So this is why Target is having a clearance sale on all of their Lexar USB drives. $3 for 16GB drives, I grabbed a handful. That's cheaper than the faulty knock-offs from Alibaba!
I bought a Lexar 500gb USB 3.0 Type-A external ssd from Costco a month or two ago for about $215. Much better than all of the thumb drives it replaced for moving data to my offsite cold storage at a family member's house.
I get writes of 70-75 MB/sec from other SSD or HDD, and reads range from a lwo of 60 to a high of 375 MB/sec depending on destination drive and filesize. Overall I'm very happy with the Lexar drive given its price, size and speed.
I'm surprised there's no mention of Optane in the article - will Intel be selling it only under their name or will Micron sell their own branded version? If they do, what brand will it fall under?
I did support for Lexar for 3 years. This was not completely surprising. The people in part of Marketing and Product design did not know what they where doing. Products released without telling the support teams, not providing user guides. It's sad to see Lexar go, but not super surprising.
I guess Toshiba and Sandisk will fill the void left by Lexar in this case? When a player leaves a market like this do the competitors do anything differently?
Toshiba are looking to sell off their NAND business, which could mean WD end up being a player (they already are, as joint owners of Toshiba's NAND business). However, Toshiba rejected WD's offer and WD have prevented Toshiba from selling to a group of investors.
Sandisk aren't doing too well, but are still around.
Sony also have flash drives, but I'm fairly certain they use Toshiba stuff and just rebrand it.
I'm really disappointed and sad at this. I've been pretty much exclusively Lexar for USB sticks for the past 203 years. The reason being their USB3.0 sticks (unlike Corsair/Sandisk) actually have decent USB3.0 performance. Most of the other brands usually really suck with 30MBps Write speeds. Folks should snap up the Pro P20 USB drive as the performance is awesome. I have the 64MB version and snapped up a 128GB when I read this news two days ago before they vanish for good.
About a year ago, I purchased a Lexar 128GB P20 JumpDrive based on advertised specs (Sequential Read Speed:400 MB/s, Write Speed: 270 MB/s).
However, using ATTO Benchmark and CrystalDiskMark the drive couldn't even reach 200 MB/s on either Read or Write.
So I returned it for exchange and the replacement did even worse. I then returned that drive for credit and purchased one from a different supplier hoping to get one from a different "batch."
The third one was able to hit 200 MB/s, but that was it. After three tries, I decided the performance issue was with the drives themselves.
I returned it for credit and purchased a SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro. At 260 MB/s Read, and 240 MB/s Write, its performance was rated at considerably less than the Lexar -- but it more than met specs (272 MB/s Read and 255 MB/s Write). And it did out perform all three Lexars and by a considerable margin.
That experience put me off of Lexar flash drives. And in the lower price ranges, the Sandisk Extreme series far out performs the similarly priced Lexars (but the Lexars look better).
+1 on this!! Lexar is and always has been crap when it came to performance and consistency... Sandisk is by far the best flash drive company out with the Sandisk Extreme usb offerings for budget performance (untouched) and Extreme Pro for SSD flash performance, mind you with a lifetime warranty. I personally own a computer repair company and do multiple 10+GB transfers a day to cusomer's computers via mainly the Sandisk Extreme 32GB drives and always see great speeds which translates into less labor cost and more profit. I also am the proud owner of a 1st gen Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB which has always been awesome for the couple years I've had it, it even made it's way through the washer and dryer with no issue. I recently purchased the Extreme Pro 3.1 and am super happy with that as well. Samsung, Lexar, and the other vendors have nothing on this.
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kaidenshi - Wednesday, June 28, 2017 - link
So this is why Target is having a clearance sale on all of their Lexar USB drives. $3 for 16GB drives, I grabbed a handful. That's cheaper than the faulty knock-offs from Alibaba!Kakti - Wednesday, June 28, 2017 - link
I bought a Lexar 500gb USB 3.0 Type-A external ssd from Costco a month or two ago for about $215. Much better than all of the thumb drives it replaced for moving data to my offsite cold storage at a family member's house.I get writes of 70-75 MB/sec from other SSD or HDD, and reads range from a lwo of 60 to a high of 375 MB/sec depending on destination drive and filesize. Overall I'm very happy with the Lexar drive given its price, size and speed.
