# Team Group MP44Q 1TB Review — QLC Speed on a Budget (2026)

The Team Group MP44Q 1TB pairs 7,000 MB/s PCIe 4.0 reads with QLC NAND and a 5-year warranty — budget storage that refuses to feel slow in everyday work.

Quick answer: The Team Group MP44Q 1TB is the right buy when headline Gen4 speed matters more than NAND pedigree: a boot drive or starter game library that loads at 7,000 MB/s for QLC money, backed by five years of coverage. Skip it for sustained heavy writing, because post-cache QLC throughput is a known weak point — the Crucial P310 or WD Black SN770 handle constant large transfers far better. The Crucial P3 Plus 1TB is the closest spec-for-spec QLC rival, at lower rated speed. As a budget pick that beat TLC competition in Tom's Hardware's productivity testing, the MP44Q 1TB has earned a permanent and easy-to-recommend spot in the value tier.

## Specifications

| Specification | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Capacity | 1 TB |
| Interface | M.2 4.0 x 4 |
| Controller | Maxio MAP1602 |
| Memory type | 232-layer 3D QLC |
| DRAM cache | No |
| Sequential read | 7000 MB/s |
| Sequential write | 5900 MB/s |
| Random read IOPS |  |
| Random write IOPS |  |
| Endurance | 512 TBW |
| MTBF | 1600000 |
| Warranty | 5 years |

## Performance

TeamGroup rates the 1 TB MP44Q at 7,000 MB/s sequential reads and 5,900 MB/s writes, figures shared by every capacity in the range. No random IOPS rating is published, so anything beyond the sequential numbers comes down to platform behavior. In practice, 7,000 MB/s reads load operating systems and games with no perceptible penalty against costlier TLC drives, and Tom's Hardware's testing of the 2 TB family member found the MP44Q outscoring TLC rivals such as the Kingston NV3, TeamGroup's own MP44 and the WD Black SN770 in 3DMark and PCMark storage benchmarks — a genuinely surprising result for a QLC drive.

The fine print is the SLC cache. The MP44Q uses a large dynamic pseudo-SLC cache — roughly a quarter of the 2 TB model's capacity, per Tom's Hardware's measurements — which absorbs huge burst writes before throughput drops hard once the cache exhausts. Tom's Hardware measured the 2 TB model writing at 5.75 GB/s for 86 seconds, then falling to around 103 MB/s while cached data folded back into QLC. For boot drives, game installs and daily desktop work that wall never appears; for 100 GB-plus video projects or constant backup runs, a TLC drive is the safer tool. Power efficiency is the quiet strength — YMTC's QLC drew specific praise for low power draw, and the drive peaked at 56 degrees Celsius in write testing, comfortably clear of throttling.

## Endurance, TBW & Warranty

Team Group covers the MP44Q 1TB with a 5-year limited warranty rated at 512 TBW of writes — the product page rounds the same figure to 500 TBW — and whichever limit arrives first ends the coverage. At a modest 20 GB written per day, that budget stretches past seven decades, so the warranty term is the realistic ceiling rather than flash wear. The 2 TB and 4 TB models scale to 1,024 TBW and 2,048 TBW on identical terms. The rated MTBF of 1.6 million hours is a population statistic across the fleet, not a promise for any individual drive, but it sits near the top of the consumer tier. Claims run through TeamGroup's regional service network with standard proof-of-purchase.

## Pros and Cons

**Pros:**

- Rated 7,000 MB/s reads and 5,900 MB/s writes
- 5-year warranty with 512 TBW endurance
- Low power draw confirmed in Tom's Hardware testing
- Beat TLC rivals in 3DMark and PCMark storage tests
- 3.7 mm single-sided PCB fits PS5 and thin laptops
**Cons:**

- Writes fall to roughly 100 MB/s after SLC cache exhausts
- No DRAM on the PCB — Host Memory Buffer only
- Random IOPS figures not published
- Graphene label instead of a full-size heatsink


## Verdict

The Team Group MP44Q 1TB is the right buy when headline Gen4 speed matters more than NAND pedigree: a boot drive or starter game library that loads at 7,000 MB/s for QLC money, backed by five years of coverage. Skip it for sustained heavy writing, because post-cache QLC throughput is a known weak point — the Crucial P310 or WD Black SN770 handle constant large transfers far better. The Crucial P3 Plus 1TB is the closest spec-for-spec QLC rival, at lower rated speed. As a budget pick that beat TLC competition in Tom's Hardware's productivity testing, the MP44Q 1TB has earned a permanent and easy-to-recommend spot in the value tier.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is the Team Group MP44Q 1TB compatible with the PS5?

