The Lexar Skilled Go Transportable SSD with Hub (begins at $299.99 for 1TB; $349.99 for 2TB as examined) is a singular, modular storage accent on your telephone. It combines a minuscule external SSD, a tiny USB-C hub, and a number of other distinctive connectors. It’s primarily for videographers with a latest iPhone with a USB-C port taking pictures in Apple’s ProRes codecs. ProRes 4K movies, particularly at 60 or 120fps, can devour an enormous quantity of drive area, and you may bypass your telephone’s storage and save such movies on to the connected SSD as you shoot. Though ideally suited to the cell videography area of interest, the Go is a fairly succesful ultra-small exterior drive, which will be purchased individually from the hub and connectors. Nevertheless, you pay a premium for it over comparable exterior SSDs just like the Editors’ Selection-winning Crucial X9 Pro.
Design: An SSD/USB-C Hub Combo for iPhones
I’m keen on noting in evaluations how tiny many latest exterior SSDs have change into, however the Lexar Go units a brand new normal in miniaturization. It measures a mere 0.3 by 1 by 1.7 inches (HWD) and is featherweight at 0.5 ounce. The silver-hued drive, rounded on the corners, is clad in a textured grey rubber bumper.
Close to the top of one of many (comparatively) lengthy sides is a male USB-C plug as an alternative of the standard port. Thus, the Go can plug straight right into a USB-C port on a pc, telephone, or pill, or the included hub; it match snugly into all three varieties of units I paired it with. (Notice, although, that you will have to take away your telephone’s or pill’s case to get it to attach correctly, relying on how thick the case is, significantly should you use one of many included connectors.) The drive’s interface is USB 3.2 Gen 2, which helps a most throughput of 10Gbps.
The hub, a sq., silvery gadget with rounded corners, measures 0.3 by 1.8 by 1.8 inches (HWD), unusually small for a port hub. It packs in at least 4 USB-C ports. You possibly can join one to the drive, one other to your telephone, a 3rd to an influence financial institution or adapter (the hub helps as much as 30 watts of USB energy supply), and the fourth to an exterior microphone, for instance. You do not even want a telephone to make use of the hub, which Lexar additionally sells individually for $49.99.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Different equipment included within the model we reviewed are a cold-shoe mount (for connecting to a bracket on a telephone’s filming rig), a strap, and two 180-degree USB-C-to-USB-C connectors (one female-to-male and one male-to-male).
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Though you’ll be able to plug the Go straight into the iPhone’s USB-C port, the place it extends down from the underside of the telephone, with the previous connector you’ll be able to, in impact, tuck the Go behind the telephone so it rests towards its again.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The first drawback that the Go addresses is how you can shoot and file 4K video in Apple’s ProRes format. Fashions going again to the iPhone 13 help filming in ProRes, however you might not file on to an exterior drive with no Lightning adapter till the corporate included a USB-C port with the iPhone 15.
Significantly with 4K ProRes video at 60fps (beginning with the iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max) and 120fps (with the iPhone 16 Professional fashions), recording shortly takes up an enormous quantity of disk area. In accordance with Apple, recording a minute of 4K ProRes video, even at 30fps, consumes 6GB, with larger body charges utilizing much more area. The interior storage can, due to this fact, fill shortly, particularly if you do not have a full terabyte of storage in your iPhone. It is extra handy to file that video straight to an exterior drive such because the Lexar Skilled Go, and it might probably spare you the recurring price of an iCloud+ subscription and the necessity to improve your plan as your storage wants rise.
You’ll be able to file Apple ProRes video to many latest exterior SSDs, however the Lexar Skilled Go Transportable SSD With Hub is tailored for this job. Video execs could wish to connect the drive and hub to a filming rig—a body, often with two handles, that helps and allows you to exactly transfer the telephone and to which equipment corresponding to a microphone will be affixed utilizing the cold-shoe cable. You’ll be able to file ProRes video on to the Go utilizing both utilizing the iPhone’s native digital camera app or a third-party app corresponding to Blackmagic Digicam.
You can too use the Go along with an Android gadget, supplied it has a USB-C port. It may well’t file in ProRes, however you should utilize an app like MotionCam Professional to file 4K video at 60fps and convert it to ProRes.
You would not anticipate as light-weight an SSD because the Go to maintain harm if dropped—significantly with its rubber bumper—and certainly, in Lexar’s testing, it withstood one-meter falls. It has an ingress protection rating of IP65; as it’s fully sealed, with no ports, it’s impervious to mud, filth, and sand and might survive being squirted with jets of water, although not extended immersion.
