The Lexar DD512 was released as a USB 3.0, flash-based storage option for the company's Professional Workflow Line, which has been designed for photographers and videographers who need to quickly back up images and video files from multiple memory cards. However, the DD512 can be also connected directly to your computer and be used as an external SSD.

The drive itself is compact in size, easy to carry around and easy to use offering plug-n-play convenience. Our benchmarks showed that it is adequately fast in the sequential read and write tasks, reaching the 340MB/s and 200 MB/s for read / write, respectively. That's probably faster than your CF card but not exactly what Lexar is promising and what we would expect from an external SSD.

The DD512 has been obviously optimized for using it as a backup device. Its performance with small files is by far lower than other SSDs and it cannot be efficiently used for tasks that require intense random read/write operations.

So with $170 you get a nice accessory for your Professional Workflow HR1 or a compact external device to get with you and backup your daily work, files or photos. The main advantage of the device seems to be its price, which possibly the lowest you can find for a 512GB SSD - not to mention for an external one.