Teamgroup T-Force Vulcan Z SLC Cache 3D NAND TLC SATA III SSDs: 480GB $28, 240GB

Like so many other cheap SSDs, you don't know what you're actually going to get until you receive the drive. It appears there's at least two significantly different variants of the Vulcan Z (without even getting into the QLC version). One is based on the SMI 2259XT controller and the other uses the Phison S11. Both are low end DRAM-less SATA controllers. I've had decent luck with Phison S11 based drives but will note they tend to have a very small static pSLC cache. Some of the SMI 2259XT based drives have a massive dynamic pSLC cache, which utilizes the entirety of the free space. They can also be "lazy" about flushing the pSLC to TLC/QLC, sometimes not even starting until it's roughly 4/5 full. This has its pros and cons.

Personally, I've observed several drives using SMI controllers suffer immense (>99%) performance degradation on data stored in native NAND (TLC/QLC). One of the drives I've seen affected was a 2TB Team Group Vulcan Z. I just thought I'd toss out this warning, since this controller is often (but not always) used in the Vulcan Z. For anyone wondering what they got, without having to disassemble the drive, you can potentially tell by the firmware version.

FW version W0... - Likely SMI 2259XT

FW version SBFM... - Likely Phison S11

Affected drives may not manifest the issue until they've ever been filled at least 25% full (for TLC) or 20% (for QLC) AND some time has passed. The issue often does not show up in benchmark programs but can be visible in Task Manager. It can also result in a blatantly obvious performance reduction.

The 480GB is only $10 more. Kid's computer running the 1TB model for a couple of years now. Works great.

Haha, no, I've used REAL no name brands and TeamGroup has many, many reviews of their various SSDs, SD cards, etc, so just because they aren't an old-school name brand, I would say that they are well established.