Lexar has introduced the SL600 Portable SSD, catering to photographers, videographers, and content creators. This versatile drive allows direct work on laptops or serves as an external storage solution for videographers who mount drives to their cameras.
Lexar SL600 Portable SSD 2000MB/s
Available in sizes 1TB-2TB.
Rated Write: 2000 MB/s
Rated Read: 2000 MB/s
Warranty: Limited 5-Year Manufacturer Warranty
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A lot of our cameras today like the Panasonic S5 IIx or the Blackmagic Cinema 6k allow for external USB-C connections as a very cost-effective video recording solution.
This is a great value for a USB 3.2 gen 2×2 drive. While USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 is not a usable technology on Mac since their USB 4.0 is not backward compatible with USB3.2 2×2 even on the new machines, for PC users these drives are insanely fast.
The small size and added carabiner strap allow you to mount it to the exterior of a camera for USB video recording (for cameras that support this) as this is significantly less expensive than 2TB CFexpress Type B memory cards or CFexpress Type A memory cards.
Keep in mind, on some of the cameras like the Blackmagic Cinema 6k, you won’t be able to record with as high of a bitrate with an external USB drive as you can with an internal CFexpress card, but for those recording at a lower bitrate, this cost savings here is great, especially on cameras that don’t have the very heavy high bitrates that we see on Blackmagic cameras.
Lexar does not list the sustain speeds of this drive but here are its ratings:
Read Speed: Maximum: 2000 MB/s
Write Speed: Maximum: 2000 MB/s
If you ever consider ordering a drive like this for external video recording, try to find the sustain speeds. Often these drives use a very fast SLC cache, but once that cache is filled speeds can get very slow as the drives switch over to the slower more dense memory. However, all the Lexar CFexpress drives have been very good with sustained speeds.