Lexar NM600 NVMe M.2. SSD (480GB) review - Specifications & Features

Name: Lexar NM600 NVMe M.2. SSD (480GB) review
Brand: Lexar NM600

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/12/2019 10:45 AM [

] 11 comment(s)

Specifications & Features

Lexar is now offering two versions of the more NM600 (240GB, 480GB). For endurance, our tested 480GBmodel has been rated at 240 TBW. The NM600 series will be fitted with TLC written 3D NAND flash memory (vertically stacked). This allows the company to offer the proper storage volumes.

So instead of using Planar NAND, 3D NAND is used. 3D TLC NAND is physical vertical NAND cell stacking not to be confused with chip stacking in a multi-chip package. In 3D NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of fab equipment. The NAND ICs are driven by an Silicon motion 2263XT controller, there is No DRAM cache here to be found, but some provisioning, with the help of a smaller SLC written cache.

Controller with Host Memory Buffer

The NVMe SSD Series utilizes a cost-effective, high-performance PCIe-to NAND controller to manage a full PCIe Gen 3(8Gb/s) x 4 bandwidth with the host while managing multiple NAND flash memory devices on 4 channels. The controller is a Silicon Motion (SM2263XT). Any SSD with the new SM2263XT is a DRAM-less drive, and that helps to reduce the cost for SSDs in 2018. Combined with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update 2018 and later you are compatible with Host Memory Buffer technology, your system memory substitutes the memory of the drive to cache the map table. Thus not using DRAM SSD cached equals a nice price reduction. A 480 GB SSD would utilize ~500 MB of your system memory and if a 1 TB SSD would be available, you'd be looking at 1GB of Host Memory Buffer (which also is the maximum the controller can utilize).

Pricing

I just pulled some numbers from some online e-tailers like Newegg, the MSRP of the 480GB version is set at 159 USD, however Newegg (while writing this article) has them listed at $69.99 USD (!), so that's almost 15 cents per GB, a really good deal if you ask me.

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