Teamgroup T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 1TB SSD Review (PCIe Gen 4)

The front of the blister pack that the drive comes in gives you all the information you need about the drive; capacity, the graphene/copper cooling and that it supports NVMe. The rear of the pack has a small drive feature/specs panel and a couple of diagrams showing how to install the drive. Along with the warranty sticker, there is also a reminder that the drive is backed by a five-year warranty.

 
Teamgroup's T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 is built on a double-sided M.2 2280 format. One side holds the Phison PS5016-E16 controller, two 96-layer BiCS4 3D TLC NAND packages (coded TABBG65AWV) and a SKhynix DDR4-2400 DRAM cache (H5AN4G8NBJR-UHC) IC. The other side of the PCB holds another pair of NAND packages and a second DRAM chip.

Interestingly the drive doesn't use the large heatsink seen on other PCIe Gen 4 drives but instead, there is a very thin label that incorporates a Teamgroup patented material that combines graphene and copper to keep the drive cool.

 
TeamGroup's SSD management utility goes by the name of the T-Force SSD Toolbox. It may not look a complex as some of the competition's offerings at first glance, but all you really need is included. Drive health, temperature and capacity usage are all clearly displayed as is S.M.A.R.T information and drive life span. It even has integrated drive migration software.

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