TEAMGROUP T-CREATE CLASSIC Gen4 1TB SSD Review

The TEAMGROUP T-CREATE CLASSIC PCIe 4.0 SSD came to market in March 2021 and aimed at content creators looking for a drive that has excellent performance for multi-tasking. The T-Create Classic PCIe 4.0 SSD is available in capacities of 1TB for $169 (buy on Amazon) and 2TB for $329 (buy on Amazon).

Both models feature sequential speeds of up to 5000 MB/s read and 4400 MB/s write. They also deliver solid Random 4K performance with up to 750,000 IOPS for both read and write operations. They are also backed by a 5-year warranty, so you should have peace of mind that this is a drive that will likely last the lifespan of your PC.

We have verified that the T-Create Classic PCIe 4.0 SSD is based off the Phison E16 reference design. Numerous companies are shipping drives off this reference design that uses the Phison PS5016-E16 controller paired with KIOXIA’s BiCS4 96L 3D TLC NAND Flash. This series also has dedicated DRAM cache on the PCB, which something that is a must for storage aficionados.

TEAMGROUP said they wanted to go with a timeless design for the classic. It looks like they nailed that with a simple black and white thermal plate on the front of the drive. This is a dual-sided M.2 2280 drive that needs to use the PCIe Gen4 x4 interface to reach advertised speeds.

On the back of the drive you’ll see normal label that shows the model number, serial number and other general information. One thing that we need to point out is that this T-Create PCIe 4.0 SSD Classic drives have a healthy endurance rating. The 1TB drive is rated at 1800 TBW and the 2TB drive is rated at 3600 TBW. The CHIA Network uses hard drives to ‘farm’ the XCH cryptocurrency and HDD and SSD shortages are expected. The algorithm uses Proof of Space and Proof of Time (PoST) on open storage space on the mining network. This means many writes are being done and endurance is going to be really important to that group of SSD buyers.

You can download the TEAMGROUP SSD S.M.A.R.T. Tool to us with the T-Create PCIe 4.0 SSD Classic if you’d like. It is free and shows you the basic information about the drive. Our drive was sealed in the box, but had a power on count of 6 times with a total on time of 17 hours. It looks like this drive was pulled aside for in-depth internal testing at some point before it made it to us.

The utility also includes a performance benchmark utility that allows you to run some quick benchmarks of your drive. This test looks awfully similar to CrystalDiskMark and we topped out at 4870 MB/s read and 4244 MB/s write on it.

To fully test the TEAMGROUP T-CREATE CLASSIC PCIe 4.0 SSD we’ll be testing it out in our new Intel 590 test platform as a secondary drive.

CrystalDiskInfo shows that the drive was running firmware EGFM13.0 and that the drive uses the NVM Express 1.3 standard.

In CrystalDiskMark we topped out at 5001 MB/s read and 4266 MB/s write for sequential performance. Random 4K performance at QD1 was found to be 66 MB/s read and 349 MB/s write.

ATTO Disk Benchmark had the 1TB T-CREATE CLASSIC PCIe 4.0 SSD topping out at 5.26 GB/s read and 3.96 GB/s write.

Anvil’s storage utilities scores are heavily dependent on the CPU that you are using, so keep that in mind when looking at results. On our Intel Core i7-11700K Rocket Lake processor we managed reach a score of just over 21,000 points. Our test system has the default C-state settings, so this might be why it is lower than what is seen on other review sites.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The TEAMGROUP T-CREATE CLASSIC PCIe 4.0 SSD series represents another great option for those looking for a Gen 4 SSD. It is based on the Phison E16 reference design that has been successful in the market since first being introduced in 2019. This is now what we’d call the reliable ‘value’ PCIe Gen4 drive as the newer Phison E18 controller has taken over the premium PCIe Gen4 market. It’s performance tops 7GB/s, but costs significantly more.

The T-Create Classic PCIe 4.0 SSD 1TB that we reviewed here today is $169 (buy on Amazon) and the larger 2TB model is $329 (buy on Amazon). Not a bad price for a drive that offers up to 5 GB/s speeds, a 5-year warranty, and hefty endurance ratings. Remember, the 1TB drive is rated at 1800 TBW and the 2TB drive is rated at 3600 TBW. You won’t find endurance ratings like that on many drives at these capacities!