INTRODUCTION

   PCIe 5.0 Gen5 solid state drives may be currently leading the industry in terms of read & write performance but due to the fact that just a very small segment of the market already owns compatible motherboards (not to mention that temperature issues are also not entire resolved) storage media manufacturers are instead focused more in the development and production of affordable PCIe 4.0 Gen4 models (can't blame them for wanting to sell large quantities). Lexar is one such manufacturer and so today I’ll be testing their latest PCIe 4.0 Gen4 SSD, the NM790 2TB.

   For more than 25 years, Lexar has been a trusted leading global brand of memory solutions. Our award-winning lineup includes memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, solid-state drives and DRAM. With so many options, it’s easy to find the right Lexar solution to fit your needs. All Lexar product designs undergo extensive testing in the Lexar Quality Labs with more than 1,100 digital devices, to ensure performance, quality, compatibility, and reliability. Lexar products are available worldwide at major retail and e-tail stores. For more information or support, visit www.lexar.com.

   The latest NM790 line of PCIe 4.0 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs is currently available in 512GB/1/2/4TB capacities and is yet another model to feature MaXio's DRAM-less MAP1602 12nm quad-channel (R5) NAND flash controller which Lexar has this time paired with 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash by YMTC (X3 variant - Longsys branded). Once again, the MAP1602 12nm quad-channel NAND controller by MaXio packs quite a few features including advanced wear leveling algorithms, Host Memory Buffer (HMB) architecture (uses a fraction of your PC's system memory to cache mapping tables), pseudo SLC cache, bad block management strategy, hardware error-correction, L1.2 ultra-low power state and sudden power-loss protection, TRIM, NCQ, hardware support for AES256/SM4 encryption and support for TCG OPAL2.0. Last but not least Lexar covers the entire NM790 line with a 5-year limited warranty and reports a MTBF of 1.5 million hours for all variants and a TBW (terabytes written) of 500 for the 512GB model, 1000TB for the 1TB model, 1500 for the 2TB model and 3000 for the 4TB model.