Pre-orders are open for the Muse Ultra-Slim, the card-thin SSD Lexar built to ride on the back of an iPhone. B&H takes $249.99 for the 512GB version and $399.99 for the 1TB, with the first units expected in mid December.
The shape is the story. Lexar’s drive measures 3.8mm at its thickest point, tapers to 1mm at the edges, and weighs 26.5 grams.
Our September look at the Muse ran with the price still listed as TBD and no ship date in sight; both blanks are filled now.
Lexar Muse Ultra-Slim Portable SSD, 512GB
1TB version runs $399.99 · Magnetic carry sleeve and SnapLink cable in the box · First units expected mid December 2026
Price: $249.99
Where to buy: Pre-order at B&H
A credit card footprint with a machined aluminum shell
Footprint runs 80 by 48mm, roughly the face of a credit card.
Lexar machines the shell from a single piece of aluminum, with minimal seams and a clean, unbroken outline. Inside, a custom ultra-thin circuit board and high-density NAND stacking let the parts fit a body this shallow. From the side, the drive nearly disappears against a phone.
A thicker drive behind a phone becomes a raised block your fingers keep finding mid-shot. Lexar flattened that problem instead: the card sits inside the sleeve’s outline, so the back of the phone stays one smooth surface while you work.
Lexar bills the Muse as the world’s thinnest portable SSD, and the hard numbers support the shape of the claim. At 3.8mm it runs thinner than any phone it will ride on.
Its 1mm edge sits close to a credit card’s. The drive also works outside the sleeve, cabled to any compatible USB-C device, so it isn’t trapped in phone duty.
The port is gone and a magnet takes its place
No USB-C socket exists anywhere on the Muse. A recessed contact patch on its face takes the supplied SnapLink Magnetic Cable instead, and the cable lands on spring-loaded PogoPin contacts guided by N52 neodymium magnets. There’s not even a covered port on the shell to pry open.
Carry runs on magnets too. The drive slides into a magnetic sleeve, the sleeve snaps onto a MagSafe iPhone or case, and a magnetic ring in the box covers phones with no magnets of their own. A cable clip and a USB-C to USB-A adapter ride along in the box.
The routine runs three steps: slide the drive into the sleeve, snap the sleeve onto the phone, land the cable. The sleeve’s magnets are N52-grade as well, and the sleeve keeps the metal shell from riding directly against the phone’s back.
The trade is plain. That one cable is the only way into the drive, so the SnapLink becomes a part you can’t leave behind in a hotel room. The standard USB-C cables already in your bag do nothing for this SSD.
It records ProRes straight off the phone
With the Muse connected, a compatible iPhone records Apple ProRes 4K video at up to 120 frames per second directly onto the drive. Footage never touches the phone’s internal storage, which is the reason the drive exists.
ProRes at 4K120 eats storage faster than any other mode the phone offers.
512GB is the floor for a format that eats storage by the minute, and the 1TB is the one built for full shooting days away from a charger and a desk.
Apple sets the gate here: external ProRes recording needs a USB-C iPhone from the 15 series on, and the resolutions and frame rates on offer depend on the phone and its settings.
Back at a desk, it plugs into an iPad or Mac and moves the take at up to 1,050 MB/s reading and 1,000 MB/s writing over USB 3.2 Gen 2.
The Lexar App also backs up a phone’s photos and videos to the drive on its own, for the days when nothing was recorded on purpose.
That backup habit is the quieter half of the pitch. A phone that hands its camera roll to the drive on its own back stops nagging about storage, and the originals sit on a drive that plugs into anything with a USB-C port at the other end.
| Capacity | 512GB or 1TB |
| Dimensions | 80 × 48 × 3.8 mm |
| Weight | 26.5 g |
| Read speed | Up to 1,050 MB/s |
| Write speed | Up to 1,000 MB/s |
| Interface | USB 3.2 Gen 2 over the PogoPin SnapLink Magnetic Cable |
| Body | Aluminum unibody |
| In the box | Muse SSD, magnetic carry sleeve, SnapLink Magnetic Cable, magnetic ring, cable clip, USB-C to USB-A adapter |
| Price | $249.99 (512GB), $399.99 (1TB) |
| Ships | Expected mid December 2026 |
Thin costs a few things
The spec sheet gives up the usual rugged kit.
B&H’s listing shows no encryption, no rated impact resistance, and no environmental sealing, and Lexar publishes no drop or water rating for the drive. It is a machined metal card, and it asks to be carried like one.
Speed sits a class down too. USB 3.2 Gen 2 tops out at the quoted 1,050 MB/s, plenty for offloading a day of ProRes footage. It isn’t the drive to buy when raw transfer speed is the job.
The shape carries a premium as well. Lexar’s own ES3 portable SSD sells in the same 512GB size for $129.99 on Amazon, in the same speed class, and the 1TB gap runs wider at $199.99 against $399.99. The Muse asks $249.99, and the extra $120 buys the 3.8mm body and the magnetic carry system. The ES3 plugs in with a normal USB-C cable too, like every other drive in the drawer.
The buyer here is specific: an iPhone shooter who records ProRes away from a desk and wants the storage to vanish against the phone.
For that kit, nothing else is cut this thin, and the December ship window makes it a pre-order decision rather than a shelf decision.
Lexar Muse Ultra-Slim Portable SSD, 512GB
1TB version runs $399.99 · Magnetic carry sleeve and SnapLink cable in the box · First units expected mid December 2026
Price: $249.99
Where to buy: Pre-order at B&H
Everyone else is paying for thinness they will never notice inside a bag. If your phone rig is the kit you actually carry, the Muse is the drive shaped for it.
