TeamGroup T-Force Cardea Zero Z340 512GB m.2 SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 86%

The Bottom Line

Consumers wanting a drive offering solid 4KQ1 and sequential performance should take a look at the Z340 from TeamGroup!

TeamGroup has been quite busy as of late expanding their storage portfolio to include four new models of NVMe from the "Liquid" cooled Cardea that we reviewed not long ago to the Gen4 Z440. More recently, Team unveiled the Z330 and Z340 solutions that fill gaps in both their entry-level and mainstream drive portfolio. Today we have the latter Z340 in for review in the 512GB capacity.

Along with the 512GB capacity, the Z340 is offered in 256GB and 1TB options, all built on the PCIe Gen3x4 interface. Behind this, we have the Silicon Motion 2262EN controller that for the Z340 is paired with TLC NAND and DRAM cache.

Marketing performance for the Z340 for the 512GB capacity offers 3400 MB/s read and 2000 MB/s write for sequentials and 350K/300K read/write IOPS. Drive endurance carries a 800TBW rating for the 512GB model in house.

The MSRP of the 512GB TeamGroup Cardea Zero Z340 comes in at $94.99 with a five-year warranty.

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The Z340 enjoys a simple cardboard retainer with capacity listed to the right and marketing information surrounding.

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On the backside, we have compatibility information, including interface and performance.

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Team has been setting itself apart from other vendors by innovating in drive cooling. With the Z340, they have deployed a graphene and copper solution that aids the controller and NAND by transferring the heat to a larger surface area allowing chassis cooling to dissipate quicker.

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On the backside, we have a simple sticker that offers regulatory information, including warranty, serial, and model identification.

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One downside of the Z340 is you have to remove the fancy graphene copper cooling solution to get a peek at the controller and NAND or to install it on a motherboard with a chipset heat sink that covers the m.2 slots. As you can see above, we have the 2262EN controller and TLC NAND that has been re-labeled by Team.

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CDM is a staple in performance testing, version 7 has seen some updates in the workloads used for testing. Sequential performance for the Z340 hit an Impressive 3394 MB/s read and 2431 MB/s write while 4KQ1 topped 67 MB/s read and 150 MB/s write.

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ATTO is yet another popular benchmark for storage performance that breaks down performance based on file size. With the Z340, we peak at 128K at 3GB/s read and 2 GB/s write, after which we start to see performance fall off with larger file sizes.

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PCMark10 landed the Z340 right behind the IronWolf 510 and in front of the batch of 2263XT solutions starting with the M700.

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Full System Drive landed the Z340 in between the two 2263XT solutions in the M700 and NM610 at 1579.

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Throwing the Z340 through our Price/Performance, it ends up being the worst drive currently in our charts, due to the current high MSRP.

Closing this out, the Z340 is a well-built mainstream solution that offers a proven design with the SM2262EN controller and TLC NAND behind it. Adding to this is the unique heat dissipation solution with the graphene copper "sticker" that, in my own testing, did show a minor 2-3c temperature difference. That said, current and future high-end motherboards do typically include the m.2 slots in the chipset heat sink, which would require the removal of this solution.

Performance of the Z340 is fantastic, it's able to handle sequential workloads with ease topping out at 3400 MB/s read and 2400 MB/s write in our testing. 4KQ1 hits that mainstream nerve at 67 MB/s read and 150 MB/s write while PCMark10 quick, which is most accurate to daily usage, puts the Z340 in the top 3 of our charts.

Pricing really hammers the Z340, at $94.99 for the 512GB solution, it's almost double the cost of entry-level drives like the M700 that with HMB technology can match its 4KQ1 performance pretty easily. That said, for those wanting more than a system drive, the Cardea does have some of the highest sequential performance we have seen for a 512GB solution.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)