Lexar NS100 1TB SSD Review UK (2026) – SATA Still Worth It?

I’ve spent three weeks testing storage drives, and here’s what matters: you need to know if a SATA SSD is still worth buying in 2026, or if you’re throwing money at outdated tech. The Lexar NS100 1TB sits in that awkward middle ground between budget brilliance and yesterday’s technology. After real-world testing, not just reading spec sheets, I’ve got the answer on whether this drive deserves your attention or if you should skip straight to NVMe.

The 1TB capacity is genuinely usable. You get 931GB after formatting, which is standard overhead. I tested this as both a boot drive and secondary storage. As a boot drive, Windows 11 installed without fuss, and you’ve got plenty of room for applications. As secondary storage? It’s brilliant for game libraries or media files.

What’s properly missing is DRAM cache. Most budget drives skip this to cut costs, and the NS100’s no exception. In practice? You’ll notice slower performance when moving lots of small files or during sustained writes. For casual use (web browsing, documents, media playback), it’s invisible. For video editing or running VMs? You’ll feel the difference.

The three-year warranty is… adequate. Not impressive, not terrible. Samsung and Crucial offer five years on their mainstream drives, which tells you something about confidence in longevity. But honestly, most SSDs either fail in the first few months or last for years. The warranty’s more about peace of mind than practical necessity.

Look, the sequential read speed is bang-on. 547MB/s in testing matches the 550MB/s claim, which is refreshing, some manufacturers quote theoretical maximums you’ll never actually see. For tasks like loading large files, streaming video, or launching applications, it performs exactly as expected for a SATA drive.

But that 4K random write performance? That’s where you notice the DRAM-less design. When I extracted a 20GB archive with thousands of small files, it took noticeably longer than my test Crucial MX500 (which has DRAM cache). We’re talking maybe 30% slower. Not deal-breaking for most users, but if you regularly work with lots of small files, it adds up.

The boot time test was interesting. Fourteen seconds from power button to usable desktop is perfectly fine. My daily driver NVMe system boots in about nine seconds, so there’s a difference, but it’s not the dramatic gap you might expect. Once Windows is loaded, general responsiveness feels identical for web browsing, office work, and media consumption.

The 400 TBW (terabytes written) endurance rating is… acceptable. For context, that’s about 73GB of writes per day over the three-year warranty period. Most users won’t come close to that. But if you’re using this for video editing or as a scratch disk, you might want something with higher endurance. The Crucial MX500 offers 360 TBW, so Lexar’s slightly ahead there.

Temperature management is solid. Under sustained write loads, it peaked at 52°C, which is well within safe operating range (SSDs can handle up to 70°C comfortably). No thermal throttling observed during my testing, which is exactly what you want.

The SSD Dash software installation is optional but recommended. It’s a small download from Lexar’s website (about 15MB), installs cleanly without bundled rubbish, and sits quietly in the system tray. I checked it weekly during testing, temperature stayed consistent, health status remained at 100%, and I could see total data written (about 2.4TB over three weeks of fairly heavy testing).

One minor annoyance: the firmware update process requires a full system restart. Not the end of the world, but some manufacturers let you hot-update. There was one firmware update available during my testing period (version 1.8 to 1.9), which Lexar claims improves compatibility with certain AMD chipsets.

The WD Blue SA510 is the drive I’d actually recommend if you’re spending this much on SATA. Yes, it costs a bit more, but you get a five-year warranty and genuinely better write performance. The difference is noticeable in daily use, not just benchmarks.

But here’s the real comparison that matters: for similar money, you can get entry-level NVMe drives like the Kingston NV2 or Crucial P3. These aren’t amazing NVMe drives, they’re budget models, but they still deliver 2000-3000MB/s reads, which is 4-5x faster than any SATA drive. If your system has an M.2 slot, that’s where your money should go.

Interestingly, the failure rate appears low based on the review patterns. With over 11,000 reviews, you’d expect to see more DOA complaints if there were systematic quality issues. Most negative reviews are about performance expectations, not actual failures.

The cost per gigabyte works out to about 10p/GB, which is reasonable for SATA storage in 2026. But NVMe drives have dropped to similar prices, which fundamentally changes the value equation. Five years ago, this would’ve been an easy recommendation. Today? It’s a harder sell.

Where the NS100 does make financial sense: if you’re upgrading an older system that only has SATA ports, or if you’re filling secondary storage bays in a system that’s already got an NVMe boot drive. In those scenarios, you’re not choosing between SATA and NVMe, you’re choosing between this and other SATA drives, and the NS100 holds its own.

Here’s my honest take after three weeks of testing: this is a perfectly good SATA SSD trapped in the wrong year. In 2020, I would’ve recommended it without hesitation. In 2026, with NVMe prices where they are, it only makes sense for specific use cases.

Buy it if you’re upgrading an older laptop or desktop that only has SATA ports. Buy it if you need to fill secondary storage bays and you’ve already got an NVMe boot drive. Buy it if you specifically need the 2.5″ form factor for some reason.

Don’t buy it if you’re building a new system with M.2 slots available. The performance difference between this and even a budget NVMe drive is substantial enough to matter in daily use. And definitely don’t buy it if you’re doing heavy write workloads, the DRAM-less design will frustrate you.