EX2 Elite SSD Overview
The Team Group EX2 Elite SSD is your standard 2.5″ SATA 6 GB/s SSD. Being a standard 2.5″ SSD, the EX2 Elite SSD measures 100mm x 69.9mm x 7mm. The EX2 Elite SSD comes in three capacities, 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. For this review, we will be focused on the 512 GB variant of the EX2 Elite SSD. The 512 GB EX2 Elite SSD has a TBW, or Terabytes Written of 400 TB. The TBW is the estimated number of terabytes written to the drive over its lifetime. The MTBF, or mean time before failure of the EX2 Elite SSD is one million hours. The estimated read speed of the EX2 Elite SSD is up to 550 MB/s and the write speed is up to 520 MB/s. To validate their read and write speeds, Team Group uses Crystal Disk Mark.
The front of the EX2 Elite SSD has a brushed aluminum finish with the Team Group logo on the top left-hand corner. The EX2 Elite SSD product branding is angled from bottom left to top right across the center of the drive. The EX2 Elite SSD used the latest 3D Flash NAND, sometimes also referred to as V-Nand. 3D NAND is a type of flash and in which the memory cells are stacked vertically. 3D NAND offers better performance, lower power consumption, and a longer estimated life span when compared to traditional 2D NAND.
On the backside of the EX2 Elite SSD has a sticker with information such as the serial and model numbers, as well as the capacity. Near the top, we see the Team Group logo to the right. To the left, they make mention of the 3-year warranty of the Team Group EX2 Elite SSD. To the right of the serial number, there is a QR code that will take you to the Team Group website.
The EX2 Elite SSD uses your standard SATA data and power connectors. The EX2 Elite SSD has a total of 8 mounting holes. There are four on the bottom side of the drive, and two on either side. This allows you to mount your drive in both 2.5″ drive trays or in 3.5″ drive bays. You can also do what I do and use double-sided tape to mount your SSDs.
Next, we removed the top off of the EX2 Elite SSD. Whenever possible, we like to disassemble products to get a closer look at whatever product we are taking a look at. Unlike many other drives, the EX2 Elite SSD was very easy to disassemble. Like the Vulcan G SSD, we recently posted a review of, the EX2 Elite SSD has no screws holding the housing together. All you need is a plastic spudger or a thin flathead screwdriver to pry the top off. Then, there are four screws that hold the PCB for the EX2 Elite SSD in place.
For the EX2 Elite SSD, Team Group used its own memory ICs on the PCB. These memory modules were privately labeled for Team Group by SK Hynix. For this reason, I was unable to find a product sheet for these specific memory ICs. The PCB for the EX2 Elite SSD has a total of four memory ICs. Each of these memory ICs having a capacity of 128 GB of storage.
The EX2 Elite SSD uses the SM2258XT SATA controller from Silicon Motion. This is the same SATA controller used in the 512 GB T-Force Vulcan G SSD we recently reviewed. The SM2258XT controller is SATA 6 GB/s controller. This controller can achieve sequential read speeds of up to 560 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 520 MB/s. On the IOPS, the SM2258XT can hit up to 75k random read IOPS and 75k random write IOPS. To learn more about the SM2258XT controller, click the link to download the product sheet.