Taiwan-based TeamGroup has launched the QX, a consumer-grade 15.36TB SATA SSD using QLC flash. We are talking rich consumers here – the list price is a whopping $3,990.
The 2.5-inch format drive sustains 2,560 TB written; that’s 167 full drive writes over its three-year warranted life. It has a fast SLC cache and a DRAM cache buffer. The sequential read and write bandwidth is up to 560/480 MB/sec.
TeamGroup’s pricing is… idiosyncratic. The QX carries a hefty price premium over both disk drives and comparable SSDs. For example, A 16TB Seagate IronWolf NAS disk drive costs $509.99 on Amazon. The Team Group QX SSD costs almost eight times more.
Micron’s business-class 9300 Pro 15.36TB SSD costs $2,787 on Amazon. The 9300 Pro’s sequential read write bandwidth is 3,350/2,400 MB/sec. NVMe drive and uses TLC flash -in contrast with QX’s slower SATA interface, and slower QLC flash.
Micron also retails the 5210 QLC SSD with a SATA interface and 7.68TB maximum capacity. This is slower than the QX at 540/360 MB/s sequential read write bandwidth. Amazon prices it at $875.00. Buy two for $1,750 and you still save $2,140 over the QX.
Nimbus Data recently launched its 64TB ExaDrive NL SSD using QLC flash and priced at $10,900. A 16TB version costs $2,900, a thousand bucks less than Team Group’s QX.
TEamGroup told us: “QX is 7mm 2.5-inch SATA 3 interface and the only consumer market 15.3TB SSD so we decided to release with $3,990 as MSRP.”
Let’s run up a $/TB comparison:
- TeamGroup QLC 15.3TB QX – $260.78
- Micron TLC 15.36TB 9300 Pro – $181.45
- Micron QLC 7.68TB 5210 – $113.93
- Nimbus QLC 16TB ExaDrive NL – $181.25
QLC prices vary between $113.93 through $181.25 to $260.78; there’s no commonality here at all.
