Lexar's 3.8mm Muse SSD Hits Pre-Order at $249.99 for 512GB

Lexar has opened pre-orders for the Muse, a portable SSD it claims is the world's thinnest, with the 512GB version priced at $249.99 and the 1TB at $399.99 at B&H. The drive measures just 3.8mm at its thickest point, tapering to 1mm at the edges. That's roughly credit-card territory, and it's now booking ahead of a Q4 2026 arrival window that Lexar set when it announced the drive in September.

For working shooters, the pricing deserves a hard look. At $249.99 for 512GB, the Muse costs roughly 49 cents per gigabyte. The 1TB tier works out cheaper per gigabyte, but both sit well above mainstream portable SSDs. You're paying for the form factor, not for storage economics. Budget drives at similar capacities routinely land at half these prices, if not less.

What does the thinness actually buy you?

Lexar pitches the Muse as a drive that slips into a jeans pocket, but the more practical angle is phone-based video. The drive ships with a MagSafe-compatible magnetic sleeve that attaches it to the back of a phone without adding meaningful thickness. That setup lets compatible iPhones record footage directly to the SSD, skipping the bulk of conventional external storage — a genuine workflow consideration for anyone shooting mobile ProRes.

The company achieved the profile through a custom ultra-thin PCB, high-density NAND stacking, and an integrated internal architecture that maximises available space. The precision-machined unibody metal enclosure is aimed squarely at the Mac aesthetic, and Lexar says it also handles durability and heat dissipation. Those are manufacturer claims, of course; enclosure rigidity under field abuse is something lab testing will need to confirm.

A proprietary connector cuts both ways

The Muse skips the conventional USB-C port entirely. Lexar has developed what it calls a SnapLink Magnetic Cable, which attaches to a recessed array of pogo pins on the rear of the drive. N52-grade neodymium magnets guide the connector into position and keep it attached during use.

It's an elegant solution to the thickness problem — a USB-C port alone would eat much of the 3.8mm budget. The trade-off is obvious: lose the SnapLink cable and the drive is a paperweight until a replacement arrives. Proprietary connectors also raise questions about long-term availability. If you work in a multi-person production environment where any standard cable should fit any drive, that's a real limitation worth weighing.

Performance claims and the ProRes question

On paper, the numbers hold up. Lexar rates the Muse at read speeds up to 1050MB/s and write speeds up to 1000MB/s. That performance, the company says, enables compatible iPhones to record Apple ProRes 4K video at up to 120fps directly to the drive — the headline capability for mobile-focused shooters.

Those are rated figures, not measured ones, and sustained write performance in a metal enclosure this thin will depend heavily on thermal behavior. ProRes at 120fps is a sustained-write workload, not a burst. Independent benchmarks will tell the real story once units ship.

What does this change for photographers and videographers? For most desktop-tethered workflows, nothing. For mobile-first video production, it consolidates a mounting solution, external capture, and high-speed storage into one MagSafe-stickable package — at a premium of roughly 25 cents per gigabyte over commodity SSDs, by rough market comparison.

Pre-orders are live now at B&H, with delivery expected inside the Q4 2026 window Lexar committed to at announcement.