Lexar NM620 M.2 512GB SSD Review

Testing

 

Test Platform:
CPU       Intel Core i9-10900k
Mobo    Aorus Z490 Master
RAM      32GB HyperX Fury RGB
GPU       Nvidia RTX 2080 FE
OS SSD  Kingston KC1000 1TB

 

CrystalDiskInfo

We see our drive can use the maximum bandwidth available from an M.2 Slot running PCIe 3.0 x4. At idle, temps settle in around the upper 30C range.

During heavy testing, we only saw the drive warm up into the low 50C range, far from throttling.

 

Sequential Testing – Variable Queue Depth

Sequential speeds start around 420MB/s for reads and around 380MB/s for writes at QD1. We see a slight dip at QD2 and then things shoot up at QD4 to about 790MB/s on writes and 640MB/s on reads and mostly stay there.

 

Random Testing – Variable Queue Depth

Random performance is decent on the write side with IOPS hovering around 8000 at QD1 and climbing to around 27,500 at QD32, but reads don’t climb much with queue depth. Simultaneous mixed-use, made up of 70% read and 30% write is also held back by reads and tops out about 8000 IOPS

 

CrystalDiskMark 7.0

“CrystalDiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard drives. Currently, the program allows measuring sequential and random read/write speeds.”

One nice thing to see here is that low queue-depth reads on the NM620 are not far behind higher queue-depth reads. Random performance is fairly strong as well.

On the write side, things look even better with the NM620 able to stay above 1600MB/s in sequential with random QD1 4K performance hugging the 200MB/s mark.  You’ll notice solid performance in typical day-to-day low queue depth usage scenarios.

 

PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 introduces a set of four storage benchmarks that use relevant real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the latest modern drives.

The Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives.

The Data Drive Benchmark is designed to test drives that are used for storing files rather than applications. You can also use this test with NAS drives, USB sticks, memory cards, and other external storage devices.

With a varying workload that mimics real-world activities a user might do on a computer, the NM620 edges out its NM610 companion at hits 307MB/s as a data drive, indicating decent performance in the real world. As an OS or system drive, performance falls a bit compared to the NM610 but still pulls a decent 225MB/s.

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO gives us readings close to specified speeds with reads hitting 2.99GB/s, and around 2330MB/s on writes.

 

Anvil’s Storage Utilities

Anvil’s overall score of 12,574 points is pretty decent for this class of drive though read and writes both come in about 500MB/s short of the specified speeds.

 

Black Magic Disk Speed Test

Disk Speed Test is an easy-to-use tool to quickly measure and certify your disk performance for working with high-quality video! Simply click the start button and Disk Speed Test will write test your disk using large blocks of data, and then display the result. Disk Speed Test will continue to test writes and reads from your disk so you can evaluate both performance and readability over time.

One of the biggest needs for fast storage is video editing, and Lexar’s NM620 is well up to the task with it providing plenty of performance for dealing with the most common video formats.