Lexar ARMOR 700 Portable SSD Review

The Lexar ARMOR 700 is a rugged portable SSD available in capacities from 1-4TB, with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface that delivers up to 2,000MB/s.

The Lexar ARMOR 700 Portable SSD extends the company’s storage range with a drive that can hit 2,000MB/s read and write in a sleek, yet rugged, enclosure. The ARMOR 700 is dust and water-resistant (IP66) and can easily take drops of up to 3 meters. The toughness and performance profile should make it an attractive option for professionals living outside the cubicle.

Lexar Armor 700 Build and Design

Overall, the fit and finish of the Armor 700 is very streamlined and minimalistic with the design, avoiding too many frivolous design choices. The Lexar Armor 700 housing is made from what seems to be an aluminum core, that has a silicone layer on top to avoid scratches and dings. This also adds a bit of cushion when it comes to drop protection. One feature that the Armor 700 seems to lack, is an attachment loop of some kind. Most of the rugged drives we see have a key ring or loop to attach the drive to your gear, but it appears to have been left out on this drive.

Lexar will have two color options for the Armor 700, blue and black. The Blue model, however, will be limited to the North American market, where the Black model will be available globally. It also appears that this Blue model will be exclusive to Amazon. The coloration only changes the silicone outer molding of the drive, keeping the aluminum core the same. One downside to the silicone material is, in our testing it picked up dust and lint fairly easily, so this may be less than ideal in outdoor situations.

On the bottom end of the Armor 700, we see the USB type C port as well as an activity light. The type C port carries its own addition in flexibility, since it is easy to use with a variety of devices including phones, computers, cameras, and game consoles. From this angle, we also get a look at the slotting on the sides of the Armor 700 that should aid with grip when holding the drive. It also adds a nice visual feature.

On the opposing end of the Armor 700, we can see indicated the capacity, Serial number, and model number of the drive. We also get another look at the slotted sides of the case.

Lexar Armor 700 Features

The Armor 700 being a Rugged drive is suited with some special features for the field. Most notably, being able to support direct writing from a camera, or even recording directly from an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max at 4K 60 FPS with Apple Pro Res. To keep up with your phone, the Armor 700 also has IP66 water and dust resistance to hold up to less than ideal conditions.

Where some drives might get quite warm under load, the Armor 700 stays cool, even at its top read and write speeds, to ensure you never sacrifice performance. This would be a big factor in outdoor shooting, especially when you have the sun beating down on the drive. Though even if the sun is hitting hard, this drive is rated to operate up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 °C).

For Security, the Armor 700 includes Lexar DataShield, which encompasses 265-bit AES encryption to keep your data secure. DataShield ensures that confidential or private files cannot be accessed by others by allowing you to set a password for file access.

The Armor 700 is quite flexible with options to be used with several types of devices over its USB-C interface. These devices can range from your typical Windows or macOS computers, to IOS and Android devices, supporting direct video writing. The Armor 700 can also be used with some cameras, and even game consoles for extra capacity or direct writing.  Another feature we have seen on other Lexar portables, is the inclusion of a universal cable that has USB-C on one end, and the option of using USB-C or USB A on the other end to support a variety of devices.

Performance

For performance comparisons, we will feature the following drives against the Armor 700.

• Lexar SL600
• Crucial X10 Pro
• LaCie Rugged Mini
• Samsung T9

BlackMagic Disk Speed Test

Our first performance test is the Blackmagic Disk speed test. This is a very popular single-threaded disk performance test. Here we saw a bit below advertised speeds on both read and write, but got 1,630 MB/s on write, and 1,771 MB/s on Read.

Comparing the Armor 700 to other drives, it falls in roughly second place, just behind the more creator-focused SL600, but not by much. After the SL600, the Armor 700 saw faster speeds than the Crucial, LaCie, and Samsung drives.

IOMeter 1 Thread

The next test is the Single-Threaded IOMeter test. The speeds here will be close to the BlackMagic test on the Sequential 2MB read and write portions, but we should see some differences when it comes to the 4-threaded portion. Here, the Armor 700 stays neck and neck with the SL600, which begs the question of how similar these two drives are. The Armor 700 and SL600 had some speeds only 1.2 MB/s apart, and as high as 107 MB/s apart.

IOMeter 4 Thread

Our final performance test is the 4 Thread IOMeter test. This test typically lets the drives stretch their legs and show us the best idea of their top performance. Here again, we see extremely close results with the SL600, which suggests these two drives may have the same or very close internals. Both drives also came very close to, or exceeded, their advertised 2,000 MB/s Read and Write speeds.

Conclusion

The ARMOR 700 deepens Lexar’s portable SSD portfolio, matching the top speed of the mainstream SL600, but offering up to 4TB of capacity in a body that’s ready to explore. The body of the Armor 700 appears to uphold the durability claims, but as mentioned previously, seemed to pick up some dust and lint fairly easily. If you are particular about the appearance of your drive, this may be something to consider.

The other slight downside we saw with the Armor 700, is its lack of an attachment point for lanyards or clips. This is a feature we see on lots of other drives, especially ruggedized ones, but the Armor 700 design has left this out. When compared to the SL600, the Armor 700 does stand just a little smaller than its counterpart when subtracting the upper loop portion, but the other dimensions are pretty similar.

Performance-wise, the Armor 700 saw almost identical speeds in practice to the SL600, so if you are torn between the two, the choice is just limited to your preference on appearance and durability. When set up against the comparison drives, the Armor 700 did a good job at holding its own, so the performance is nothing to balk at. We saw speeds of up to 1,906 MB/s on write and 2,100 MB/s on read. If you are looking for a well-performing portable SSD that can stand up to rough environments, then the Armor 700 is a solid choice.

Lexar Armor 700 at Amazon (affiliate link)

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