SSD by stefan @ 2023-12-12
While the X9 Pro drive can be considered a good mainstream variant, the X10 Pro is really impressive in terms of both read/write performance for an USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 drive, staying on top with other high-end models we have tested in the past. At its heart it does pack a Silicon Motion SM2320 controller and durable Micron 176L 3D TLC NAND ICs, which are able to hold a high transfer rate for quite a bit!
At first we would like to thank Crucial for sending a sample of their X10 Pro 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.”
Real speed. Raw power.
Palm-sized storage with blazing speeds up to 2,100MB/s
Powerful performance
With read and write speeds up to 2,100/2,000MB/s, the Crucial X10 Pro Portable SSD is powerful enough for editing directly from the drive.
Get one month of Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan on us when you purchase and register the Crucial X10 Pro
Broad compatibility
The X10 Pro works with4 Windows, Mac, Android, iPad, PC, Linux®, Xbox and PlayStation gaming consoles, all via a plug-and-play USB-C cable.
Security that travels with you
Protect sensitive data in the studio, in the field, or while traveling with password protection and 256?bit AES hardware encryption.
Dust and splash proof durability
With IP55 water and dust resistance and drop-proof durability up to 7.5 feet/2 meters, your X10 Pro Portable SSD is tough enough to travel anywhere you shoot, work or roam.
Professional quality
Engineered by Micron, the Crucial X10 Pro Portable SSD comes in anodized aluminum with a rubberized soft-touch base in a mini 65 x 50 mm design that includes a drive activity light in the integrated lanyard hole.
General tech specs
Interface: USB 3.2 Gen-2 2x2 (20Gb/s)
Form factor: External Portable
SSD series: X10 Pro
Capacity: 2TB
Speed & timing
Sequential Read: 2100
Sequential Write: 2000
Warranty & returns
Warranty: Limited 5-year
The USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 portable SSD from Crucial does carry the X10 Pro code name and can be purchased with capacities of 1TB, 2TB or 4TB, while sporting rated reads of up to 2100MB/s, while the writes would be around 2000MB/s. The product is water, dust and sand resistant (IP55), while being covered by a 5-year limited warranty.
X10 Pro is shipped inside a very compact cardboard enclosure, which shows a photo of the drive in front, the rated speeds, the total capacity but also some features highlighted as icons:
The serial number is present on the side, together with the list of compatible operating systems:
On the back, we will note a small QR code pointing to online resources, a small product description in multiple languages but also some drive details such as the internal code name, firmware, product serial number and so on:
After removing the top packaging layer, we will note the drive, along with the USB data transfer cable inside a transparent plastic enclosure, but also some documentation:
The included leaflet does redirect the user to the on-site resources:
The X10 Pro is additionally sealed inside a transparent plastic bag, with a small sticker which points to the device registration:
The drive does include a black anodized aluminum chassis for helping with eliminating extra heat; a subtle Crucial logo is present in the middle:
A small opening is provided for attaching the drive to a keychain or a lanyard:
The drive is quite slim as well, thanks to the SSD type of the product:
The USB-C port is easily accessible:
On the bottom, we will note a rubberized plastic texture, so the product will remain steady on the surface:
The supplied USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 cable is quite short, meaning that Crucial has intended this product to be mainly used with portable devices, such as laptops:
The test system did incorporate a AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-core CPU, a Sabrent Rocket 2x16GB DDR5 4800MHz C40 memory kit, a PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5700 video card but also a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 2TB SSD; all these were connected to the BIOSTAR X670E VALKYRIE AM5 motherboard. As a power supply we have chosen a Cooler Master 850W non-modular and the system was running the latest Windows 11 OS build as well.
The drive has arrived pre-formatted exFAT:
We did format it back to NTFS just before starting testing:
With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive; not a lot of info is available due to presence of a pass-through (bridge) chip:
On the drive, we also found the manual in electronic format, together with some links pointing to the online resources:
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
In order to continue with the second stage of our tests, we needed to fill up the drive over 50% of its capacity. During this time, we did monitor the transfer speeds and we were especially interested if drops in speed do occur; the one-thread writes started at about 1.13-1.15GB/s:
Even after 370GB of data written, the transfer speed remained about the same:
We were surprised that we could write more than 1TB of data to the drive, the transfer speed remaining the same after filling the drive over 50%!
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
While the X9 Pro drive can be considered a good mainstream variant, the X10 Pro is really impressive in terms of both read/write performance for an USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 drive, staying on top with other high-end models we have tested in the past. At its heart it does pack a Silicon Motion SM2320 controller and durable Micron 176L 3D TLC NAND ICs, which are able to hold a high transfer rate for quite a bit!
The drive weights only 42 grams and the 65 x 50 mm dimensions make it really easy to carry around when needed to transport lots of data around. In the HD Tune writes workload, we did not spot any dips in performance:
The Crucial X10 Pro 2TB can be found online for about 210 Euros at the time of the review; if you would like more storage space and prefer the 4TB model instead, the investment will set you back 330 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Crucial for making this review possible!
