Teamgroup Expert P34F review: A geo-locatable portable SSD
At a glance
Expert rating
Benefits
- Good performance at 10 Gbps, especially with very large files
- Can be geolocated using Apple’s “Find My”
- Compact and robust
Disadvantages
- Test unit geolocation only worked intermittently
- Requires one CR2032 battery (included)
Our Verdict
If you need an SSD that you can find in the event of a mysterious disappearance, the Expert P34F is a good solution – and onlyas far as I know, the choice. It is also particularly efficient at 10 Gbit/s with very long writes. However, our test unit’s geolocation only worked intermittently.
Price when reviewed
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Best prices today: Teamgroup Expert P34F SSD 10 Gbit/s geolocated
If you regularly manage storage devices, or tend to place items in strange places, or just want something innocuous in your laptop or camera bag that can be geotagged, then you should check out Teamgroup’s Expert P34F with its Apple Find My compatible geotagging.
The fact that it performs at 10Gbps, especially with large files, is another plus. My enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that our test unit’s geolocation didn’t work reliably.
Read on to learn more, then check out our roundup of the best external drives for comparison.
What are the features of the Teamgroup Expert P34F?
The Expert P34F is a 10Gbps USB SSD with a Type-C connector on one end and a sizable lanyard point on the other. It is colored in a lovely mix of pewter and black with gold lettering.
The drive, which comes with a three-year warranty, measures approximately 3.36 inches long, 1.25 inches wide, 0.7 inches thick, and weighs approximately 2.5 ounces with the battery installed. Slender, but also more likely to be easily lost.
Of course, this risk of being misplaced is countered by Apple’s Find My feature, which lets you ask the P34F to play a sound so you can locate it.
To power geolocation, the P34F is equipped with a CR2032 battery inserted into a battery compartment on the back of the device. Congratulations on its replacement, but alas the contact fit is rather loose, which could explain why geotagging was spotty.
How well does Teamgroup Expert P34F tracking work?
When I was able to get the unit working, the tracking worked as expected and the P34F appeared in the iOS/macOS Find My apps at my location. Soft. Alas, this was only after much fiddling with the circular battery cover and rotating it so that it wasn’t quite in the fully locked position. Even then, it only appeared for a moment.
Noticing that the battery was not snug, I inserted a small piece of paper into the side of the compartment to force the CR2032 battery into contact with the negative terminal. This fixed the problem, but only for a while, and the Expert P34F never connected reliably. I have also tried several other CR2032 batteries.
When I was able to get the unit working, the tracking worked as expected…
The P34F emits a distinctive cheerful multi-beep when the battery is properly installed, and a single beep when it comes loose. I heard both a lot while trying to troubleshoot the device.
I contacted the company, but the issue was never resolved. Hopefully this is an isolated case in our unit, but it may not be. If you take a chance, test it out before abandoning the return shipping hardware.
How much does the Teamgroup Expert P34F cost?
SSD prices have increased in recent months and so the Expert P34F is a bit expensive at $116 in its 512GB capacity, and $196 in the 1TB. You of course pay extra for geolocation. A 2 TB version is in preparation, but it was neither available nor priced at the time of writing. I guess it will be close to $270. Yes, I can do simple calculations.
How fast is the Teamgroup Expert P34F?
While not as fast as the Seagate Ultra Compact SSD overall, the 1TB Expert P34F we tested edged out its rival (if a non-geo-tagged SSD could be considered a rival) by a significant margin in our 450GB of write time. For large files, it’s one of the best 10Gbps SSDs we’ve tested.
The P34F was right up there with the Seagate Ultra Compact SSD in CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential throughput tests.
The Expert P34F wasn’t as fast with 4K files under CrystalDiskMark 8 as it was with larger files, but it still wasn’t bad. This is where the Seagate drive is particularly fast for a 10Gbps SSD.
The P34F’s 48GB transfer times were good, if a little spotty.
Although the Expert P34F’s write speed with our 450GB file wasn’t particularly impressive, it was incredibly consistent – unlike the Adata SC735 which slowed down considerably along the way.
Below you can see how stable the Expert P34F’s write speed was. Keep in mind that this is a 1TB unit, and cheaper 1TB SSDs typically slow down a bit before this test finishes.
Overall, the Expert P34F performs well and is exceptional for long, sustained writes.
Should you buy the Teamgroup Expert P34F?
As a storage device, the Expert P34F works well and certainly serves that purpose. Adding not-so-obvious geolocation to your laptop bag has some value – if it works reliably. So, my purchase recommendation is qualified: test your device immediately.
I’m guessing Teamgroup won’t ship a ton of defective products, but check back here for the latest news and to see if it earned another star that a fully functioning unit would have warranted.
How we test
Drive testing is currently using Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running on a Samsung 990 Pro PCIe 4.0 in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 powered by two Kingston Fury 32 GB DDR5 4800 MHz modules (64 GB of memory in total). USB 20Gbps and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The SSDs involved in the test are mounted in a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card.
We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks (to reduce article length, we only report one) to find the potential performance of the storage device, then a series of 48GB and 450GB transfer tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop to show what you’ll see on Windows, as well as the much faster Xcopy to show what’s possible.
The 48GB and 450GB write tests are written to/from a dual 25GB/s SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Highpoint 7604A. Previously, 48 GB tests were performed with a RAM disk.
Each test is performed on a newly formatted drive in NTFS and TRIM so that the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a disk fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This may be less important with the current generation of SSDs featuring much faster latest generation NAND.
Warning: The performance figures shown apply only to the drive shipped to us and the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary depending on capacity due to more or fewer chips for instant reads/writes and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Suppliers also occasionally exchange components. If you ever notice a significant gap between the performance you’re getting and what you’re gettinge report, please let us know.
