TeamGroup NV5000 2TB SSD Review: A Blast from the Past

The TeamGroup NV5000 feels like a drive from a different time period, which makes total sense as the SSD market is starting to feel like a return to a time of higher storage prices. SSDs used to be a luxury but now it feels almost impossible to live without one. The enhanced responsiveness offered over HDDs is just too good to pass up. The real questions become, which SSD offers the best value? What’s the least I can get away with? Do I really need the newest and best?

The NV5000 ignores all these questions and simply offers a PCIe 3.0 SSD experience, even though it is a PCIe 4.0 drive, while still being fast enough for a PS5.

PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs were the first to offer an experience that improved upon SATA SSDs in terms of bandwidth and, to some degree, responsiveness. We also began to see real competition for Samsung with drives like the HP EX920 and the first competitive use of QLC with the Intel 660p. For many people, this is when NVMe SSDs got “good enough” to be a real option, and everything that came after only offered higher numbers on a box. We don’t fully agree with that analysis, but it’s impossible to deny that even very basic SSDs can vastly improve your desktop experience.

In fact, the demand for simple PCIe 3.0 SSDs has led to a situation where drives like the NV5000 – and even some actual PCIe 3.0 drives – have come to market recently, in part as a reaction to unparalleled memory demand for AI. While it was always possible to roll the die on a mystery SSD from AliExpress, some manufacturers are attempting to back it with a real name. This is essentially the idea behind Kingston’s NV series of drives, but also applies to some budget favorites like TeamGroup’s own MP44L. Some of these drives have good hardware at launch, but become randomized down the line because newer flash is more likely to be paired with faster controllers. As a result, the budget drives will tap into older flash stock,s which can help reduce or maintain cost.

It may seem odd that we’re reviewing a drive like this in 2026. In fact, it’s valuable to have information about drives like this so that you can be a more discerning buyer if you're on a budget. You can make more educated guesses about unknown drives by understanding how to recognize and gauge the hardware. In most cases, people care more about reliability than performance, so a thorough reading of the hardware can also reduce uncertainty in a purchase. TeamGroup is a brand that’s known well enough, and the NV5000 is an interesting alternative to the popular MP44L. It’s not going to be the fastest or most efficient drive out there, but do you really need all of that for a games drive? We have the numbers, but that part is up to you.

TeamGroup NV5000 Specifications

The TeamGroup NV5000 is only found at the most popular capacities of 1TB and 2TB. At the time of review, these were going for $145.99 and $232.99, which are probably too high for what this drive offers. It needs to be below $200 at 2TB – at the time of review – to be worth a look, but prices are changing daily. You should expect it to be the least expensive PCIe 4.0 drive at the time of purchase in order for it to be worth your time, so reassess the price as you go.

The drive is capable of reaching up to 5,000 / 3,000 MB/s, with no random IOPS specifications given. From similar drives, like the Klevv CRAS C910, we would expect the drive to top out at 600,000 IOPS.

This drive is warrantied for up to 320TB of writes per TB of capacity over three years. While this is on the low side, the drive writes per day – an adjustment made to compare write endurance to the warranty period – is within the expected range for TLC flash.

TeamGroup NV5000 Software and Accessories

TeamGroup’s primary download for SSDs is its SSD S.M.A.R.T. Tool. This application actually includes more than just a SMART-reading capability, as it can display system hardware information and also has a built-in CrystalDiskMark-like performance test. For drive cloning and backup, we recommend the free Multi-Drive, which continues to see improvement.

TeamGroup NV5000: A Closer Look

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The drive is non-descript, having only a label with standard information. The rated power is 3V/2.5A, which, with tolerance, has a ceiling around 8W, which happens to be the maximum power draw rating of the drive via SMART. This is certainly on the high side for a budget-oriented, DRAM-less SSD, but it is to be expected with a robust eight-channel controller and older flash. This drive is not ideal for laptops, as a result, but for light use, it’s perfectly fine. The label is constructed with graphene, which does assist with heatspreading enough to make the drive workable.

