By: Jonah Chow
September 1, 2023
Recently at work, I have been able to do more software programming-related tasks, which I have found quite interesting. I did do programming tasks in my early years at the company, but it felt very different as the program was more foreign to me at that time. While I learned a lot from my early encounter with company-specific code, it is very rewarding to be back at it with more experience and understanding of general projects. It is also a lot smoother this time around to be working with company code, as the seniors worked hard to structure it in a way that makes it easy for juniors like me to figure out how to approach it. I still ask a lot of questions to fully understand the process, but I feel I am understanding the content much better this time around and able to do tasks more independently, which makes my line of work very enjoyable. Speaking of returning to something old, I find myself with another Lexar SSD more than two years after my first Lexar SSD with the NQ100 480GB. The difference is that this one is an NVMe drive, which will give much better performance. With that said, how does this drive compare to other drives we have tested in the past? Let us read on to find out!
Today's review unit of the Lexar NM710 1TB arrived from the company’s public relations firm in Brea, California. This relatively small shipping box arrived at our APH Networks offices in Calgary, Alberta, and traveled with DHL Express. The shipping package arrived in reasonable condition, as shown in our photo above.
The retail box is conservative in size and look, using a simple blue and white color scheme. The Lexar NM170 1TB is front and center with the storage capacity labeled on a sticker at the bottom. The Lexar label is on the top left with the NM170 label towards the right and the “M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe SSD” description just below. Lexar also put the rated read speed of 5000 MB/s at the bottom left. Additional information is listed on the sides and back of the retail box.
Before we continue on, here are the specifications per the manufacturer's website:
Capacities: 500GB/1TB/2TB
Form Factor: M.2 2280
Interface: PCIe Gen4x4
Speed: 500GB—Sequential read up to 5000MB/s, sequential write up to 2600MB/s¹, 1TB—Sequential read up to 5000MB/s, sequential write up to 4500MB/s¹, 2TB—Sequential read up to 4850MB/s, sequential write up to 4500MB/s¹
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C (32°F to 158°F)
Storage Temperature: -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F)
Dimensions (L x W x H): 80 x 22 x 2.45 mm (3.15” x 0.87” x 0.10”)
Weight: 7g (0.015lbs)
Warranty: Five-year limited warranty
Shock-resistant: 1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half Sine Wave2
Vibration-resistant: 10~2000Hz, 1.5mm, 20G, 1 Oct/min, 30min/axis(X,Y,Z)2
TBW: 500GB: 300TBW, 1TB: 600TBW, 2TB: 1200TBW
MTBF: 1,500,000 Hours
Opening the retail box reveals the Lexar NM170 1TB placed inside a clear plastic shell. The drive arrived in perfect condition, so the packaging did the job. The size of the box is quite small, wasting no space. A single quick installation and warranty guide is included. Nothing else is included with the retail packaging, but this is to be expected with storage devices. The NM170 1TB comes with a 5-year warranty.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
8. Benchmark: PCMark 10
9. Benchmark: 3DMark
10. Conclusion
