Lexar Professional Workflow HR2 4-Bay Thunderbolt 2 / USB 3.0 Reader Hub Review
by Ganesh T S on June 22, 2017 8:00 AM ESTConcluding Remarks
The Lexar Workflow HR2 4-bay Thunderbolt 2 / USB 3.0 hub has been in the market since July 2014, and that explains some of the dated features such as a Thunderbolt 2 interface (instead of Thunderbolt 3). The next iteration of the hub and the readers should be an interesting one, given that Thunderbolt 3 has moved to the USB Type-C connector. If the readers are also updated to a USB 3.0 Type-C interface, that should also solve the issue with the CFast 2.0 reader falling back to USB 3.0 speeds when used with the hub.
On the readers side, the CompactFlash one was a bit of a pain to work with. I actually managed to bend the internal pins by accidentally inserting a CF card improperly, and had to purchase a new one to complete the review. However, the other readers were a breeze to use. The aspect that I liked most was the ability to use the readers without the hub. In this mode, no external power is needed. The hub, on the other hand, is more suited for desktop use due to the power adapter requirements. We hope that the next iteration will go in for a more compact adapter. The hub also allows multiple cards to be accessed at once over a single system interface, though I did find some of the readers disconnecting and reconnecting under simultaneous access with three or more readers. The LEDs indicating the activity status are also quite bright, and might be an issue for some users.
In addition to the various card readers, the four-bay hub is also compatible with the Lexar Portable SSD and the UH1 2-port USB 3.0 hub. Even though we didn't take those out for a test drive in this review, it points to Lexar creating a very cohesive suite of products around the hub.
Reviewing the hub also gave us the opportunity to create a review workflow for various storage cards used by photographers and videographers. Our workflow targets the typical use-case for such cards. In addition to support for bandwidth-intensive applications such as 4K video recording, SD and microSD cards need to support usage in SBCs (single board computers), smartphones, and other embedded applications. These workloads require good random read and write performance also. These cases are handled in our accelerated aging component - the PCMark 8 storage bench.
We found that the CompactFlash card has much better performance as well as consistency compared to the SDXC and microSDXC cards. Within the SD domain, it is clear that much of the focus is on microSDXC now. The 1800x microSDXC 128GB not only performs better than the 1000x SDXC UHS-II card, but, also exhibits better performance consistency after extended usage. The CFast 2.0 card was evaluated using the Thunderbolt 2 interface. It performs very similar to that of a mid-range mSATA SSD - the form factors are also quite similar. The XQD card was a bit of a puzzle - our tests revealed performance numbers that were not even close to the claimed performance numbers. We are yet to determine the exact reason behind this, given that our sample size of one card model and one reader doesn't provide us with much leeway.
In conclusion, the hub definitely eases the task of transferring data from cards on to a PC. It is sturdy, and the build quality is good. The dual interface (USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2) ensures that the unit is compatible with a wide variety of systems. It also helps in keeping the workspace organized, with the readers slotted into the hub even when they are not being used. The hub is definitely recommended for high-volume photographers, while the readers (that can be used standalone) are suitable for casual users. There are a number of options available in the latter market, and the Lexar readers might not always be the most cost-effective solution. Despite some quirks, the hub is a unique product. It has a street price around $200, and Lexar definitely deserves credit for bringing it to the market at that semi-professional price point.
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romrunning - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
It would be a nicer product if it supported Thunderbolt 3.romrunning - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
... and while we're at it, USB 3.1 Gen2. That would make it a more usable hub for me.ganeshts - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
Definitely.. but, as I mentioned in the concluding section, we are reviewing a product that is almost 3 years old now :) (it is in our review table for an additional reason - allowing us to evaluate memory cards from different vendors). The next iteration should bring about USB 3.1 Gen 2 (which should be more than good enough bandwidth-wise) and / or Thunderbolt 3 (which should enable daisy-chaining with other equipment)Morawka - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
adds costs and the speed is not needed unless your flashing to a RAID 5 Array of SSD'sSamus - Thursday, June 22, 2017 - link
Wow, I didn't even know something like XQD existed. That's a pretty badass format (PCIe) considering it dates back to 2010.Grammar polic3 - Friday, June 23, 2017 - link
"There product lines include memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, and external SSDs."You should have started the sentence with "their".
ganeshts - Friday, June 23, 2017 - link
Unpardonable mistake. Not sure how that sneaked into the piece. I have changed it.Wolfpup - Friday, June 23, 2017 - link
The...I don't know what you call them, but the readers that can plug in to the dock also work on their own. I've been using an SD card one on it's own for several years, use it to use an SC card to sync some stuff between work and home, and the setup works great.cfenton - Sunday, June 25, 2017 - link
I like seeing SD card reviews.Just a few typos/errors to point out:
1. On the 1000x SDXC page it says "From write speeds of aroun 100 MBps, we drop down to 16 MBps."
2. The graphs in the PCMark 8 section of the CFast page seem to be flipped around. It shows that the card has much faster write speeds than read speeds, while all the other charts on the page show the opposite.
jonny13 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Funny how this review comes out before Micron takes the ax to Lexar and shuts down the product line, which sucks as I had gone to all Lexar products in my cameras as they are much more reliable and faster than Sandisk.RIP Lexar
https://www.micron.com/about/blogs/2017/june/micro...