Lexar NS200 480GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Lexar NS200 480GB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. IOMETER8. Throughput9. PCMark 8 - Storage Consistency10. PCMark 8 - Individual Test Suites11. PCMark 8 Storage Test - Individual Test Suites12. Performance Stability13. Real Life File Testing14. Closing Thoughts15. View All Pages

Most people will know Lexar because of their camera flash card business, but that's part of the problem they have to overcome when it comes to shifting their SSD range. Of course the other problem is being seen as the new boys on the block when everyone is so familiar with the opposition; Samsung, Crucial, WD, Kingston to name but four, so attempting to gain any market share is going to be an uphill battle.

The current NS200 range is made of just three capacities, 240GB, 480GB and the flagship 960GB drive. The drives use a combination of a Silicon Motion SM2258 4-channel controller and Micron 64-layer 3D TLC NAND, together with a DDR3-2133 DRAM IC looking after caching duties.

The official Sequential read/write figures for all three drives is 550MB/s and 510MB/s respectively, while the 4K random figures for the range are up to 95,000 IOPS for reads and up to 90,000 IOPS for writes for both the 240GB and 480GB drives. The 960GB drive is slower, however, at up to 88,000 IOPS for reads and up to 80,000 IOPS for writes.

When tested with the ATTO benchmark, we actually got marginally better read/write figures than the official numbers from our review drive – with reads at 564MB/s and writes at 526MB/s. When it came to tested 4K random performance, we could match the official number for reads with the review drive producing 95,343 IOPS. However, random write performance was a little slower than the maximum official IOPS number at 85,901 IOPS.

Lexar's SSD management utility goes by the name SSD Dash. It's a pretty basic package compared to some of the competitors' software but it does offer all the basic information you might need to keep an eye on your drive in an easy to understand way. It also supports Secure Erase.

Overall, Lexar’s 480GB NS200 is a decent enough drive and although Lexar is a well-known name in the flash storage market, that isn't the case for the company's SSDs. The problem is that the market the NS200 is aimed at is ferociously competitive with some long-term favourites already at very compelling prices dominating the segment, so it's going to tough for Lexar to grab market share, although its pricing gives it a chance.

We found the 480GB version of the NS200 on Amazon UK for £58.37 (inc VAT) HERE

Pros

• Overall performance.
• Price.

Cons

• SSD Dash software is basic.

KitGuru says: Lexar's NS200 drive performs well enough but it's going to be tricky when the company is going up against more well-known market leaders.

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