Power-Efficient 2 GBps in an IP66 Package

Lexar has an extended historical past of serving the flash-based shopper storage market within the type of SSDs, reminiscence playing cards, and USB flash drives. After having began out as a Micron model, the corporate was acquired in 2017 by Longsys which has diversified its product lineup with common introduction of recent merchandise. Lately, the corporate introduced a lot of moveable SSDs concentrating on completely different market segments. The Lexar ARMOR 700 Transportable SSD makes its entry as the brand new flagship within the 20 Gbps PSSD section.

Regardless of its flagship positioning and rugged nature, the ARMOR 700 is fairly priced due to the usage of a local USB flash controller – the Silicon Movement SM2320. Just like the SL500, the product makes use of YMTC 3D TLC NAND (in comparison with the same old Micron or BiCS NAND that we’ve seen in SM2320-based PSSDs from different distributors). This evaluate takes an in depth have a look at the ARMOR 700, together with an evaluation of its internals and analysis of its efficiency consistency, energy consumption, and thermal profile.

Introduction and Product Impressions

Exterior bus-powered storage gadgets have been rising in storage capability in addition to entry speeds over the past decade. Developments in flash know-how (reminiscent of the appearance of 3D NAND and NVMe) and the evolution of quicker host interfaces (reminiscent of Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.x / USB4). In consequence, we’ve been seeing palm-sized flash-based storage gadgets able to delivering 3GBps+ speeds. Whereas these speeds could be achieved with Thunderbolt 4, mass-market gadgets should depend on USB. Inside the USB ecosystem, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) is quick turning into the entry stage for thumb drives and moveable SSDs. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gbps) received off to a sluggish begin, however latest computing platforms from each Intel and AMD have began to help it on the host facet. The introduction of native USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 flash controllers such because the Phison U18 and Silicon Movement SM2320 has enabled PSSD distributors to convey low-cost power-efficient 20 Gbps exterior drives to the market.

Broadly talking, there are at present 5 distinct efficiency ranges within the PSSD market:

• 2GBps+ drives with Thunderbolt 3 or USB4, utilizing NVMe SSDs
• 2GBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, utilizing NVMe SSDs or direct USB flash drive (UFD) controllers
• 1GBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2, utilizing NVMe SSDs or direct UFD controllers
• 500MBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 1 (or, Gen 2, in some circumstances), utilizing SATA SSDs
• Sub-400MBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 1, utilizing UFD controllers

Inside every of those ranges, there may be additional segmentation into entry-level, mid-range, and premium primarily based on the selection of inside parts. The Lexar ARMOR 700 we’re right this moment falls underneath the second class. Lexar touts the rugged nature (IP66 ranking) together with class-leading speeds as key promoting factors. The packaging itself is spartan – we’ve a discrete Kind-C to Kind-C cable, together with an person information. The Kind-C cable has a completely hooked up Kind-C to Kind-A adapter that may be put collectively (as proven within the image beneath) to be used with Kind-A bunch ports.

Whereas the casing is steel, it comes with a rubber sleeve to impart the mandatory water and mud resistance. In contrast to the SL500, there are 4 screws hidden underneath the coverings on the facet with the Kind-C port and the one reverse to it. Removing of the screws permits the plastic trays holding the circuit board to be pulled out. Whereas the SL500 opted to maintain the board in place underneath tabs within the tray, the ARMOR 700 makes use of 4 screws for this objective.

The parts on the board of the ARMOR 700 are similar to the one within the SL500, however the board itself is barely wider to embody the total width of the body (and in addition present area for the screw holes). The gallery beneath presents some insights into the case design and internals of the PSSD. Evaluating towards the teardown photos of the SL500, we see the primary distinction being the addition of a waterproofing rubber seal within the plastic tray, and a rubber band across the Kind-C port to forestall water and mud ingress.

Just like the SL500, the board doesn’t have any express thermal resolution – no thermal pads or conducting paths to the exterior casing from both the controller or flash packages. The SM2320 UFD controller is straight seen on the board.

