Lexar Play 2280 SE review: An attractive, fast SSD—but not on PS5

Best Prices Today: Lexar Play 2280 SE

There’s no doubt that the currently Costco-exclusive Lexar Play 2280 SE, which I assume stands for “Special Edition,” is a looker. The included stylized heatsink definitely renders it a cut above the norm in appearance. However, while it’s a good real-world performer for host memory buffer (HMB) PCIe 4.0, it’s slower with random operations than the older (and pricier) Lexar Play 2280 that’s available elsewhere.

And that’s in a PC. The Play 2280 SE will work in the PlayStation 5 that it’s marketed for, but that gaming console doesn’t support host memory buffer, which means you’re operating off of secondary cache all the time.

In other words, it won’t perform as well as a DRAM design in Sony’s hardware. The same is true for all HMB designs, but Lexar is one of the only companies I know of that markets its HMB as if it’s specially suited for the PlayStation. Come on now…

Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best PCIe 4.0 SSDs for comparison.

What are the Lexar Play 2280 SE’s features?

Created in the common 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) form factor, the Play 2280 SE is a PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2, NVMe SSD sporting an Innogrit IG5236 controller, and layered QLC (Quad-Level Cell/4-Bit) NAND. The older Play 2280 uses a Maxio MAP1602A controller and TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3-bit) NAND — it’s not the same drive.

Like the Play 2280, the Play 2280 SE is a host memory buffer design, i.e. it uses your device’s memory for primary caching duties, as opposed to dedicated memory on the SSD itself. HMB designs generally perform on par or better than DRAM designs in Windows Explorer large file transfers, or sustained throughput, but lag in small file, random operations. The latter was especially true in the Play 2280 SE’s case.

The warranty for the Play 2280 SE is five years.

How much is the Lexar Play 2280 SE?

At the time of this writing, the Play 2280 SE was only available in a 4TB capacity, only at Costco, and priced at $225, including the heatsink. On Amazon, the older 4TB Play 2280 is just over $250 at the time of this writing, and also available in 2TB capacity for $188.

The SE’s $225 is a good price, but I’ve seen WD’s excellent SN7100 on sale for less than either the Play 2280 SE or Play 2280, albeit with no heatsink. A heatsink is generally a $10 to $15 add on.

Again, the Play 2280 SE is currently a Costco exclusive product so you likely won’t find it on sale for a while. Lexar did intimate that the drive might eventually be available from other vendors.

How does the Lexar Play 2280 SE perform?

While not the fastest PCIe 4.0 host memory buffer design I’ve tested, the 4TB Lexar Play 2280 SE is not far off overall. That said, it was mysteriously slow at single-queue reads in CrystalDiskMark 8 — even compared to the older Play 2280. AS SSD and ATTO did not agree, though the latter had the 2280 SE pegged as a slower writer with its 2MB and 48MB data sets than any of the other size data sets.

You can see the story in the charts below.

The Play 2280 SE is currently a Costco exclusive product so you likely won’t find it on sale for a while

There was also a curious and distinct drop-off in random performance with multiple queues compared to the older 2280 Play.

The 48GB transfer times were essentially a draw, though the WD Black SN7100 just edged out the Play 2280 SE overall.

Again, there’s not much to distinguish one of these PCIe 4.0 HMB SSDs from the other in the 450GB write test. But again, this is in a Windows PC with support for host memory buffer. The Playstation 5 does not have that support.

Despite the difference in NAND types (QLC vs. TLC) the Play 2280 SE didn’t slump horribly compared to the Play 2280 when secondary cache was exhausted during a 950GB write. The SE dropped at around the 650GB mark to the 300MBps to 500MBps range — roughly SATA SSD speeds. The plain Play 2280 averages about 200MBps faster.

Regardless, 500MBps isn’t tragic and a testament to just how far QLC has come in the last couple years. Once upon a time we saw 50- to 75MBps native writing. Yuck.

Note that you will see this drop-off sooner with lower-capacity Play 2280 SEs as they have less NAND to treat as secondary cache (writing the NAND as single bit SLC).

Another caveat: The Play 2280 SE didn’t like our Highpoint 7604A PCIe 5.0 card at all, turning in a rather haphazard performance in CrystalDiskMark 8. Make sure it’s happy in your system within the item return period. CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, ATTO 4 are all good measuring sticks.

As to the Playstation. Yes, the 2280 SE will work in that system, and you’ll likely be happy with it. NVMe is extremely fast, even when it’s relying on secondary cache. But DRAM designs will work better in a Playstation, albeit for more money.

Should you buy the Lexar Play 2280 SE?

Though not the best performer in its class, the Play 2280 SE is good in real-world sustained throughput — and I like the looks. It’s also competitive price-wise. What I don’t like is it being marketed for a system that it’s not ideally suited for. For your PC — 4 stars. For the PlayStation — 3.5 stars.

How we test

Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. PCIe 5.0 SSDs involved in testing are mounted in a Asus ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 adapter card and a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 4-port M.2 adapter card.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks (to keep article length down, we only report one) to find the storage device’s potential performance, then a series of 48GB and 450GB transfers tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop to show what you’ll see under Window, as well as the far faster Xcopy and FastCopy to show what’s possible.

A 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Highpoint 7604A is used as the second drive in our transfer tests. Formerly the 48GB tests were done with a RAM disk.

Each test is performed on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This issue has abated somewher with the current crop of SSDs with more mature controllers and far faster late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know.

Best Prices Today: Lexar Play 2280 SE