I'm surprised there's no mention of Optane in the article - will Intel be selling it only under their name or will Micron sell their own branded version? If they do, what brand will it fall under?
trivik12 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Micron has Quantx which is its brand 3D XPoint. I think they will release it next year.Rayb - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
That will be their shift to high margin NAND they're talking about.Intel's > Optane = Micron > QuantX should show up in enterprise first, followed by Crucial for consumers.
Samus - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
That's too bad, I really like Lexar drives :(Zak - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Ditto. One of my fav flash media brands :(lioncat55 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
I did support for Lexar for 3 years. This was not completely surprising. The people in part of Marketing and Product design did not know what they where doing. Products released without telling the support teams, not providing user guides. It's sad to see Lexar go, but not super surprising.jimjamjamie - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
I guess Toshiba and Sandisk will fill the void left by Lexar in this case? When a player leaves a market like this do the competitors do anything differently?Santoval - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
If their supply remains unchanged they raise prices for more profit margins, but not the point where they will choke the market.Santoval - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
edit : "..not *to* the point.."Tams80 - Saturday, July 1, 2017 - link
Toshiba are looking to sell off their NAND business, which could mean WD end up being a player (they already are, as joint owners of Toshiba's NAND business). However, Toshiba rejected WD's offer and WD have prevented Toshiba from selling to a group of investors.Sandisk aren't doing too well, but are still around.
Sony also have flash drives, but I'm fairly certain they use Toshiba stuff and just rebrand it.
jabber - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
I'm really disappointed and sad at this. I've been pretty much exclusively Lexar for USB sticks for the past 203 years. The reason being their USB3.0 sticks (unlike Corsair/Sandisk) actually have decent USB3.0 performance. Most of the other brands usually really suck with 30MBps Write speeds. Folks should snap up the Pro P20 USB drive as the performance is awesome. I have the 64MB version and snapped up a 128GB when I read this news two days ago before they vanish for good.jabber - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Thats 2-3 years, not 203 years. One day this site will become a 21st Century site.bug77 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Ah, I thought you were really, really loyal.milkod2001 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
As it says at footer area: The Most Trusted in Tech Since 1997 it also keep those 1997 tech standards :)))Wolfpup - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Dang, I like those Lexar memory card readers. Actually WORK as opposed to the garbage off brands.I liked being able to by Micron for SD cards too...
Didn't realize Western Digital bought Seagate. Guess I'll be using them mostly now.
Bruce427 - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
About a year ago, I purchased a Lexar 128GB P20 JumpDrive based on advertised specs (Sequential Read Speed:400 MB/s, Write Speed: 270 MB/s).However, using ATTO Benchmark and CrystalDiskMark the drive couldn't even reach 200 MB/s on either Read or Write.
So I returned it for exchange and the replacement did even worse. I then returned that drive for credit and purchased one from a different supplier hoping to get one from a different "batch."
The third one was able to hit 200 MB/s, but that was it. After three tries, I decided the performance issue was with the drives themselves.
I returned it for credit and purchased a SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro. At 260 MB/s Read, and 240 MB/s Write, its performance was rated at considerably less than the Lexar -- but it more than met specs (272 MB/s Read and 255 MB/s Write). And it did out perform all three Lexars and by a considerable margin.
That experience put me off of Lexar flash drives. And in the lower price ranges, the Sandisk Extreme series far out performs the similarly priced Lexars (but the Lexars look better).
X86guru - Wednesday, July 26, 2017 - link
+1 on this!! Lexar is and always has been crap when it came to performance and consistency... Sandisk is by far the best flash drive company out with the Sandisk Extreme usb offerings for budget performance (untouched) and Extreme Pro for SSD flash performance, mind you with a lifetime warranty. I personally own a computer repair company and do multiple 10+GB transfers a day to cusomer's computers via mainly the Sandisk Extreme 32GB drives and always see great speeds which translates into less labor cost and more profit. I also am the proud owner of a 1st gen Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB which has always been awesome for the couple years I've had it, it even made it's way through the washer and dryer with no issue. I recently purchased the Extreme Pro 3.1 and am super happy with that as well. Samsung, Lexar, and the other vendors have nothing on this.