Lexar SL500 USB SSD review: 20Gbps storage cut thin to win

At a glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Excellent 20Gbps performance
• Super-slim, trim profile
• 5-year warranty

Cons

• Slower writing 48GB of files and folders than its SL600 cousin.

Our Verdict

If what you seek is a fast, good-looking USB SSD that slides into your pocket almost imperceptibly, or mounts easily to the back of your mobile device, then Lexar’s SL500 is likely what you’re looking for.

Physically, Lexar’s SL500 portable USB 3.2×2 SSD makes its SL600 and SL660 stablemates look like chunky monkeys. Actually, measuring a mere 0.3-inches thick (less than 0.2 at the edges), by 2.1-inches wide, by 3.3-inches long, the SL500 make nearly all external SSDs appear chunky.

As it’s also attractively styled, and weighs a mere 1.5 ounces, let’s just say the SL500 is a super model among external SSDs.

Further reading: See our roundup of the best external drives to learn about competing products.

What are the SL500’s features?

The SL500 is a super-slim, USB 3.2×2 (20Gbps) external SSD that comes in 2TB, and soon, 4TB flavors. It ships with a short Type-C to Type-C cable and is warrantied for five years. That’s a limited warranty that no doubt assumes that you won’t hit it with a sledgehammer, or write several petabytes of data to it.

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The drive ships formatted to exFAT, so it’s readable and writable on both Windows and macOS (Linux too, of course) right out of the box.

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Lexar includes its DataShield software for both operating systems, which allows you to secure the SL500 with a password. If you opt to use a password, you’ll need to install the app on any computer you want to access the secured drive from.

How much does the Lexar SL500 cost?

The 2TB version of the SL500 is being released on March 20 at a list price of $230. That’s roughly par for the course for a name-brand USB 3.2×2 20Gbps unit, though you can get name-brand 10Gbps 2TB SSDs and no-name 20Gbps 2TB SSDs for quite a bit less. (Our favorite 10Gbps external SSD, the Crucial X9 Pro, for example, costs just $95 for 2TB.) A 4TB version of the SL500 will be available later in the year at an undisclosed price.

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How fast is the Lexar SL500?

The 2TB SL500 we tested fared quite well against the likes of the Samsung T9 and Crucial X10 Pro. Its synthetic benchmark results were so close (slightly better) to the previously reviewed SL600, I double-checked to see that I hadn’t grabbed the wrong file. I hadn’t.

The results were well within statistical variance and the fraternal victory was so close, it’s likely to be the same controller and NAND in a different form factor.

Right-click on a chart and select “Open image in new tab” to see more detail.