Teamforce makes a ton of great computing products, and its SSDs are quite popular. While the company is known for its internal SSDs and RAM sticks for PCs, it has a few external SSDs, which are excellent and provide great value for money.
One of its popular offerings is the T-Force M200 SSD, a well-built compact external SSD that supports USB 3.2 Gen2x2. I tested the 2TB version for a month, and here’s how it performed.
Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD: Price and Availability
The T-Force M200 SSD is available worldwide in capacities ranging from 250GB to 8TB, although the smallest capacity version isn’t widely available. The M200 costs $69.99 for the 500GB version, $99.99 for the 1TB version, $199.99 for the 2TB version, $399.99 for 4TB, and $799.99 for 8TB. It’s available at Amazon and Newegg, among other major retailers.
The M200 is a couple of years old, which means that it’s nearly almost always on sale at a discount. The 2TB version we tested is available for as little as $104, making it an excellent value. The 8TB capacity variant is the only one that doesn’t seem to be on discount at the moment. The price goes even lower during shopping holidays, making this one of the more affordable external SSDs you can get for your Mac.
Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD: Specs and Features
The T-Force M200 is a part of the modern crop of SSDs. You get a military-inspired design with a long lanyard hole, and Teamgroup says the M200 sniper rifle inspires the design. There’s not much you can do to port over a sniper rifle’s design to an external SSD, but I see the vision. The ridged design looks great, and it’s functional in terms of grip as well as cooling. You also get a 2-meter drop resistance, but there's no mention of an IP rating.
In terms of the hardware, you’re getting support for the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 interface via USB-C. This means there isn’t Thunderbolt support, but it works just fine with Macs and has good enough speeds to a point where you won’t feel like you’re missing out — especially at this price point. What that means is there isn’t Thunderbolt support here. Teamforce promises speeds of up to 2000MB/s read and write because of the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 interface.
Although not as portable as the Crucial X9 Pro or Crucial X10 Pro that I've tested, the M200 is still quite portable. It has a smaller footprint than an iPhone 13 Mini, making for an easily pocketable drive. You get five years of warranty.
Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD: Performance
Performance evaluation for this drive was a bit tricky. It’s a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 drive, and that interface supports up to 20Gbps of speeds. However, due to some technical limitations, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 isn’t supported on Apple Silicon devices. Despite Macs getting USB4 ports, the standards itself are designed as such that the faster USB4 port cannot support USB 3.2 Gen2x2. As such, this drive will run on the slower 10Gbps USB 3.2 on a Mac.
You get slower speeds as a result, and our speed tests reflected that. I did get better peak speeds when I tested this drive on a Windows system with a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 port.
I’ve included the performance figures as tested on a M3 Pro MacBook Pro. The slower speeds still are pretty fast. The overall speed tests we ran showed the M200 to be a very quick drive. The drive also supports macOS’ Time Machine feature if you format it with the APFS format using Disk Utility.
What that means is that despite the bottleneck on Macs, the drive is still one of the best value-for-money SSDs you can get today to use with a Mac.
The thermal performance of the drive is also quite impressive, and I didn’t find the drive getting warm to the touch even during heavier file copy workloads I put it through. Overall, this drive will not disappoint on the performance front, and is an incredible value for money today.
Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD: Competition
There are a few drives that compete with the T-Force M200. The top alternative is the Crucial X9 Pro, which offers decent speeds, and is more portable. However, it costs quite a bit more than the M200. The ADATA SE880 is another great option with similar performance figures but costs a bit more. The Crucial X8 is also a great alternative, with a current price closer to the M200.
Should You Buy The Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD?
You should buy this if...
- You want a portable drive
- You want performance on a budget
- You want a stylish design
You shouldn't buy this if...
- You need the fastest speeds
- You have a high budget
Teamgroup T-Force M200 SSD: Verdict
The Teamgroup T-Force M200 is the best budget external SSD you can get right now. At launch, it wasn’t a great value, but as the prices have dropped, the drive has become a great value-for-money SSD option. You get a nice design, and the drive is very portable. The reduced speeds on Macs are a bit disappointing, but it’s hard to fault Teamgroup for it since it’s largely a problem with USB standards in general. Regardless of that, the M200 is the external SSD to get on a budget.
