Lexar Play Pro 1TB microSDXC Express Memory Card Review – Good Things Come in Small Packages

TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

SSD testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise storage media. Our newest system is comprised of the latest Intel Ultra 9 CPU set into the ASUS Z890 ProArt Creator motherboard with 64GB of Corsair Platinum Dominator DDR5-6400 memory.  For Creators, this motherboard contains two Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps), a Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps) and a USB 3.2 2×2 (20Gbps) Type-C port, something no other has done to date.

For this Test Bench, there are just a few standard performance tweaks and our new ProArt Z890 Test Bench is set at 5.4GHz while the 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5-6400 memory settled in at 6600MHz.

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The components of this Test Bench are detailed below. All hardware is linked for purchase and product sales may be reached by a simple click on the individual item.

TSSDR INTEL ULTRA 9 ASUS PROART Z890 COMPONENTS

PC CHASSIS: Corsair iCUE Link 6500x RGB Mid-Tower Dual Chamber
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS ProArt Z890-Creator WIFI LGA 1851 ATX
CPU: Intel Ultra 9 Desktop Processor 285K
CPU COOLER: Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX RGB Liquid
POWER SUPPLY: Corsair HX1000i Platinum Modular Ultra Low Noise
GRAPHICS: ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity White
MEMORY: Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB DDR5-6400
FANS: Corsair iCUE Link RX120 MAX RGB
KEYBOARD: Corsair K100 AIR Wireless RGB Mechanical
MOUSE: Corsair Dark Core RGB Pro Wireless Gaming
MONITOR 32″x3 Samsung 32 Inch Viewfinity UR59 4K 

MICROSDXS EXPRESS CARD READER

For our testing today, we are using a Realtek 9211XD SD7.1 Express card reader which bridges the card to Type-C USB where it travels via PCIe 3.0 x1 (single lane).  As the original card reader is SD compatible, we were also provided with a microSDXC Express adapter as a typical UHS-II SD/microSD adapter does not work.

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BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal Disk Mark, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, and TxBench, as well as testing utilizing Nintendo Switch 2 comprising of transferring data to and from the media and game loaad times while running MarioKart from the ADATA SDXC Express card.

CRYSTAL DISK INFO VER. 9.6.0 X64

Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.

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Crystal DiskInfo validates that our Lexar Play Pro microSD Express Card is operating within the NVMe interface which means it is using the PCIe 3.0 lane and follows the NVMe 1.3 standard. It is also interesting to note that these cards are TRIM compatible, whereas a normal UHS -I/II card does not even show up in this software.

2 comments

  1. blank

    i wonder if you could test, a SINGLE file of 900 GB transfer in writing to it, whether then the 600 MB/s would be sustained, or whether after a SLC cache peak speed of perhaps 100 GB transferred, it would radically start drop down to its “standard” 210 MB/s for the rest of the transfer. Akin to Tech Powerup reports (i forgot with what tool one could do this, but maybe you have (or can make) a huge single file, to test it even in the Windows transfer. thanks

    • blank

      You are drawing comparison to one of the best SSDs on the planet, the Samsung 9100 Pro to another NAND flash based product that isn’t remotely in the same category, a newly released MicroSD Express card. We have addressed this same question on several occasions by acknowledging that the beauty of having several reports published ‘net-wide’ is the expanded nature of testing. We are happy with our test regimen and won’t be conducting any further sustained write testing as the sustained write testing conducted on this MicroSD Express card is completely valid. In fact, we might suggest that our ‘sustained write’ testing doesn’t get much better than ACTUAL movement of several complete programs from and back onto the device itself. Thank you for reaching out.

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