Lexar 64GB JumpDrive P20 USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

Today’s review sample, straight from Lexar, is the next in my saga of super fast flash drive reviews. This bad boy, the 64GB P20, runs at USB 3.0 and is touted to be “Among the fastest USB flash drives available…” so you’d better bet I’ll put their claim to the test! Here goes nothing, boys and girls.

Specifications and Features

There hasn’t been word from Lexar as to what controller and NAND are in use in the P20, but I feel like it is a different controller from the Phison S8 we’ve seen in the last couple of reviews. You’ll see why before long. With a speed rating of 400 MB/s sequential read and 270 MB/s there is no doubt the Lexar P20 is going to be a blisteringly fast drive. One large advantage over most competitors is the limited lifetime warranty offered by Lexar on this drive, way to stand behind your product!

The specifications and features below come directly from the Lexar website.

64GB Lexar JumpDrive P20 Specs and Features
Part NumberLJDP20-64GCRBNA
Capacity64GB
USB TechnologyUSB 3.0
Dimensions64mm x 22mm x 11mm (2.52in x 0.87in x 0.43in)
Rated Read Speed400MB/s
Rated Write Speed270MB/s
Store and transfer content fasterStore and transfer content faster with premium performance. The premium Lexar®JumpDrive® P20 USB 3.0 flash drive provides fast file transfer with speeds up to 400MB/s read and 270MB/s write, making it one of the fastest USB flash drives available.* Now you can transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 40 seconds.** And for added versatility, the drive is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices.
retractable connectorReflect your style with its sleek, metal alloy design. Beyond its powerful capabilities, the drive has a sleek design with a metal alloy base and a high-gloss mirror finish top. What’s more, its retractable connector with convenient thumb slide means no lost cap, and its key ring loop makes it easy to attach to your keychain or computer bag and go. With its premium look and feel, JumpDrive P20 is an excellent solution for those looking for a durable and well-designed USB 3.0 flash drive.
JumpDrive P20 includes EncryptStick Lite softwareSecurely protect files with advanced security software. Looking to protect personal information, financial records, or other sensitive files on the go? JumpDrive P20 includes EncryptStick™ Lite software, an advanced security solution with 256-bit AES encryption to help protect your essential files against corruption, loss, and deletion. Easily create a password-protected vault that automatically encrypts data. And for peace of mind, files that are deleted from the vault are securely erased and can’t be recovered.
Store more of what mattersStore more of what matters. JumpDrive P20 is available in a wide range of high-capacity options from 32GB-128GB, opening a world of storage possibilities and allowing you to store more of what matters.
Lexar Quality LabsLexar performance, quality, compatibility, and reliability. All Lexar memory card, card reader, storage drive, and USB flash drive product designs undergo extensive testing in the Lexar Quality Labs, facilities with more than 1,100 digital devices, to ensure performance, quality, compatibility, and reliability. This provides customers with a high level of confidence when using Lexar products to capture, manage, move, and store the memories that matter.

Retail Packaging

Taking a look at the product box for the JumpDrive P20 we can clearly see the product itself displayed. The outer shell is a clear plastic with some white print on it. The inner packaging is a black, molded plastic. On the back side, inside the outer sleeve, is a sheet with features and specifications. There is also a flip-up tab on the rear for hanging on a pegboard in a brick and mortar store.

Retail Packaging – Front
Retail Packaging – Front

Retail Packaging – Rear
Retail Packaging – Rear

The Lexar JumpDrive P20

For the P20, Lexar opted to keep things simple. On the product front there are only two features; the white Lexar logo and the slider to open the flash drive. The whole front is constructed from black, injection molded plastic. Turning to the rear we see a one-piece, aluminum case which the black plastic of the front snaps in to. The JumpDrive P20 is built solid and will last a long time. It has a heavy feel in-hand, most likely due to the thickness of the aluminum casing. Also formed in the aluminum is a lanyard hole, of which one is included as well.

