Page 2 - A Closer Look, Test System
Lexar is a brand that has been through quite a number of owners over the years -- starting off as a division of Cirrus Logic, becoming independent, purchased by Micron, and now owned by Chinese manufacturer Longsys. That said, Lexar has always been a company that is all about business, and the SL100 Pro is there to help you keep that impression. The Lexar Professional SL100 Pro 500GB weighs about 70.5g without the cables and measures in at 73.4mm wide, 55mm deep, and 10.8mm thick. Its clean lines and brushed black aluminum finish are simple, sleek, and conservative. Silver aluminum perimeters mark the ends of the SSD, while Lexar's logo is boldly displayed over the front. Aluminum is lightweight and great for heat dissipation to prevent thermal throttling, and is generally quite fingerprint resistant. All in all, I found this slim and sleek solid state drive feels solid and flexes to nothing.
As it is with the front of the Lexar Professional SL100 Pro 500GB, the aluminum back has a brushed finish. A series of regulatory logos and the unit's serial number is found at the back as well. On the inscriptions, you will see this is the 500GB model and some nationalistic pride of it being a Chinese company, although it is made in Taiwan. There is also a 1TB variant of the Lexar Professional SL100 Pro.
A USB Type-C port and blue drive activity LED is on the right. The activity LED flashes when there is activity, but I would much rather have it stay on when plugged in and blink when there is activity instead to better indicate powers status. That aside, because the SL100 Pro has an NVMe solid state drive inside and uses the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, the port already provides all the power it needs; no external AC adapter is required. The SSD itself is controlled by a Marvell 88NV1160 controller, while the NVMe to USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface is provided by a JMicron JMS583 chip. One short USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable is included along with a USB Type-C to Type-A adapter. I like the fact there is one cable with an adapter so you do not need to carry two separate cables around, but the included cable is too short at 15cm in my opinion.
ENC's DataVault Lite for data encryption is pre-loaded onto the drive from the factory.
Our test configuration is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.60GHz
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 (Single fan)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5
Graphics: Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Chassis: NZXT H700i
Storage: OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB; Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe 480GB; SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB
Power: Seasonic PRIME Ultra Titanium 850W
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Compared Hardware:
- Lexar Professional SL100 Pro 500GB (Solid State Drive)
- ADATA DashDrive Elite UE700 64GB (Flash Drive)
- Crucial X8 1TB (Solid State Drive)
- Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 64GB (Flash Drive)
- Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G3 32GB (Flash Drive)
- Kingston HyperX Fury 64GB (Flash Drive)
- LaCie Mobile SSD 500GB (Solid State Drive)
- LaCie Rugged SSD 1TB (Solid State Drive)
- Patriot Supersonic Magnum 64GB (Flash Drive)
- Patriot Supersonic Magnum 2 256GB (Flash Drive)
- Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 256GB (Flash Drive)
- SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB (Flash Drive)
- SanDisk Ultra Fit 256GB (Flash Drive)
- Silicon Power Blaze B05 64GB (Flash Drive)
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 6.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
8. Conclusion