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There are two elements we want to discuss here: the Realtek RTS5772DL controller and the flash. We’ll start with the flash. These NAND flash packages are, thankfully, relatively easy to recognize with their standard coding. Identifying flash is something many users may like to do, so we’ll break this down and show how it works, going from left to right.

The beginning “PF” just means it’s lead-free. Keen-eyed readers will then recognize the “29” from the days of Intel and Micron’s joint partnership, IMFT, as this group designator was used for both Intel (now Solidigm) and Micron (“MT29”) flash.

“F” means flash rather than the 3D XPoint crossbar memory found in Optane products. “04T” indicates 4Tb, or 512GB, flash packages, which add up to the expected 2TB. The following “2A” indicates support for two channels, something we’ll touch on when discussing the controller, followed by “O” for an octal or eight-die package. This indicates 32 total dies that must be 512Gb, or 64GB, each. “C” indicates the Vcc/VccQ voltages/ranges, while “T” stands for TLC, rather than “Q” for QLC, with the remaining two letters indicating product generation. The “J” letter position is something we’ve seen on many Intel products through the years – the Intel 660p has “H” for 64-Layer, the 665p has “J” for 96-Layer, and the 670p has “K” for 144-layer – so we can now identify this as 96-Layer TLC, or B27A, and everything else fits to make that valid.

This is an older flash made to run at a maximum of 800 MT/s, which, if you do the math, means you really need eight channels – and this works well with each of the four flash packages being capable of handling two channels – in order to hit the NV5000’s rated speeds. This is simply a matter of converting MT/s to MB/s and multiplying by the channel count, knowing that the actual bandwidth available will be less than that number. This drive is never going to hit the PCIe 4.0 maximum, but it’s also going to exceed 3.0 speeds. It reminds us of the popular SK hynix Gold P31, a drive that was fast enough to be a low-end PCIe 4.0 drive with just four channels of faster flash, but was sold at PCIe 3.0 instead. That turned out to be a really good idea, as the drive was and remains extremely popular even with some of its OEM counterparts. Had it been released as PCIe 4.0, it would have been along the lines of the Kingston NV2 or WD Black SN750SE, instead.

The NV5000 and its flash need at least six channels – using 800 MT/s flash rather than the 1,200 MT/s of the Gold P41 – to match that barely-passing grade, so we’re not surprised to see an eight-channel controller here. Realtek doesn’t have the best reputation for SSD controllers, with the main negative being that they have a habit of running hot. Unfortunately, the choice of an eight-channel controller is not going to make things better in that department. This controller should be inefficient and hot-running, which reduces its potential as you might not want this in your laptop. On the other hand, it’s technically fast enough for the PS5, and the drive could be cooled pretty easily with aftermarket solutions. Further, some of the overheating issues of past Realtek controllers were caused by a reading error and could be fixed with proper firmware.

The fact is, if you’re using older flash but still want to hit that target, then you need a controller like this. We’ve explained why that is a technical necessity, but we want to emphasize that this is about making a budget drive work. We say this is a “blast from the past” because, fundamentally, this is a PCIe 3.0 SSD. A common belief on hardware sites and forums is that any SSD will do, even SATA SSDs, and that PCIe 3.0 is enough for anybody. If only those manufacturers would listen! Well, TeamGroup – being the masters of budget SSDs – kinda did. This drive is something you can find at retail and will work in your old machines, within reason. The controller isn’t as dated as it appears, but it’s DRAM-less and needs more channels to make up for slower flash. That helps save on cost in comparison to newer, DRAM-equipped controllers. The result is a Realtek controller that's functional, and that’s about all we can say for it. Other manufacturers have their own solutions for this spot – the Phison E19T and SMI SM2267XT come to mind – but even at the best of times, they were always budget-oriented.