The TeamGroup L5 LITE 3D (480GB) SATA SSD Review: Entry-Level Price With Mainstream Performance
by Billy Tallis on September 20, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- SATA
- Silicon Motion
- SM2258
- TeamGroup
Mixed I/O Performance
Our tests of mixed read/write IO vary the workload from pure reads to pure writes at 10% increments. Each mix is tested for up to 1 minute or 32GB of data transferred. The mixed random IO test uses a queue depth of 4 while the mixed sequential IO test uses a queue depth of 1. The tests are confined to a 64GB span of the drive, and the drive is given up to one minute of idle time in between each mix tested.
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The mixed sequential IO performance of the TeamGroup L5 LITE 3D is as good as any other SATA drive, and on the mixed random test it's only slightly slower overall than the Crucial MX500, the fastest TLC SATA drive in this bunch.
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The power efficiency of the L5 LITE 3D during the mixed IO tests is average or slightly better. In both cases there's a TLC SATA drive with a substantial efficiency advantage, and the Samsung 860 PRO sets a high bar for efficiency.
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The performance profiles for the L5 LITE 3D on the mixed IO tests are both fairly typical for mainstream SATA drives. The random IO performance is fairly flat until the workload is at least 70% writes, then it starts to pick up the pace. The sequential IO performance is more of a gradual decline as the workload shifts more toward writes.
Idle Power Measurement
SATA SSDs are tested with SATA link power management disabled to measure their active idle power draw, and with it enabled for the deeper idle power consumption score and the idle wake-up latency test. Our testbed, like any ordinary desktop system, cannot trigger the deepest DevSleep idle state.
Note: We recently upgraded our power measurement equipment and switched to measuring idle power on our Coffee Lake desktop, our first SSD testbed to have fully-functional PCIe power management. The below measurements are all new, and are not a perfect match for the older measurements in our previous reviews and the Bench database.
The active idle power consumption of the TeamGroup L5 LITE 3D is higher than most SSDs, but not by much. Unfortunately, enabling power management barely has any effect. The L5 LITE 3D doesn't appear to have functional SATA Link Power Management. The only upside here is that without working power management, there's no extra latency when waking up. (It's possible that DevSleep power management might work on the L5 LITE 3D, but that feature cannot be tested on a desktop system.)
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jabber - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
Always be wary of 1 Star tech reviews on Amazon. 60% of them are usually disgruntled "Doesn't work on Mac!" reviews.flyingpants265 - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
"They're a biased sample, as very happy and very unhappy people tend to self-report the most. Which doesn't mean what you state is untrue, but it's not something we can corroborate."Ryan, that doesn't explain why one model/brand can have 27% 1-star reviews, and another has 7%.... Unless you think Team Group customers are SEVERAL TIMES MORE outspoken than Crucial/Samsung/whatever customers for some reason. You can't ignore those reports. Ofc the product doesn't have a 27% failure rate, but it's likely much higher than competing products.
Korguz - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
ever consider that maybe the bad reviews are either fake, or made up reviews with the person not actually owning, or even bought the product ?flyingpants265 - Monday, September 23, 2019 - link
...Then you'd have to explain why ONLY TEAM GROUP SSDs have tons of fake 1-star reviews, and other SSDs don't. Seems Anandtech commenters are not that bright..Korguz - Sunday, September 29, 2019 - link
maybe one person who bought one, it failed, then to try yo get even, created more then one account ? unless you can PROVE these supposed 1 star reviews are real reviews, then i guess you are not that bright as well... cant really prove your point, so you resort to insults.. grow upKraszmyl - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
I have nearly a thousand of thier drives from 128g to 480g and so far no failures. Also yes cheap products have poor support, that's one of the reasons why they are cheaper.Samus - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
I'd err on the side of caution when dealing with Team Group, though. Failed memory (which I've seen plenty of over the years) is one thing, but failed data storage is a lot more catastrophic. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'd feel safer with an ADATA SSD than a Team Group SSD...and I've seen a number of ADATA's fail, though none recently (in the last few years)bananaforscale - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
It's your responsibility to make backups. Never allow a single point of failure.philehidiot - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
Aye, especially with SSDs where data recovery is harder than with a HDD. Personally, I pop critical data on two local SSDs and then a memory stick, phone or other system. I don't like the cloud as it is at the mercy of the Internet or another company and I've had access issues which have denied me access to data or, weirdly, only given me access to months old versions. So I prefer a dual local backup, so if a drive fails I can just switch to the backup immediately, and also another copy which is not linked to the same system in case of some catastrophic PSU weirdness that takes out other components (happened once a long time ago and with a cheap PSU) or malware attacks. If I was getting a cheap SSD with a reduced warranty, knowing it uses whatever NAND is cheap at the time, I'd not be using that in a critical system without adequate redundancy (RAID, most likely). You pays your money and takes your choice but if you buy cheap, ensure you're protected... And if you buy expensive.... Ditto.evernessince - Saturday, September 21, 2019 - link
Technically speaking the failure rates should be no higher then other manufacturers, after all they are using the same NAND and controllers as everyone else. That said there is something to be said for poor customer service. I don't know how they are getting that many 1 star reviews though, not unless they are just rebranding B stock.Also, you shouldn't trust only one source for reviews and you should always look at who is posting the bad reviews. For example, this guy seems to be the exact same guy who posted on Newegg as well
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AF...
He seems to leave a lot of bad reviews and often times does not do a good job explaining why. Judging by their English usage, I'd also say they are not a native speaker. There are plenty of companies in China they also pay people to go out and write both good and bad reviews for competing products which makes research on reviewers all the more important.
I'm not saying they don't deserve their rating, I'm just saying you should always check not just the reviews but the reviewers as well. 2 sources minimum as well. It's a PITA but there are so many fake reviews out there (especially on Amazon) that it's required if you want to get what you paid for.