INTRODUCTION

    It may not have happened many times in the past but there have been occasions when parts of the electronics market have felt rather slow and this is more or less what's been happening with SSD releases right now. Yes, we've seen some new models lately but nowhere near what we used to see in the past, on top of that add the fact that Gen5 SSDs have yet to appear in large numbers and well, I was hoping 2025 would start with the introduction of numerous models. The Play 2280 line of Gen4 PCIe M.2 NVMe SSDs was unveiled by Lexar last year and since many of you came forward asking of me to check it out today with me, I have the 4TB capacity model.

    For more than 25 years, Lexar has been trusted as a 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.

    The Lexar Play 2280 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD line is currently available in 2/4/8TB capacities, features a low-profile (10mm) heatspreader designed for use with the PS5 and is based on the DRAM-less MAP1602-F3C 12nm quad-channel (R5) NVMe 2.0 NAND flash controller by MaXio (although it's once again used as v1.4) which Lexar has paired with YMTC's 232-Layer 3D TLC NAND flash. The MAP1602 12nm quad-channel NAND controller by MaXio also 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. Finally Lexar covers the Play Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD line with a 5-year limited warranty and in terms of durability they report a TBW of 1600 for the 2TB model, 3200 for the 4TB model and 6400 for the 8TB capacity model.