At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Good 20Gbps performer
• Top bang for the buck
• Five-year guarantee

Cons

• 4TB mannequin not but obtainable

Our Verdict

The Lexar SL600 deserves to be in your moveable SSD procuring record — its efficiency and pricing are aggressive and it has a singular look.

Price When Reviewed

1TB: $129.99

Best Prices Today: Lexar SL600 Blaze 20Gbps USB SSD

$119.99

Lexar’s SL600 is a worthy contender on your 20Gbps USB storage bucks. It doesn’t blow away the competitors in both value or efficiency, however it matches them — and does so with type.

What are the Lexar SL600’s options?

The Lexar SL600 is a 20Gbps USB 3.2 x 2 (Superspeed 20Gbps) exterior SSD formed like an rectangular rectangle that measures round 2.2-inches huge, by 0.42 inches thick, by 4.38 inches at its longest level and weighs in at 2.3 ounces. It’s charcoal grey with a really massive deal with on the top.

Of course, I’m speaking very massive deal with when it comes to a small exterior SSD. It might solely accommodate a small youngster’s digits in actuality, to not point out there being no want for a deal with on one thing this small. But you may wish to connect it to a lanyard. That design aspect makes extra sense whenever you see it used for the RGB lighting on the unit’s SL660 Blaze cousin.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best external drives to find out about competing costs.

No matter. I just like the look, and being uniquely formed makes the SL600 simple to identify amongst its opponents mendacity about my workplace.

Lexar warranties the SL600 for 5 years, although it’s a restricted guarantee. Said limits weren’t specified, nevertheless it’s a protected guess that they embody being dropped from a tall constructing, run over by a highway leveler, and sustaining greater than 600TBW, or terabytes written, which is the TBW par for TLC SSDs.

Lexar didn’t truly specify the kind of NAND inside, however given the upcoming 4TB model and the SL600’s efficiency writing natively (with secondary cache exhausted), it’s nearly actually TLC. As sure because the innards are NVMe. And no, I didn’t wish to crack it open to confirm.

How a lot does the Lexar SL600 value?

The Lexar SL600 will likely be obtainable in $130/1TB, and $175/2TB (MSRP) flavors with an as of but, un-priced 4TB capability within the works. That’s a tad on the excessive aspect for the 1TB mannequin, however about $10 to $20 inexpensive than the competing Crucial X10 Pro and Samsung T9 within the 2TB taste. That’s given the pricing we discovered on Amazon on the time of this writing.

How quick is the Lexar SL600?

Though not the quickest 20Gbps USB SSD we’ve examined at anyone self-discipline, the 2TB Lexar SL600 we examined was good in any respect of them — 450GB write excepted, the place it was middling at finest.

You can actually see its competitiveness with the LaCie Rugged Mini SSD, Samsung T9, OWC Express 1M2, and Crucial X10 Pro within the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential take a look at outcomes proven beneath.

Random 4K efficiency beneath CrystalDiskMark 8 was additionally superb, if not record-setting.

The SL600 additional solidified it’s place because the fourth-fastest 20Gbps SSD we’ve examined general, within the 48GB switch assessments. Note that the OWC Express 1M2 is definitely a USB4 SSD, although it was examined on the identical USB 3.2×2 bus because the others.

As talked about, the SL600 fell behind within the 450GB write. Its tempo by no means fell off, however the throughput was solely round 1.3GBps — a pair hundred MBps slower than OWC 1M2’s. That mentioned, it shaved 100 seconds off the oddly gradual Samsung T9’s time.

Below you’ll be able to see the peaks and valleys of the SL600’s write velocity as soon as it runs out of secondary cache. This was not through the 450GB write, however a subsequent write of 900GB designed to fill and stress the drive.

A be aware for Macworld readers: Somewhat confusingly, Macs assist 20Gbps USB, however provided that the SSD is USB4. USB 3.2×2 20Gbps SSDs such because the SL600 will carry out at 10Gbps utilizing the USB 3.1 gen 2 protocol on Apple computer systems.

Should you purchase the Lexar SL600?

The reply to the shopping for conundrum relies upon largely on pricing. As of this writing the SL600 was on par when it comes to efficiency, and as identified, maybe $10 cheaper than the competitors within the 2TB capability. If that’s the case, purchase it and have a few coffees on Lexar.

How we take a look at

Drive assessments presently make the most of Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch assessments make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking on 58GB of the 64GB whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which additionally comprises the working system.

Each take a look at is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower because of much less NAND for secondary caching, and different components.

The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can range with capability because of extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND obtainable for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors additionally often swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (programs being roughly equal), by all means—tell us.