Lexar launches Muse portable hard drive: only 3.8mm thin, no USB-C

Lexar has just announced Muse - a portable solid-state hard drive that the company calls the world's thinnest. The thinnest part is only 1 millimeter, thin and very close in size to an ATM card. The thickest part is only 3.8 millimeters, even thinner than the iPhone Air. The company's announced size is about 80 × 48 × 3.8mm.

To make such a thin body, Muse uses a monolithic metal shell, ultra-thin printed circuits, and precise layering. Lexar says the minimalist aesthetic starts with machining a block of metal, reducing joints and seams.

Muse uses a separate magnetic connection port - SnapLink, one end connects to the SSD, the other end is USB-C to connect to the devices we use, such as phones, laptops, tablets...

Muse achieves USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds, reading up to 1,050 MB/s, writing up to 1,000 MB/s. This is a fairly basic speed level, enough to do most of the tasks that a portable SSD needs, such as recording video from iPhone to SSD with 4K120 resolution with Apple ProRes codec, data transfer, personal data storage...

Included with Muse is a magsafe wallet, which can hold Muse inside, and has a hole to connect even when Muse is in the wallet.

Muse is expected to have 512 GB and 1 TB versions, available from the fourth quarter of 2026 and has no expected selling price.

Muse is an extremely creative approach to portable SSDs, removing the USB-C port in exchange for a thinner size, a more elegant and stylish design, but still ensuring functionality with quite ok speeds at USB 3.2 Gen 2 levels.