The 2TB model contains 4 flash packages in a double-sided configuration. The packages are from Longsys themselves with no apparent indication of the NAND inside (aside from the 512G on the finish of the half quantity, indicating 512 GB per package deal). Thankfully, we’ve a publicly accessible NAND decoder device for Silicon Movement PSSDs, and that reveals the usage of YMTC’s 128L 3D TLC contained in the packages. Whereas the NAND used is similar because the one within the SL500 pattern reviewed earlier, it’s simply that the per-package capability is completely different.

This evaluate compares the Lexar ARMOR 700 towards a number of different 2GBps-class PSSDs we’ve reviewed earlier than. An outline of the inner capabilities of those PSSDs is given by CrystalDiskInfo. The ARMOR 700 helps full S.M.A.R.T passthrough, together with TRIM to make sure constant efficiency for the drive over its lifetime.

S.M.A.R.T Passthrough – CrystalDiskInfo
Lexar ARMOR 700 2TBEssential X10 Professional 2TBLexar SL500 1TBLaCie Rugged Mini 2TBSDP PRO-BLADE 2TBKingston XS2000 2TB	Essential X10 Professional 2TBLexar SL500 1TBLaCie Rugged Mini 2TBSDP PRO-BLADE 2TBKingston XS2000 2TBLexar ARMOR 700 2TB

The desk beneath presents a comparative view of the specs of the completely different PSSDs introduced on this evaluate.

Just like the SL500, the Lexar ARMOR 700 additionally helps 256-bit AES encryption utilizing Lexar’s customized password-protection software program (that must be put in on all machines that want entry to the contents).

Previous to trying on the benchmark numbers, energy consumption, and thermal resolution effectiveness, an outline of the testbed setup and analysis methodology is offered.

Testbed Setup and Analysis Methodology

Direct-attached storage gadgets (together with thumb drives) are evaluated utilizing the Quartz Canyon NUC (primarily, the Xeon / ECC model of the Ghost Canyon NUC) configured with 2x 16GB DDR4-2667 ECC SODIMMs and a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD – the IM2P33E8 1TB from ADATA.

Probably the most enticing side of the Quartz Canyon NUC is the presence of two PCIe slots (electrically, x16 and x4) for add-in playing cards. Within the absence of a discrete GPU – for which there isn’t a want in a DAS testbed – each slots can be found. In reality, we additionally added a spare SanDisk Excessive PRO M.2 NVMe SSD to the CPU direct-attached M.2 22110 slot within the baseboard so as to keep away from DMI bottlenecks when evaluating Thunderbolt 3 gadgets. This nonetheless permits for 2 add-in playing cards working at x8 (x16 electrical) and x4 (x4 electrical). Because the Quartz Canyon NUC does not have a local USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, Silverstone’s SST-ECU06 add-in card was put in within the x4 slot. All non-Thunderbolt gadgets are examined utilizing the Kind-C port enabled by the SST-ECU06.

The specs of the testbed are summarized within the desk beneath:

The testbed {hardware} is just one section of the analysis. Over the previous couple of years, the everyday direct-attached storage workloads for reminiscence playing cards have additionally advanced. Excessive bit-rate 4K movies at 60fps have develop into fairly frequent, and 8K movies are beginning to make an look. Recreation set up sizes have additionally grown steadily even in moveable sport consoles, due to excessive decision textures and paintings. Maintaining these in thoughts, our analysis scheme for moveable SSDs and UFDs entails a number of workloads that are described intimately within the corresponding sections.

• Artificial workloads utilizing CrystalDiskMark and ATTO
• Actual-world entry traces utilizing PCMark 10’s storage benchmark
• Customized robocopy workloads reflective of typical DAS utilization
• Sequential write stress take a look at

Within the subsequent part, we’ve an summary of the efficiency of the Lexar ARMOR 700 in these benchmarks. Previous to offering concluding remarks, we’ve some observations on the PSSD’s energy consumption numbers and thermal resolution additionally.