Lexar SL100 Pro Portable SSD 500 GB review - Introduction

Lexar SL100 Pro Portable SSD 500 GB
950 MB/s over a portable USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD

We review Lexar SL100 Pro Portable SSD 500 GB. This portable storage USB based SSD is able to hit 950 MB/sec over USB 3.2 Gen2 for reads and 900 MB/sec on write performance. Yes, Lexar is back, originally subsidiary to Micron but then sold and independent. This SSD is among the faster portable storage units released, which is a bit (and a good) trend these days. Inside really, it's an M2 unit as Lexar makes use of a Marvel NV1160 NVMe SSD controller tied towards 64-layer 3D TLC NAND chips from Micron. Going from M2 towards USB means a data-bridge is needed, a JMicron JMS583 USB-to-PCIe bridge is responsible for that. Lexar's SL100 Pro can be spotted in three revisions, 250 GB ($69), 500 GB ($99), and 1 TB ($169). 

Form factor	M.2 2260
Data medium	500GB SSD (PCIe 3.0 x2, NVMe)
Connection internal	1x M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x2, NVMe)
Connection external	1x USB-C 3.1
Dimensions	73.4x55x10.8mm
Weight	70.5g
Colour	grey
Special features	aluminum housing, incl. USB cable (USB-A)
Warranty	three years

We'll test the 500 GB model. The standard connection is USB-C, the bundle includes a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C to Type-C (10Gbps) cables inside the box.