TeamGroup T-FORCE VULCAN Z 512GB 2.5 inch SATA SSD

A 512GB 2.5 inch SATA SSD. The sensible minimum capacity for a boot drive that also holds a few games or a working set of files.

Key specifications

• Capacity: 512GB
• Interface: SATA III 6Gb/s
• Form factor: 2.5 inch, 7mm
• Sequential read: 540 MB/s
• Sequential write: 470 MB/s
• NAND: 3D NAND
• DRAM cache: none, DRAM-less design
• Endurance: 120 TBW
• MTBF: 1,000,000 hours
• Warranty: 3 years

Faster than the 256GB, and that is not marketing

540/470 against the 256GB's 520/450. Higher capacity SSDs have more NAND dies to write across in parallel, so they are genuinely faster. That pattern continues up the range.

DRAM-less, honestly

No DRAM cache. An SLC cache in the NAND does the job instead. Fine for normal use. Under sustained large writes, once that cache fills, speed drops. If you regularly move very large files, look at an NVMe drive with DRAM.

SATA is the right choice when there is no free M.2 slot, or when you are adding a second drive to a machine that already has an NVMe boot drive. In those cases the interface difference matters far less than having the capacity.