INTRODUCTION

   Believe it or not once upon a time the fastest portable drives consumers could get their hands on were USB 2.0 flash drives so that alone shows just how much technology has evolved in the past 2 decades. Today well there are many fast portable storage devices consumers have access to with portable SSDs featuring Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.2 Gen1/2 and connectivity sitting at the top of that list (still too soon for USB4/TB4). However, with so many portable SSDs currently in the market it's far from easy for consumers to find the right model for the job and so just like with internal SSDs I’m doing my best to give you an insight on what you can expect from some of the models in the market today. The X6 and X8 portable SSDs by Crucial are two of the most popular models in the market and today with me i have the 2TB variants.

   Crucial is a global brand of Micron Technology, Inc. Crucial solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory (DRAM) upgrades are compatible with over 100,000 new and old desktops, laptops, workstations and servers. Crucial Ballistix memory delivers a performance edge to gamers, enthusiasts and power users. Available worldwide at leading retail and e-tail stores, commercial resellers and system integrators, Crucial products enhance system performance and user productivity. Learn more at crucial.com.

   Both the X6 and X8 portable SSDs are currently available in 1/2TB capacities and feature compact enclosures (the X8 one is made out of anodized aluminum which helps with heat dissipation - the X6 has a plastic one) that have rubber pads on both sides. Of course, these enclosures are also temperature-proof, vibration-proof and shock-proof up to 6.5 feet for the X6 and 7.5 feet for the X8. Under the hood of the X6 2TB Crucial has placed a 1.5" PCB which contains the Silicon Motion SM2259XT NAND flash controller, 96-layer 3D QLC NAND flash (Micron) and the ASMedia ASM235CM SATA to USB host interface bridge chip. On the other hand, under the hood of the X8 we once again find the P1 M.2 PCIe SSD with the Silicon Motion SM2263 NAND flash controller, 96-layer 3D QLC NAND flash (Micron - the 1TB version came with 64 layer NAND flash) and the ASMedia ASM2362 PCIe host interface bridge chip. These hardware combinations allow the X6 models to hit read and write performance speeds of up to 540MB/s and the X8 models to go all the way up to 1050MB/s. Both drives support TRIM and SMART, are compatible with PCs, Macs, PS4s, XBOX Ones, iPad Pros, Chromebooks and select Android devices and are covered by a 3 year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Both drives arrived inside small black and blue boxes that have large product pictures at the front right beneath the company logo and next to the capacity and advertised performance.

Some words about the products are printed at the rear of both boxes in 11 languages.

Crucial packs both drives with their USB-C to USB-C cables (an USB-A adapter gets packed with the X8) and their quick start guides.

THE X6 & X8 2TB

The X6 and X8 portable SSDs are quite different in size with the X6 measuring 69mm in length, 64mm in width and 11mm in thickness (weighs just 42g) and the X8 measuring 110mm in length, 53mm in width and 11.5mm in height (weighs over twice as much at 97g).

To showcase both the size of the X6 and X8 i placed them right next to the SE760 by ADATA, Z7S by Netac, SL200 by Lexar, PC60 by Silicon Power, SL100 Pro again by Lexar and the SE800 again by ADATA.

At the rear of both drives we find several certifications, the model name and its capacity.

Both drives feature their USB-C ports at the front.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

    Solid state drives are basically the same as USB flash drives and so we’re using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read & write performance numbers in our charts*. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read / Write speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Titanium 2020 (Read / Write speeds), AIDA64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear / Random Read & Write speeds), Crystal Disk Mark 6.0.2 (2GB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO 4.00.0F2 (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a CORSAIR MP510 960GB NVME SSD* with all updates installed up to the day we started tests.

* Since August 2019 for portable SSD tests I started using the primary test rig.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

CONCLUSION

    Since I did review the X8 1TB variant early last year I already had a good idea in mind as to how the 2TB variant would perform (and as you can all easily tell from the charts these two are trading blows in most test suites). However, I had no prior contact with the X6 model and so I was very curious to check its performance numbers which again as you can tell are roughly half compared to those of the X8 (as expected from a SATA based vs a PCIe based model). Of course, size does play a part in these things (especially since we’re talking about portable drives) and so by using a tiny 1.5” PCB the X6 is almost half the size of the X8 so it goes to reason that it couldn’t be just as fast (win some, lose some).

   At the time of this review the Crucial X6 and X8 2TB portable drives retail for USD219.95/279.95 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 231.01/239Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) so especially inside the EU I see no reason for people to opt for the X6 model over the X8 one (at least not unless size is of extreme importance). So although the market has far more portable SSDs today than 1 year ago both the X6 and X8 models by Crucial offer very good price/performance (or more accurately price/size for the X6) and for that they deserve the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (X8)
- Near Excellent Performance (X8)
- Size (X6)
- Temperature, Vibration and Shock Proof
- 3 Years Limited Warranty
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Plastic Enclosure (X6)