	M.2 2280
Controller	Phison PS5012-E12)
Interface	M.2/M-Key (PCIe 3.0 x4)
Read	3400 MB/s
Write	3000 MB/s
IOPS 4K read/Write	450k/400k
Memory modules	3D-NAND TLC, 64/96 Layer (BiCS5)
TBW	1.65PB
Reliability prediction	2.0 Mio. hours (MTBF)
Cache	1GB (DDR4), SLC-Cache
Protocol	NVMe 1.3

The SSD is a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe 1.3) M.2 form factor SSD, it has been fitted with new Vertically stacked NAND written as TLC. The performance numbers of a proper SATA3 SSD offers these days are simply excellent, but with the more niche NVMe SSDs you can easily quadruple performance, which offers serious numbers. The unit follows a smaller M.2 2280 form factor (8cm) so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine. Anyway, wanna see how fast the Z340 really is? Next page and onwards into the review then.