Product Pic - Front
Product Pic – Front

Product Pic - Rear
Product Pic – Rear

Product Pic - Extended
Product Pic – Extended

Testing and Benchmarks

Listed below is the test system used for benchmarking.

Test Setup
CPUIntel 6700K @ Stock (for the motherboard – 4.0 boost to 4.2 GHz)
CoolerCoolerMaster Glacer 240L
MotherboardASRock Z170 Extreme7+
RAM2×4GB DDR4 GSKILL RipJaws4 @ 3000MHz 15-15-15-35 2T 1.35v
Graphics CardEVGA GTX 750Ti FTW
Solid State DriveSamsung 850 Pro 256GB
Power SupplyEVGA SuperNova G2 850W
Operating SystemWindows 10 x64

Benchmarks

All of the benchmarks seen below are run with the JumpDrive P20 plugged in to the rear USB USB 3.1 port of the motherboard. Before testing the drive was quick formatted to exFAT with the default allocation size to make sure everything was clean and consistent.

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is run at its standard settings. The beauty of this benchmark is that the data is completely incompressible. This makes these tests more like a real-world situation instead of attempting to maximize throughput for a spec sheet. The JumpDrive P20 performed very well here, nearly reaching sequential specifications for max speed. The 4K read speeds were better than most drives I’ve tested, but the 4K writes were definitely lackluster.

CrystalDiskMark Results
CrystalDiskMark Results

AS SSD is next up on the list and shows a very similar story to the CDM results above. Sequential speeds were solid, with the write speed merely single digits from eclipsing the max. Again 4K read performance is solid here, but the write for 4K and access time were… bad.

AS SSD Results
AS SSD Results

Third up in our test suite is HD Tune Pro. Here we test with the Random data pattern, this shows more real-world information than a steady stream of the same compressible data. The sequential performance here was outstanding, with the write speed passing the max! On the 4K performance; read IOPS were incredible, but the write IOPS were lacking.

HD Tune Pro Results
HD Tune Pro Results

ATTO Disk Benchmark is typically used by manufacturers to showcase their drive specs as it uses compressible data in a sequential test much like AS SSD does. That being said, the JumpDrive P20 came in lower on read speeds than I expected here, but writes were better than expected.

ATTO Results
ATTO Results

Comparison Data

As a “baseline” to compare the P20 with I pulled out my trusty 16GB SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive. This is a flash drive that I’ve used since August of 2013.

For the second comparison data, I used the results from the previously reviewed 256GB Patriot Magnum 2 USB 3.1 Flash Drive.

For the third comparison data, I used the results from the recently reviewed 256GB Mushkin IMPACT USB 3.0 Flash Drive.

Results in the graphs are normalized to the Lexar JumpDrive P20 results, so those all show 100%. All results except the Access Time are “higher is better,” those are “lower is better.”

CDM – Read Graph
CDM – Read Graph

CDM – Write Graph
CDM – Write Graph

AS SSD – Read Graph
AS SSD – Read Graph

AS SSD – Write Graph
AS SSD – Write Graph

HD Tune Pro – Read Graph
HD Tune Pro – Read Graph

HD Tune Pro – Write Graph
HD Tune Pro – Write Graph

ATTO Graph
ATTO Graph

As a second comparison a real world situation was approached. A backup folder from my server was copied to each flash drive and timed, so this result is “lower is better”. By my stopwatch the JumpDrive P20 finished the transfer in 7:02.92 (mm:ss) while the Sandisk finished in 5:42.84 and the Patriot finished in 13:43.58. The folder is 5.50GB and contains 6,670 files in 1,080 folders and results here were surprising, I honestly did not expect the P20 to finish the test in almost half the time of the Patriot. This is proof, in the real world, 4K and sequential numbers aren’t the be-all of performance. I’m also glad to say, this is the first hyper-fast flash drive to come close to my Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 in real world testing.