Against Sony's published requirements — a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, 5,500 MB/s or faster reads recommended, and a module no larger than 110 x 25 x 11.25 mm including heatsink — the MP44Q 1TB fits comfortably. Its 7,000 MB/s rating clears the speed guidance with room to spare, the graphene label adds under a millimeter over the 3.7 mm PCB, and TechPowerUp marks the family PS5-compatible. The caveat is QLC's sustained-write behavior: console installs write large files continuously, so installation tail times run slower than on a TLC drive, though gameplay loading is unaffected. For a PS5 expansion, the 2 TB model makes better use of the console's storage needs.

### Is the Team Group MP44Q 1TB good for gaming?

Yes, with one caveat. Game loading depends mostly on random reads and the sequential ceiling, and the MP44Q's 7,000 MB/s rating sits at the top of PCIe 4.0, so levels and textures load as quickly as from drives costing far more. Tom's Hardware's family review even found the MP44Q outscoring TLC drives like the WD Black SN770 and Kingston NV3 in 3DMark's storage benchmark. The caveat sits on the write side: installing or moving games in very large batches can exhaust the SLC cache and drop into slow post-cache writes. For playing rather than shuffling, 1 TB comfortably holds an operating system plus a rotating game selection.

### What is the TBW endurance of the Team Group MP44Q 1TB?

The 1 TB model is rated at 512 TBW under the 5-year limited warranty, whichever limit comes first — TeamGroup's product page rounds the same figure to 500 TBW. Endurance scales with capacity across the family: 1,024 TBW at 2 TB and 2,048 TBW at 4 TB, a scaling pattern TechPowerUp corroborates. In practical terms, writing 20 GB per day would take roughly 70 years to reach 512 TBW, so consumer workloads hit the warranty term long before the flash wears out. QLC NAND does tolerate fewer program/erase cycles than TLC, but the rated TBW already accounts for that, and the figures line up with independent database entries.

### Does the Team Group MP44Q have a DRAM cache?

No. The MP44Q is a DRAM-less design built on the Maxio MAP1602 controller, which uses the NVMe Host Memory Buffer feature to keep the flash translation table in system RAM instead of onboard DRAM. A pseudo-SLC cache carved from the QLC NAND absorbs burst writes on top of that. For boot duty, gaming and general desktop work, HMB responsiveness lands close to DRAM-equipped drives, and the design keeps both cost and power draw down — part of why the drive tested as a strong efficiency pick. Sustained transfers of hundreds of gigabytes are where the missing DRAM and QLC NAND together become visible, with throughput dropping after the cache fills.

### Team Group MP44Q 1TB or Crucial P3 Plus 1TB — which budget QLC drive is better?

They are the two leading budget QLC PCIe 4.0 drives, and the choice is closer than the spec sheet suggests. The MP44Q holds the rated-speed edge at 7,000 MB/s reads against the P3 Plus's 5,000 MB/s ceiling, and the TeamGroup range extends to 8 TB where Crucial stops at 4 TB. Crucial's newer P310 counters with steadier latency, and Tom's Hardware's comparison work credits YMTC's QLC in the MP44Q as the more power-efficient flash. Both are DRAM-less HMB designs, so both share the post-cache write slowdown. Choose the MP44Q for top rated speed and laptop efficiency; choose Crucial when the shelf price or the 2230 form factor matters more.

### Why does the Team Group MP44Q slow down during large file transfers?

QLC NAND stores four bits per cell, which makes it dense and cheap but slower to write than TLC. To hide that, the controller runs free NAND blocks in a faster pseudo-SLC mode until the dynamic cache is exhausted. Tom's Hardware measured the 2 TB model writing at 5.75 GB/s for about 86 seconds — roughly a quarter of its capacity — before throughput fell to around 103 MB/s while cached data folded back into QLC. Caches scale with capacity, so the 1 TB model reaches that wall sooner. Boot duty, gaming and everyday copying never encounter the wall; continuous bulk transfers of 100 GB-plus do.

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Last updated: 2026-09-15. Source: https://ssdrive.net/team-group-mp44q-1-tb