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
Burst IO Performance
Our burst IO tests run at a queue depth of one and the amount of data transferred is limited to ensure that SLC write buffers don't fill up and controllers don't overheat. In between each burst there's enough idle time to keep the drive averaging a 20% duty cycle, allowing for some buffered writes and deferred garbage collection to be completed. The random read and write tests use 4kB operations and the sequential tests use 128kB operations. All the burst tests are confined to a 16GB portion of the drive, so DRAMless SSDs are not disadvantaged as much as they are for larger tests.
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The SATA SSDs in this bunch all perform very similarly on the burst sequential IO tests, though the TeamGroup L5 LITE 3D is hair slower than the rest for sequential writes. The random write performance is tied for first place among the SATA drives, but the random read performance is much slower than the Crucial MX500.
Sustained IO Performance
Our sustained IO tests measure performance on queue depths up to 32, but the scores reported here are only the averages for the low queue depths (1,2,4) that are most representative of real-world consumer workloads. Each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB, and the tests are confined to a 64GB span of the drive.
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The Team L5 LITE 3D's sustained sequential performance isn't quite the fastest among the SATA SSDs, but it does stand out for having pretty good performance when performing sequential reads on data that was written with random writes. The random write performance of the L5 LITE 3D is as good as any of the TLC SATA drives in this batch, but the random read performance is a bit slower than the top tier SATA drives.
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The L5 LITE 3D's power efficiency during the random write test is pretty good by TLC SATA standards, but otherwise it tends to fall short by a bit. The Mushkin Source DRAMless SATA drive turns in some great efficiency scores thanks to really low power draw (helped by the lack of DRAM), but DRAMless performance on random reads is far too low for it to remain competitive on that efficiency metric.
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| Sequential Read | Sequential Write | ||||||||
Plotting the L5 LITE 3D's performance and power at various queue depths against all the other SATA drives in our database shows that the random read power consumption starts to look excessive at medium to high queue depths. For the other workloads, the L5 LITE 3D is at least nowhere near setting a record for good power efficiency, but it does sometimes manage to be better than average.
At high queue depths, the L5 LITE 3D reaches the same SATA throughput limits as everything else for read operations, but the the write speeds top out a bit below the practical maximum for the best SATA SSDs.
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Putting the L5 LITE 3D head to head against other TLC SATA drives makes it clear that the Team drive can almost always hold its own on the performance front. The power consumption is where it loses, and sometimes by a pretty wide margin: the Mushkin Source is a full 1W ahead of the L5 LITE 3D for sequential writes, and the Crucial MX500 is ahead by about 0.5W for random reads at high queue depths.
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eek2121 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Because anonymous user reviews on the internet are meaningless? I've purchased products with 1% 1-star reviews that were complete turds (last one was a USB drive claiming to be a terabyte. Knew it was fake, but I bought it anyway and returned it so Amazon would damn the seller to hell, which they did).User reviews are meaningless these days.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
Spend the extra $5 and get the Crucial MX line instead, with Power Off Protection and higher NAND and controller quality.Billy Tallis - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
The MX500 uses literally the same controller, albeit with custom firmware (which is where most of the partial power loss protection comes from).And since apparently today is one of the days that the L5 LITE 3D is on sale (it wasn't yesterday when I checked), the price difference is more than $15 for the 480/500GB drives. The Crucial MX500 is 30% more expensive at the moment.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
And yet, despite using the same controller, that custom firmware makes ALL the difference. Just take a look at team SSD failure rates VS crucials.It doesnt matter if the team drives are $10-15 cheaper. Skip a single meal at your prefered fast food joint of choice and get a drive that is going to actually work properly.
kpb321 - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
ALL drives can and WILL eventually fail and if you don't have a proper back up you are just gambling that it doesn't happen while you still care about what's on the drive. If you do have a proper backup a drive failure is just a minor inconvenience and proof that your backup process works. I have a 240gb version of this drive installed in my wife's laptop to upgrade her from the 120gb drive that came in it and I'm not worried about it at all. If the drive dies I'll simply restore the nightly backup from the NAS to a new drive and she's back up and running with minimal data loss and downtime. I'd rather spend money on a NAS and a proper back than on a "better" ssd to gamble that the better drive won't fail on me.eastcoast_pete - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
Partially agree. However, it's not just about the direct cost of a drive. Even if the PC is just used for web browsing and entertainment, I still have to spend time and effort on replacing the drive, installing the OS and software etc. Thus, spending a few dollars more for a more reliable drive might well be worth it.Death666Angel - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
"spending a few dollars more for a more reliable drive might well be worth it" - the thing is, as many don't seem to understand, that we can't measure reliability in any useful way right now. All data we have is incomplete. Basing any kind of decision on that data means that decision is either good, neutral or bad and no one will know.Samus - Sunday, September 22, 2019 - link
It isn't the controller, it's the quality of the NAND. Crucial uses excellent quality NAND.lightningz71 - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
This can't possibly be any crummier than the EDGE drives I purchased at work a few years ago. I purchased a batch of twenty 512GB SATA SSDs through Amazon, and EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM failed between 13 and 17 months from the day that they were first installed. Standard desktop usage on PCs that were nowhere near considered write heavy was their environment. Just terrible in every way.Scott_T - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
With 240gb drives being so cheap I'm surprised anyone would come out with a new 120gb drive these days.