Photos and Features
The packaging for the Lexar NM790 is similar to past Lexar packaging. It has a black background with a large zoomed-in picture of the NM790 in the center. Up top, the hanger part of the box is silver which is a change from the NM800 Pro which was gold. The silver continues into the model name which is up top. That has the drive size(M.2 2280) and connection type (PCIe 4x4) with it so you know exactly what you are working with. The Lexar logo is up top as well. Then down at the bottom, they have the drive speed which for the NM790 is listed at up to 7400 MB/s read speed, and then in the bottom right corner there is a grey spot where they can put a sticker with the drive's capacity which for our sample is the 2TB model. The back of the box continues the black background but is packed full of small fine print text. Up top, they do highlight a few features, namely the drive speed and that it is twice the speed of PCIe Gen 3 drives. They also talk about less power consumption because it is DRAMless. The back has a window so you can see the drive inside to see the serial number and confirm the drive size. Then down at the bottom below all of the legal info is the UPC and a badge for the 5-year warranty.
When you get inside of the NM790’s box you have a clear plastic clamshell which has the drive in the center. Lexar also includes a tiny M.2 screw. They are the only company I see do this but it is always a nice touch. They are easy to lose and often if this is a second drive you may have to go dig out your motherboard box to find a screw at all. Then for documentation, you get a folded-up SSD quick installation guide which also has warranty information. This documentation isn’t specific to the NM790 but if you need help it does have some information, your motherboard’s instructions would be a better place to look though. The NM790 has a 5-year warranty which is in line with what most Samsung drives and Western Digital drives like the SN770 have.
The drive itself doesn’t come with any heatsinks or anything that would prevent it from being used with any motherboard that has its own heatsink. The PCB is black which matched up well with the sticker that runs the length of the drive on top. The sticker is split between the top and bottom and matches other Lexar drives. It has the black on the bottom and has the model name and drive type information printed there in white. Then the Lexar logo is in silver to match what we saw on the packaging. The top half is silver as well with thin black lines at an angle and on the top right has the 790 designation popping out. You can’t go wrong with black and silver, it always looks great if the drive is visible so the NM790 is good there and Lexar’s half-and-half styling looks great and keeps their branding consistent between drives as well.
The back of the NM790 doesn’t have anything on the PCB at all so the sticker back here is right on the PCB, not on top of the components like on the front. The sticker has the Lexar branding up top in a black stripe and the rest is all white. They have a few regulatory logos on there and then the drives part number and serial number are listed as well as a barcode and QR code for them.
Without a heatsink getting to the components on the NM790 wasn’t too hard. With it off I could see what all the drive has going on. We knew going in that this is a DRAMless design so it isn’t a surprise that we aren’t seeing that at all. There are four NAND pads but our 2TB sample is using just two of the pads. The NM790 is available in a range of sizes. You can get smaller drives like the 512GB and 1TB models as well as the larger capacities like the 2TB we have here and a 4TB as well. So they must be saving those two other spots just for the 4TB model. The NAND is Longsys which is the brand that owns Lexar. Each NAND has RY18TAA48821024 and H231003028301T on them and these are 232-layer TLC NAND. The controller is then near the M.2 connection and is a Maxio MAP1602 with MAP1602A-P20 etched on it.
