INTRODUCTION

   I may be an amateur photographer (and even that mostly because i need to take pictures of everything i review) but even i can appreciate the how far memory cards have gone, not just in terms of performance but also capacity. It's no secret really that the latest Compact Flash standards (CFexpress Type A/B/C) are able to follow M.2 NVMe SSD performance numbers closely since those also use the PCIe interface so compared to regular memory cards they are anything from 10, 20 and up to 40 times faster (in many cases even faster than that). Performance aside however with all heads turned towards mechanical and solid state drives which have currently reached 22TB and 8TB capacities respectively it's easy for some people to forget that memory cards have already reached 2TB and the Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card by Lexar is among the first and probably the fastest model to be released into the global market.

   For more than 25 years, Lexar has been a trusted leading global brand of memory solutions. Our award-winning lineup includes memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, solid-state drives and DRAM. With so many options, it’s easy to find the right Lexar solution to fit your needs. All Lexar product designs undergo extensive testing in the Lexar Quality Labs with more than 1,100 digital devices, to ensure performance, quality, compatibility, and reliability. Lexar products are available worldwide at major retail and e-tail stores. For more information or support, visit www.lexar.com.

   The Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B line of memory cards by Lexar is currently available in 64GB/128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB capacities and is based on the PCIe 3.0 NVMe v1.3 standard with 2 lanes (Gen3x2). CFexpress Type B cards may be faster than Type A cards and slower compared to Type C cards but until the latter become available, they still hold the speed crown with performance numbers of up to 1900MB/s for reads and 1700MB/s for writes (1900 MB/s & 1500MB/s for the 2TB GOLD model i have here today). Needless to say, in order to fully take advantage of the impressive read and write performance of CFexpress Type B cards you also need a compatible USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 card and that’s exactly what I’ll be using to check and see just how fast the latest Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B 2TB card by Lexar really is.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE CFEXPRESS PROFESSIONAL GOLD TYPE B 2TB

The small black and gold box has a product picture along with the company logo and the card's capacity and performance numbers printed at the front.

Some words about the product in 10 languages are located at the rear of the box just under its performance numbers and above information about memory cards and of course the product serial number and barcode.

The Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card by Lexar may be 2TB in capacity but it’s identical to the 256GB model i reviewed a while back (38.50mm in length, 29.60mm in width and 3.80mm in thickness).

Turning the card over we see the country of manufacture along with several certifications.

CFexpress Type B cards sport three connector rows for optimal performance.

As mentioned earlier for this review (as with past Lexar CFexpress Type B card reviews) I'll be using Lexar’s USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 card reader.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Memory cards are pretty much identical to flash drives so to make things easier for everyone I'll be using roughly the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read and write data transfer numbers. The benchmark suites used for memory card tests are HD Tune Pro (Read - Write average and max speeds), AIDA 64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear Read / Random Read - Write performance), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (4GB Read / Write speeds) and ATTO (Average Read / Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into the charts (0 = test was unable to complete).

   Tests are performed on the X79 test rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a HyperX Predator 480GB PCIe SSD with all updates installed up to the day of this review (for ATTO and Crystal Disk Mark cards are formatted using the NTFS file system – however partitions need to be removed for the write tests of both AIDA64 and HD Tune Pro).

* As of April 2020, I’ll be using the X299 test rig for SDXC & microSDXC UHS-II (and above) memory card reviews.
** As of March 2022 the Z590 test rig will be used for memory cards requiring a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 card reader.

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   Even before the latest 2TB Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card by Lexar arrived in the lab it was obvious that it’s strongest selling point was its capacity. Still performance is quite remarkable as well with the card being able to compete (and in some tests even surpass) the top-of-the-line DIAMOND models again by Lexar. Hopefully the 2TB DIAMOND model will push performance even further and why not even touch the 2000MB/s barrier. As with past models Lexar also covers the 2TB Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card with a limited lifetime warranty for buyer peace of mind.

   The Lexar 2TB Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card currently retails for USD599.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 666.25Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) so it clearly doesn’t come cheap. Still, this is clearly a model aimed towards professionals using equipment far more expensive so at least to them this shouldn’t be a serious issue (if at all). All said and done the 2TB Professional GOLD CFexpress Type B card by Lexar delivers on both high performance and capacity and for that it deserves the Platinum Award.

PROS

- Impressive Performance (Up To 1900MB/s)
- Available Capacities (64GB/128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB)
- Limited Lifetime Warranty

CONS

- Price (For Some)