Lexar NM620 1TB, M.2 2280 / M-Key / PCIe 3.0 x4

The Lexar NM620 1TB is $120 on Amazon and Newegg right now, which is wildly overpriced for the performance you receive. For $120 you could buy a Samsung 980 1TB, or a WD SN550 1TB for $110, either of which is significantly faster.

When the Lexar NM620 was first announced, it wowed the whole industry—Longsys (Lexar's parent company) has built their own SSD flash controller! Looking a bit deeper, it turns out the controller is a rebranded Innogrit IG5216, probably with optimized firmware. Still, it shows that Lexar is definitely looking to go beyond the beaten path of using SMI and Marvell controllers. This is actually our first review for the Innogrit IG5216 controller, which turns out to offer very decent entry-level performance to build value-oriented DRAM-less SSDs. No experiments were made with the NAND flash, which is well-tested Micron 64-layer 3D TLC.

The Lexar NM620 is yet another solid PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 SSD that is aimed at the entry-level to mainstream NVMe SSD market. There is no shortage of drives in the segment and drive makers continue to release new products for it since new controllers and NAND Flash comes to market.