Conclusion

In synthetic benchmarks the P20 had a few stumbling blocks in the small-file write performance. I’m glad the stumbling halted in the synthetic benchmarks because I would much rather see real-world performance than synthetic performance. Sure, synthetics look great on paper, but for the vast majority of users what counts is how the drive performs in-use. Built on one of the best, if not the best, cases I have ever felt for a flash drive the JumpDrive P20 rounds out to be an amazing product. This review sample was 64GB, but it is also available in the 32GB and 128GB flavors.

As far as pricing goes, this drive is available direct from Lexar for $54.99, but I also found it at B&H for $37.68. For performance of this level, at under $0.60/GB, the JumpDrive P20 is a hard product to beat. It definitely gets the Overclockers Approved stamp.

Overclockers_clear_approvedClick the stamp for an explanation of what this means.

-Austin (ATMINSIDE)

 

About Austin Matthews 47 Articles
Austin is a mechanical engineer who enjoys both overclocking and building computers. For 10+ years, he has been writing video card, motherboard, storage and processor reviews for Overclockers.com. In 2018, he became one of the owners of the site and can now mostly be found managing the servers and technology that power Overclockers.com. When not on the site, he's spending time with his wife and kid, enjoying racing, or working on the house or cars.

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Avatar of HankB
HankB

Member

1,221 messages 20 likes

Thanks for including the Sandisk Extreme in the comparison. I bought the 64GB version several years ago and it seems like it remains a strong contender.

One thing I will add is that I have done some comparisons amongst USB drives and microSD cards in the range of 64GB and smaller for the purpose of choosing storage for a Raspberry Pi and have found that some drives exhibit a marked drop in speed between the 6$GB and smaller models. I wonder if the Sandisk Extreme is like that. If so, the 64GB Sandisk extreme might compare even better.

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Avatar of ATMINSIDE
ATMINSIDE

Sim Racing Aficionado Co-Owner

23,909 messages 403 likes

The read speeds are the same across all models of the Extreme, but the write speed goes up as capacity does.

It is definitely a solid drive, but a different type of fast from what I've been receiving for review. This Lexar is the closest thing I've seen to the Extreme, all the others looked a lot better on paper than they were in realistic usage.

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Woomack

Benching Team Leader

13,180 messages 2,183 likes

I'm not sure why your ATTO results are so low. I had no issues with that when I was reviewing P20 about a year ago:

Lexar_JumpDrive_P20_res1.jpg

That was on ASRock Z97 OCF.

Since I'm using Jumpdrive P10 and P20 which look about the same, I will only add that they're really solid. I'm using both almost everyday - P10 for nearly 2 years while P20 for about a year.

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Avatar of ATMINSIDE
ATMINSIDE

Sim Racing Aficionado Co-Owner

23,909 messages 403 likes

Woomack, make sure all your settings match mine. Can you try again and post back?

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Woomack

Benching Team Leader

13,180 messages 2,183 likes

Here is result made on ASUS GL552VW laptop ( on battery ). My P20 has nearly a year and is ~85% full but still can reach 300MB/s read in queue depth 4 and 275MB/s in 10:

atto.jpg

On desktop boards with Z170 chipset should be better results. At least on Z170 OCF I have up to 50MB/s higher max bandwidth on various USB storage devices than on this laptop.

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Avatar of ATMINSIDE
ATMINSIDE

Sim Racing Aficionado Co-Owner

23,909 messages 403 likes

Huh, I'm not sure what the deficit is there, but it's definitely consistent across all testing.
I'm on the USB 3.1 port, as stated in the review, I wonder if the native 3.0 port is faster.

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Woomack

Benching Team Leader

13,180 messages 2,183 likes

All Intel ports are using the same driver and should perform better than any non-Intel controllers.
I'm not sure why only in ATTO are worse results as in other benchmarks are about as high as it should be.

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