{"id":811105,"date":"2025-12-07T09:01:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T09:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Nu3ezsN7UTT8c8h3CmXQz6"},"modified":"2025-12-07T09:01:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T09:01:41","slug":"teamgroup-z540-2tb-nvme-ssd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/teamgroup-z540-2tb-nvme-ssd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Teamgroup Z540 2TB NVMe SSD review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Everyone loves a fast Gen 5 SSD, just not the prices that are attached to them. They still carry too much of a price premium over Gen 4 drives. But, as supply ramps up, the gap is slowly beginning to close. The key word there is slowly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At $269, the Teamgroup Z540<\/a> 2TB PCIe Gen 5 SSD is certainly a speedy drive, with peak read and write transfer rates of 12,400 MB\/s and 11,800 MB\/s respectively, but is it worth the $100+ price premium over a Gen 4 drive when there's little tangible benefit for today's gaming PCs?<\/p>\n

Still, that $269 price means it's one of the more affordable Gen 5 SSDs, particularly compared to first wave Gen 5 drives around the 10,000MB\/s range. And, it stacks up very well against the $400 Nextstorage X Series 2TB<\/a> drive our man Jacob recently reviewed, even though the NN5Pro model comes with a bundled heatsink.<\/p>\n

Along with the Z540 SSD, Teamgroup also sent over its T-Force Dark Airflow 1 SSD cooler<\/a> for this review. It's available separately and it's a recommended purchase if you have a motherboard that doesn't include integrated heatsinks. It's quite fairly priced at $27, though at the time of writing it was not available in the UK or Australian markets.<\/p>\n

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T-Force Z540 2TB specs<\/div>\n
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\"Teamgroup<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Capacity: <\/strong>2TB
\nInterface: <\/strong>PCIe 5.0 x4
\nMemory controller: <\/strong>Phison PS5026-E26 controller
\nFlash memory: <\/strong>Micron 232L TLC NAND
\nRated performance: <\/strong>12,400 MB\/s sustained read, 11,800 MB\/s sustained write
\nEndurance:<\/strong> 1400 TBW
\nWarranty: <\/strong>Five years
\nPrice:<\/strong> $269<\/a> | \u00a3274<\/a> | AU$515<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Z540 is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. I have the 2TB version on hand. Teamgroup promotes the Z540 as a drive for gamers, but the Z540 will happily serve as an all purpose drive, with a five year warranty and 1400 TBW endurance rating.<\/p>\n

The Teamgroup Z540 is a PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It's rated for up to 12,400 MB\/s sequential reads and 11,800 MB\/s writes for the 2TB version I have. That's the same as the 4TB version, though the 1TB version comes in slightly slower at 11,700 MB\/s and 9,500 MB\/s.<\/p>\n

Like many currently available Gen 5 drives, it incorporates the Phison E26 controller, 232-layer Micron NAND and it includes 4GB of Hynix DDR4-4266 cache.<\/p>\n

The drive as shipped includes a thin graphene strip, though it's not attached and won't be necessary if you're installing it under a motherboard heatsink with an appropriate thermal pad. All Gen 5 SSDs get hot when you're shuffling lots of data around, so it's imperative that your motherboard has some kind of integrated cooling solution. If not, then it is definitely worth spending a few extra dollars on a model with an integrated heatsink, or an aftermarket cooler like the Dark Airflow 1.<\/p>\n

The Dark Airflow 1 is a nice looking little device, I think. It's not overly large at 105mm tall and it's thin enough not to interfere with my system's adjacent graphics card. It includes a small fan which I initially plugged into a full speed fan header. And boy was it loud!<\/em> But that's not a problem as it's a PWM model that's easily adjustable in your motherboard's BIOS. I found setting it to 20% lowered its noise level to a point where it can't be heard over the rest of the system.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Team<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Future)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Z540 has an optional SSD S.M.A.R.T. tool that you can grab from the Teamgroup website. It includes basic drive and system information and the CrystalDiskMark benchmark. It's not as visually appealing as the software suites from the likes of WD or Samsung and I'd like to see some kind of disk cloning tool included, but in my testing, the Teamgroup app worked well.<\/p>\n