Team Group MP33 2TB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 2280

The Team Group MP33 is a 2TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD that delivers solid everyday performance at a budget price. It's a great upgrade for older desktops and laptops, with a 5-year warranty and TLC NAND. But it's DRAM-less and slower than modern Gen4 drives, so it's not the right pick for new high-end builds.

The MP33's sequential speeds of 1,800 MB/s read and 1,500 MB/s write put it right around the middle of the pack for PCIe 3.0 drives. In our database, its speed lands at the 46th percentile, which is about average for this generation. Random performance is 220K read IOPS and 200K write IOPS, which is solid for a DRAM-less drive but nothing to write home about. In practice, Windows boots quickly, games load noticeably faster than from a hard drive, and file transfers are snappy until the SLC cache fills up.

The DRAM-less design is the main performance caveat. Without a DRAM buffer, the drive relies on SLC caching and host memory buffer (HMB) to keep things moving. For typical consumer workloads like gaming, web browsing, and office apps, you won't feel the difference. But if you're doing large sustained writes, like copying hundreds of gigabytes of video footage, the cache will fill and speeds will drop. The endurance rating of 480 TBW is below average for a 2TB drive, which is worth keeping in mind if you plan to hammer it with writes.

Stacked against the Samsung 990 PRO, Crucial T500, and WD_BLACK SN7100, the MP33 is in a completely different league. Those are PCIe 4.0 drives with read speeds in the 7,000 MB/s range, and they cost more per gigabyte. The MP33's 1,800 MB/s read speed is roughly a quarter of what those drives offer. But here's the thing: if your motherboard only has PCIe 3.0 slots, you won't see those Gen4 speeds anyway. The MP33 makes more sense as a comparison to other budget PCIe 3.0 drives, where it holds its own on price and warranty.

The Kingston FURY Renegade G5 and Lexar NM1090 PRO are also PCIe 4.0 drives that outclass the MP33 on paper. But they're aimed at enthusiasts who need maximum throughput for content creation or heavy workstation use. For a secondary game library drive or a boot drive in an older laptop, the MP33's real competition is other cheap TLC drives, and it does fine there. Just don't expect it to keep up with a 990 PRO in any benchmark.

Pricing on the MP33 is all over the place depending on where you shop. In the US, it runs between $250 and $271 across three listings, which is actually on the expensive side for a PCIe 3.0 drive in 2025. But in Canada, the spread is wild: CAD 150 to CAD 350 across two vendors. If you're in Canada, the CAD 150 listing is a genuinely good deal for 2TB of NVMe storage, while the CAD 350 listing is a rip-off. Shop around before you buy. At the low end, this drive makes sense for anyone upgrading an older system. At the high end, you're better off spending a bit more on a PCIe 4.0 drive like the Crucial T500 or WD_BLACK SN7100.

The Team Group MP33 is a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD that sits firmly in the budget PCIe 3.0 category. It's the kind of drive you grab when you need a lot of storage without spending a fortune, and it's aimed at desktops and laptops that don't have PCIe 4.0 slots anyway. With read speeds up to 1,800 MB/s and write speeds up to 1,500 MB/s, it won't set any records, but it's a massive leap over any SATA SSD or spinning hard drive.

People searching for a cheap 2TB NVMe drive usually want to know two things: is it reliable, and will it feel fast in everyday use? The MP33 uses TLC NAND and a DRAM-less design with SLC caching to keep costs down. That means it's not the best choice for sustained heavy writes, but for booting Windows, loading games, and general multitasking, it handles itself fine. The 5-year warranty and 480 TBW endurance rating are decent for this price bracket.

One thing to note: this drive has been around for a while, and Team Group has quietly swapped controllers on some units. Early versions used a Phison E12 with DRAM, but newer ones are DRAM-less. That's a real difference if you're pushing the drive hard, though most buyers won't notice in day-to-day use.

Skip the MP33 if you're building a new system with PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 support. You'd be paying for last-gen speeds when drives like the Crucial T500 or WD_BLACK SN7100 offer 4x the throughput for not much more money. Content creators and anyone doing sustained large file transfers should also look elsewhere, since the DRAM-less design and 480 TBW endurance will bottleneck heavy write workloads. And if you're in the US, the $250+ price tag is hard to justify when faster Gen4 drives are available in the same range.

Should you buy the Team Group MP33? If you have an older PCIe 3.0 system and you want 2TB of fast storage without spending a lot, yes, especially if you can find it at the lower end of its price range. It's a solid budget drive with a good warranty and TLC NAND, and it'll make an old laptop or desktop feel new again. The 5-year warranty is a nice safety net for a brand some people haven't heard of.

But if you're building a new system with PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 support, skip it. You'd be leaving a lot of performance on the table, and the MP33's price isn't low enough in the US to justify that trade-off. The DRAM-less design and middling endurance also make it a poor fit for heavy write workloads. For most people, this is a budget upgrade drive, not a primary drive for a new high-end build.