Lexar presents the corporate’s DataShield software program, which helps you to allow AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption for the drive by setting a password for it. The gold normal in safety, AES is actually uncrackable.
Lexar backs the Go along with a five-year guarantee, which is typical of exterior SSDs from main manufacturers.
Testing the Lexar Skilled Go: Strong Efficiency for a Tiny SSD
Do not be fooled by the Lexar Skilled Go’s diminutive body; it has all of the efficiency you’d anticipate from any USB 3.2 Gen 2 exterior SSD. There may be sufficient consistency among the many scores of Gen 2 drives that it’s exhausting to go too mistaken with one.
We take a look at most exterior SSDs utilizing PC Labs’ Home windows external-storage testbed, a desktop constructed on an Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard with an Intel Core i9-10980XE Excessive Version CPU, housed in a SilverStone case. The system has 48GB of DDR4 Corsair Dominator RAM clocked to three,600MHz, and an Nvidia GeForce graphics card. We use the motherboard’s 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 port for testing suitable drives such because the Lexar Go; for Gen 2×2 drives, we take a look at utilizing a 2×2 port added through an Orico PCIe enlargement card.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
We put the Lexar Undergo our typical suite of exterior solid-state drive benchmarks, together with Crystal DiskMark 6.0, PCMark 10 Storage, 3DMark Storage, the Blackmagic Disk Velocity Check, and our personal folder switch take a look at. The primary three are run on the PC with the drive formatted in NTFS, and the latter two on an Apple MacBook Professional utilizing exFAT.
Crystal DiskMark’s sequential pace assessments present a standard measure of drive throughput, simulating best-case, straight-line transfers of enormous recordsdata. The PCMark 10 Storage take a look at measures an SSD’s readiness for varied on a regular basis duties. The 3DMark Storage benchmark aggregates a drive’s efficiency on varied gaming-related duties.
We in contrast the Go along with a bunch of USB 3.2 Gen 2 exterior SSDs, all of them transportable drives powered over their USB connection. The exception is the SanDisk Desk Drive, which is a tabletop SSD that requires its personal energy supply.
The Go’s Crystal DiskMark sequential speeds fell throughout the similar tight vary as our comparability Gen 2 drives, all scoring a bit under their learn and write scores of round 1,000MBps. On the PCMark 10 normal storage take a look at, the Go’s rating was close to the underside of our comparability group, however nonetheless properly throughout the anticipated vary. Within the gaming-centric 3DMark Storage benchmark, the Go’s rating was in the midst of the pack.
In our Mac-based testing, within the Blackmagic Disk Velocity benchmark, the Go’s outcomes have been a bit uneven, with it posting the bottom rating in write throughput amongst our comparability drives whereas tying for the very best rating in learn throughput with the Kingston XS1000. Nonetheless, the variations between excessive and low scores on this take a look at are comparatively minor. The Go’s rating in our folder switch take a look at was middling.
Verdict: An iPhone Videographer’s Important Companion
The Lexar Skilled Go With Hub is a singular modular gadget that significantly simplifies the duty of recording and storing drive-space-hogging Apple ProRes 4K video in your iPhone and allows you to join and energy different videography peripherals like microphones. Even when it weren’t the one such SSD/hub combo round, the Go is simple to suggest on this capability on account of its intelligent, compact, and versatile design.
Even when you’ve got little interest in mobile-phone videography, the Go as a standalone drive has benefit as a wildly small exterior SSD, although you do pay a premium for it over normal Gen 2 drives. As an illustration, the Editors’ Selection-winning Crucial X9 Pro is available in at a significantly lower cost on the similar capability and is available in a 4TB mannequin as properly. However you’ll be able to’t join the X9 Professional on to a telephone, and the Lexar Skilled Go is lower than half its measurement.
We do not usually bestow our Editors’ Selection award on a product with no actual rivals. Nonetheless, the Lexar Skilled Go With Hub supplies an efficient answer for iPhone videographers who wish to file 4K ProRes video with excessive body charges with out swamping valuable gadget reminiscence, and is deserving of our highest suggestion.
Lexar Skilled Go Transportable SSD With Hub
Execs
View
Extra
The Backside Line
The one-of-a-kind Lexar Skilled Go Transportable SSD supplies an efficient answer for storing iPhone ProRes 4K video with out clogging up your telephone’s restricted reminiscence.
Like What You are Studying?
This article could comprise promoting, offers, or affiliate hyperlinks.
By clicking the button, you affirm you’re 16+ and conform to our
Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy.
Chances are you’ll unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
About Tony Hoffman
Senior Analyst, {Hardware}
