Teamgroup T-Create P31 review: A fast, rugged SSD built for video creators | usagoldmines.com

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Secure mounting on video gear
• Excellent 10Gbps performance
• Sustains long writes exceptionally well
• IP67-rated

Cons

• Not fast enough for raw 8K and up

Our Verdict

The T-Create P31 CinemaPr is specialized 10Gbps storage with mount points and hardware for attaching to video gear. It’s also rugged and performs very well for its class.

Price When Reviewed

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Price When Reviewed

$78/1TB, $212/2TB, and $417/4TB

Best Prices Today: Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr SSD

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$134.99

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Designed for videographers and content creators, the Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr stands out thanks to its mount points and attachment hardware, making it one of the more unique USB SSDs we’ve tested. It’s a rugged (IP67), 10Gbps model that also performs at the top of its class.

Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr: Features

The P31 is a tough, weatherized IP67-rated (dust-proof, submersible — despite an uncapped Type-C port) 10Gbps USB SSD constructed from anodized aluminum. It measures about 3.6 inches long by 2 inches wide by 0.45 inches thick and weighs 3.4 ounces. It has a reassuring heft to it.

By far the most unique feature of the P31 is its four sets of three 1/4-inch screw holes on both sides, the back and top of the lanyard opening. These allow you to mount the drive on your cage or other video gear in any orientation you choose.

Teamgroup provides two heavy-duty quick-release camera mounting screws and a male-to-male adapter with locking disc for this purpose (see the lead photo).

Teamgroup didn’t provide much info on the P31’s internals, so we’re not sure which controller is being used. Random performance might indicate some DRAM or it might not.

The drive is warrantied for five years (normal for external SSDs is three), but there’s no TBW (TeraBytes that may be written before read-only) rating that we could find. Given the performance, we’d expect at least 600TBW, though video workloads could push that higher.

As it is, without a TBW rating, expect five years of moderately heavy use. Possibly more, since SSDs are often conservatively rated due to liability concerns.

Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr: Price

Given the rugged, highly specialized design, the P31 is an exceptional value in the 1TB capacity: $78. Though you’ll likely want more capacity if you’re working with video.

In that case, $212 for the 2TB and $417 for the 4TB are closer to what we’d expect. Not as much of a bargain as the 1TB is, but still reasonable given the IP67 rating and performance.

Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr: Speed

Unlike the recently reviewed Teamgroup PD20, the P31 largely held its own against the 10Gbps competition.

Though the Corsair EX300U ruled in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential tests, the P31’s performance here was still nothing to scoff at.

The P31’s random performance under CrystalDiskMark 8 was excellent — the best of the three compared drives.

It was a see-saw battle between the P31 and the Corsair EX300U in our 48GB transfer tests. Both did quite well overall.

The P31 really came into its own during the 450GB write, shaving quite a few seconds off even the EX300U’s time.

On subsequent, consecutive long copies (900GB, then 450GB), the P31 did start waffling its speed between 250MBps and 900MBps at the end of the writes. We can live with that.

There’s nothing lacking the P31’s performance other than perhaps it not being USB4. But you would, of course, pay more for that and it’s not necessary for most portable 4K video equipment. If you’re capturing raw 8K or up, you need something a lot faster and vaster.

Teamgroup T-Create P31 CinemaPr: Conclusion

The P31’s easy, secure, and versatile attachment to video equipment makes it a major boon for videographers and creators. Its ruggedness and reliable performance only add to the appeal. Good job, Teamgroup.

How we test

Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Crucial 64GB DDR5 5600MHz modules (128GB of memory total).

Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated into the motherboard and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. Internal PCIe 5.0 SSDs involved in testing are mounted in an Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 adapter card siting in a PCIe 5.0 slot.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8.04 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks (to keep article length down, we report only the former) to find the storage device’s potential performance. Then we run a series of 48GB transfer and 450GB write tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop to show what users will see during routine copy operations, as well as the far faster FastCopy run as administrator to show what’s possible.

A 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 is used as the second drive in our transfer tests. Formerly the 48GB tests were done with a RAM disk serving that purpose.

Each test is performed on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This issue has abated somewhat with the current crop of SSDs utilizing more mature controllers and far faster, late-generation NAND.

Note that our testing MO evolves and these results may not match those from previous articles. Only comparisons inside the article are 100% valid as those results are gathered using the current hardware and MO.