INTRODUCTION

    Testing portable media since 2008 means that I feel both good and bad about the current state of the consumer industry. Good because storage capacities and speeds have increased exponentially since back then and bad because at the same time manufacturers aren't increasing capacities fast enough, at least not as fast as I was expecting. With the enterprise market enjoying even 100TB SSDs for example it's strange to see that the consumer market has been pretty much stuck at 8TB for the past 5 years or so (excluding a handful of drives with two 8TB SSDs in RAID). On top of that it's really hard to even find portable SSDs that feature such capacities and well, by now I was expecting at least 16-20TB SSDs (both internal and portable) to have made their appearance in the consumer market. That being said at least we still have performance to be happy about and the latest ARMOR 700 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSD by Lexar is among the fastest models one can buy today.

    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 ARMOR 700 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSD by Lexar is currently available in 1/2/4TB capacities, two colors (black and navy blue), sports an IP66 certified enclosure (water and dust resistant) and supports Apple Pro Res recording (4K @ 60fps). Under the rubber sleeve covering its aluminum enclosure Lexar has placed the same quad-channel (32 CEs) SM2320G NAND flash controller by Silicon Motion we've seen with quite a few models in the past (including some also by Lexar). The SM2320G NAND controller fully supports Silicon Motion's latest NANDXtend ECC end-to-end data path protection together with real time AES 256-bit encryption for full compliance with the Trusted Computing Group (TCG Opal 2.0 specification). As for NAND flash just like other manufacturers Lexar has also gone with 128-layer 3D TLC NAND, this time however by YMTC. Finally, Lexar bundles their DataShield password protection software and covers the entire ARMOR 700 line with a very generous 5-year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

A large product picture is located at the front of the box right next to the drive capacity and performance numbers.

The system requirements and bundle contents are printed on the left side.

Two pictures showcasing the size of the ARMOR 700 are placed on the right side.

Several certifications are placed at the rear of the box just over Lexar contact information.

Along with the ARMOR 700 inside the box Lexar has placed a USB-C to USB-C/A cable and the warranty information and quick start guide paper.

THE ARMOR 700 2TB

The ARMOR 700 housing weighs just 80g and measures 86.2mm in length, 54.4mm in width and 13.2mm in height/thickness.

Both the serial number and capacity are printed at the front of the drive whereas at the rear we find the USB-C port.

Turning the drive over we see the country of origin just over several certifications.

Opening the enclosure did take a bit of time but it wasn't hard.

On one side of the PCB, we find two 128-layer 3D TLC NAND modules by YMTC.

The SM2320G NAND flash controller along with two 128-layer 3D TLC NAND modules by YMTC.

Also worth pointing out is that the bundled DataShield password encryption software should be more than sufficient for most people.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

    Solid state drives are basically the same as USB flash drives and so we’re using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read & write performance numbers in our charts*. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read / Write speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Titanium 2020 (Read / Write speeds), AIDA64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear / Random Read & Write speeds), Crystal Disk Mark 6.0.2 (2GB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO 4.00.0F2 (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

    All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a CORSAIR MP510 960GB NVME SSD* with all updates installed up to the day we started tests.

* Since August 2019 for portable SSD tests I started using the X299 test rig.
** For USB 3.2 Gen2x2 portable SSDs I’ll be using the Z590 DARK based test rig.
*** As of September 2024 for USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Portable SSDs I’ll be moving to the AMD Ryzen 7900X & ASRock X670E Taichi test rig.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

CONCLUSION

    The ARMOR 700 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSD by Lexar is as expected fast, very fast. It might be quite as fast as for example the only TB3 portable SSD in my charts, but it maxes out the 2x2 port and well, that’s great. It’s also very good to have a portable SSD with an IP66 certified enclosure and well, kudos to Lexar for that. Finally, the DataShield password protection software may not be unique out in the market but it’s good to remember that not every storage media manufacturer bundles such software.

    As I type these lines the Lexar ARMOR 700 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSD retails for USD194.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 270.92Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) so at least on the other side of the Atlantic things are good. So, aside the somewhat inflated price tag inside the EU everything else about the ARMOR 700 2TB from performance to size, enclosure quality, warranty and even bundled software checks out and for that it clearly deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Great Performance (Up To 2000MB/s)
- IP66 Certified Enclosure
- Size
- DataShield Software (Password Protection)
- 5 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (USA)

CONS

- Price (EU)