Lexar Play NVMe 4TB 2280 SSD Review

In this review we looked at the PLAY 2280 NVMe SSD from Lexar.  As mentioned, this drive is a great option for gamers looking to expand the storage on their PlayStation 5 game consoles.  The drive series supports capacities of 2TB, 4TB and 8TB on a PCI Express Gen4 interface.  It is important to note that storage bottlenecks are “mostly” a thing of the past.  Some would argue that storage is still the slowest component in your system while I would suggest that the CPU is the single limiting factor in system performance and everything else is relevant based on that.

The advertised speed of the Lexar PLAY 2280 is 7400MB/s Read and 6500MB/s Write.  Based on our benchmarks those numbers seem to be completely accurate provided that your motherboard supports PCI Express Gen4 and you correctly install the drive into a Gen4 M.2 slot.  The speed dropped slightly when tested in the game console but, not by much making it still one of the fastest drives you can get of your PlayStation 5.  Temperature can play a critical role in overall performance of modern NVMe SSDs and becomes a bigger problem inside gaming consoles with limited airflow.  The Lexar PLAY 2280 comes with an amazing heatsink solution that not only wraps around the entire drive but, has enough material to ensure the drive remains at a consistent temperature, even under high demand.

Overall, the Lexar PLAY 2280 is a great drive with amazing performance when used on a PCI Express Gen4 motherboard.  Not only is the drive quite speedy but, can work extremely well on lower end motherboards that lack onboard heatsinks.  Of course, the included heatsink can be removed making it a great drive for everyone.

Excellent Game Storage
Great Performance
Available in sizes up to 8TB
Small Form Factor
Perfect Upgrade
Large Heatsink

Heatsink needs to be removed for PC usage