TeamGroup PD400 480GB Portable SSD Review – A Must-Have For Today’s Demands

TeamGroup is one of the long-standing names in the memory industry. The brand is known for its value-oriented memory modules, flash drives, memory cards, and accessories – especially in the commercial sector. Its gaming arm, TForce, houses the brand’s gamer and overclocker-oriented products. The gaming brand received an open-arm welcome by enthusiasts thanks to its unique aesthetic paired with a commendable performance at a competitive price. TeamGroup has continued its strategy by offering value-centered solutions in both the memory and storage segments, such as the TeamGroup MP34 SSD.

Games are notoriously increasing in file sizes with Call of Duty Modern Warfare leading the pack with 181GBs of total storage. The demand for faster internet speeds and storage solutions rises up as games, and media files improve in quality. The TeamGroup PD400 is an external SSD solution that can house your games, media content, and important files without the drawbacks of a traditional external hard drive.

TeamGroup PD400 SSD Specifications

A Closer Look

The TeamGroup PD400 Portable SSD is packed in a box with a transparent film that exposes the SSD. The back reveals a short spec of the sad translated to 8 languages.

The contents of the packaging contain the PD400 SSD, 1x USB Type-C to C cable, and 1x USB Type-C to A cable. Both USB cables have the same length.

The TeamGroup PD400 SSD has an all-aluminum alloy build with a Navy Blue finish and copper-gold highlights. The full aluminum alloy construction makes the PD400 SSD shockproof, pressure-resistant, and acts as a heatsink that cools down the controller and NAND memory. On top of that, the PD400 is also IP66 certified, meaning it’s also water repellent and dustproof.

There’s physically no way to access the internals of the drive as it has no screws nor holes except for the USB-C interface. There’s an included rubber plug to cover the USB-C port for a full dust and splash protection for the PD400 external SSD. The PD400 SSD uses a USB 3.1 Gen 1 rated at 5Gbps speed, which is more than enough for the PD400’s rated speed of 430MB/s.

One of the highlights of the TeamGroup PD400 SSD is its form factor. Its 83.1 x 65.5 x 13.2 size makes it portable enough to be stored in the pocket of your bag or pouch. Its size is smaller than my Logitech G304 wireless gaming mouse, albeit more massive at 100 grams and denser due to the size as mentioned earlier.

BENCHMARKS

The TeamGroup PD400 480GB Portable SSD is subject to a series of benchmarks from different apps to evaluate its performance under specific workloads. Our benchmark suite measures throughput, latency, and IOPS to gauge the SSD’s performance accurately.

TEST BENCH

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Cooling: NZXT X52 240MM AIO
Motherboard: ROG Strix X570-E
Memory: HyperX Predator 16GB  3200Mhz
Storage: Micron 512GB M.2 SSD | TForce Cardea Liquid 512GB SSD | TeamGroup PD400 SSD
PSU: FSP Hydro 750w 80+ Platinum
GPU: Galax RTX 2070 1-Click OC
OS: Windows 10 Pro Build 1903

CrystalDiskMark

Developed by Noriyuki Miyazaki, CrytalDiskMark is a free benchmark tool that is being used by thousands of experts. This tool measures SSD’s sequential read and writes speeds. That means how fast files can be read from and written to the drive, usually measured in MB/s.

Our TeamGroupd PD400 SSD has a capacity of 480GB and is rated up to 430MB/s read, and 420MB/s write. Using Crystal Diskmark, we were able to achieve sequential speeds over 500MB/s read, and 400MB/s write on different capacities and queue depths. The higher than spec speeds are great, not to mention the PD400’s consistency over different workloads.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark is an industry-leading benchmark tool for SSD’s and HDD’s that measure performance using file transfers of different sizes. The PD400 portable SSD showed consistent read and write speeds throughout various workloads. It is able to maintain higher than rated read and write speeds across different file sizes similar to our CrystalDiskMark run.

AS SSD Benchmark

IOPS or Input/Output Operations Per Second measure of how many inputs or outputs an SSD can perform in a short period. IOPS is a useful parameter to measure how fast it can process small amounts of workload that are similar to real-world usage, such as loading a webpage and launching apps. The PD400’s IOPs values are above average and expected for a 480GB SATA SSD.

Access time or latency is just as crucial as sequential, random, and IOPS for an SSD. It wraps up all the values from the previous performance and shows the SSD’s responsiveness, whether it be small or heavy workloads. The access time is relatively fast, considering that the PD400 is a SATA-based SSD.

AS SSD’s Copy benchmark simulates copying various file types namely, ISOs, Games, and applications. Different file types result in different transfer speeds with the fastest at 361.46MB/s, just a shy below its rated 430MB/s speed. File Compression, on the other hand, is stable, ranging from 430MB/s to 500MB/s reads speeds and 300MB/s to 480MB/s with an unfortunate dip of 183MB/s.

CONCLUSION

Performance-wise, the TeamGroup PD400 SSD exceeds our expectations as it is able to perform consistently above its rated read and write speeds. While we weren’t able to monitor the SSD’s temp, the aluminum alloy unibody design acts as a heatsink the cools the device with ease. Its build quality is one of the best available for external solutions as it is backed up by an IP66 rating. The 100-gram weight is negligible and justified by its feature set.

Overall, the TeamGroup PD400 SSD is an excellent option if you’re looking for a go-to external storage solution that’s simple, fast, and elegant-looking. Its reliable performance, sturdy build quality, competitive price(Php 5,800 for the 480GB model), and a three-year warranty is a bargain that not every portable SSD can offer.

Grant Soriano

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Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.