SSD by stefan @ 2020-11-15
Even if the X6 is no speed demon, it is considerably faster that other USB external storage we have previously tested; it is also very compact, so it fits well inside your pocket, while supporting the latest USB connection standard. The SATA-based drive does succeed to keep a constant performance even during longer usage sessions, without getting as hot as the X8.
At first we would like to thank Crucial for sending a sample of their X6 2TB Portable SSD for testing and reviewing.
“Looking for computer memory or a new storage drive? You've come to the right place!
Crucial is a global brand of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest memory and flash storage manufacturers in the world. We make computer memory upgrades (DRAM) and solid state drives (SSDs), and offer more than 250,000 upgrades for over 50,000 systems. For 17 years, we've sought to provide the Crucial Difference — award-winning products, outstanding support, and a team of memory and storage experts who explain complex lingo in everyday terms. We're here to help improve the performance of your system.
Crucial memory and SSDs have been qualified and approved by major original equipment manufacturers, and every single module that leaves our doors has been rigorously tested at the component and module level. That's a big deal in the memory industry, but it's not all. When it comes to our SSDs, each drive undergoes over a thousand hours of prerelease validation testing and hundreds of qualification tests to ensure optimal reliability and performance.
To find upgrades in just a few clicks, our award-winning Crucial System Scanner or Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool will identify compatible upgrades for your system, and if you order on Crucial.com, we guarantee compatibility — or your money back. With fast and free shipping, outstanding tech support, and an exhaustive library of articles, videos, and install guides, we make it easy to find and install the right upgrade for your system.
Let us be your memory and storage experts.”
The SSD that takes you where HDD can’t.
With speeds up to 3.8x faster than most traditional HDDs, the Crucial X6 lets you load and transfer files fast and get back to your day. Say goodbye to slow, fragile hard drives and lengthy load times forever.
Tiny drive. Huge capacity.
With up to 2TB capacity, take your digital life with you. Massive photo libraries, files, games, and movie collections can now all fit in your pocket. At less than 42 grams, the Crucial X6 weighs less than your car keys.
Ready for anything.
The X6 portable SSD is the storage device that works with most everything: PC, Mac, PS4™, Xbox One, Android devices, and more6. USB-C ready straight out of the box.
Reliability and durability are Crucial.
The Crucial X6 is tested to withstand a 6.5-foot drop, and is shock, vibration, and extreme temperature resistant — safeguarding your important files wherever you go.
Life Cycle - New
Brand - Crucial
SSD series - X6
Warranty - Manufacturer's 3 Year Limited
Sequential Read - 540
Capacity - 2TB
Specs - SSD portable Crucial X6 2TB • USB 3.1 Gen-2 • Up to 540MB/s sequential read
With the X6, Crucial is proposing a very compact storage device, which is resistant to shocks and high temperatures. It packs an internal SSD drive and was made to operate on the USB 3.1 Gen2 interface and a Type-C port, but it is backwards compatible with older standards as well. While the more expensive X8 drive was based on a NVMe drive, the X6 comes with a mainstream SATA one, so the rated speeds are lower. The X6 does support TRIM passthrough but also UASP; the bridge between the SATA and USB interface is an ASMedia ASM235CM, while the SSD controller is a Silicon Motion SM2259XT. For flash, we are getting the same Micron 96L 3D QLC packages as on the more expensive NVMe-based X8.
The product is shipped inside a very tiny cardboard enclosure, specifying the supported OSes, the rated speed but also the total storage capacity. If we will use the product with devices that do not incorporate USB Type-C ports, we do have the option to purchase an adapter separately:
On the back side of the box, we will notice a small product description in multiple languages but also links to some online resources:
Inside the enclosure we will note a leaflet, the main drive but also the USB Type-C cable:
The leaflet we have just mentioned some lines back does also point to the online website of Crucial, in order to access some additional support info:
The supplied USB cable is very short, suitable mostly for use with portable devices; if we do aim on plugging the X6 in the back of our desktop, the unit will mostly stay hanged by the cable:
X6 follows the design lines of the X8, only that it is considerably smaller! It weights only 42 grams and measures 6.9cm/1.1cm W/L, ideal for keeping it inside our pocket:
On the back side of the enclosure we will see noted the capacity as well, together with a sticker that informs the user on the supported standards:
On the side, the USB Type-C port can be spotted as well:
The process in order to install the Type-A adapter is quite straight-forward:
CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming
RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4
Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB
Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W
SSD: OCZ Vector 150
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
The drive has been pre-formatted exFAT, but for testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS:
With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:
On the drive we will only find a file which points to Crucial's support website:
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Even if the X6 is no speed demon, it is considerably faster that other USB external storage we have previously tested; it is also very compact, so it fits well inside your pocket, while supporting the latest USB connection standard. The SATA-based drive does succeed to keep a constant performance even during longer usage sessions, without getting as hot as the X8.
Since the drive is also using pseudo-SLC cache which resides within the Micron 96L 3D QLC packages, we will sometimes notice small drops in performance when writing very large quantities of data to it at once, but it is able to recover quite quickly:
Here is how the HD Tune Pro write test does look when writing data to the blank drive:
The product is available in 1TB and 2TB flavors: the 1TB model can be picked up for about 153 Euros, while the 2TB model is available for about 282 Euros. The prices are quite a bit high for mainstream users, but there are quite a bit of usage scenarios we could see this drive fit in: one example would be the multitude of compact laptops with low capacity pre-installed SSD drives and the X6 would be the missing ingredient in order to work with bigger projects.
We would like to thank again to Crucial for making this review possible!