Crucial X8 2TB Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - PC and Mac - USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive - CT2000X8SSD9

Product Information

Looking closer, there are no activity lights to break up the unibody construction. To the drive’s design credit, the external casing – ending in grippy, rubberised sections that ought to avoid easy marking – does a great job at keeping everything cool; internal temperature rose to merely 48°C after 10 minutes of sequential writing, while the casing ran only five degrees warmer than ambient room level. A similar drive with a Thunderbolt 3 interface might outperform the X8, but as far as USB-connected devices go, this is about as fast a drive as you're going to see at this price point. We ran a series of benchmark tests on both Macs and PCs and were more than pleased with the results. (On the PC side, we used our standard Intel X299-based storage testbed, with a motherboard-hosted USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB-C port. On the Mac side, we used a 2016 MacBook Pro and used the provided USB-C cable with one of the laptop's Thunderbolt 3 ports.) The X8 consistently scored at or near the top of the heap when compared to other SSDs we tested. This thing is fast, definitely performing at or near its advertised speeds. iPadOS 13 required for the Crucial X8 to work with iPad Pro devices with USB-C port. For more information, see https://crucial.com/support/x8 Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

PCMark 8 has a storage test that simulates how well a drive will function under everyday workloads such as videoconferencing and word processing. All five of the tested drives performed similarly; the Crucial again came out on top but by a negligible amount. We haven’t seen an SSD of any type drop to that low of a write rate in several years, basically since the dawn of TLC. Note, too, that this was the 1TB capacity drive. The 500GB model will likely drop out of cache at the 90GB mark. Despite TRIM not being explicitly mentioned in the CrystalDiskInfo report, we were able to activate it on the X8. Otherwise, the reported S.M.A.R.T attributes are similar to the ones obtained for the other external SSDs in the same class. Testbed Setup and Testing Methodology Today we will present you our second portable SSD from Crucial, which is available on the market since a few weeks ago. The portable SSD is simply called X8, and it’s one of the fastest portable SSD we can buy in stores. It also offers huge capacities up to 2TB, and support for all devices with USB connections, including PC, MacOS, PS4 and Xbox One. Point is, it is all too easy to be blinded by headline sequential transfer speeds. For most, a high-capacity, high-value 10Gbps external SSD will do, and that’s exactly how Crucial pitches it. ConclusionMB/s speed measured as maximum sequential performance of device as measured by Crucial on a high performance desktop computer with Crystal Disk Mark (version 6.0.2 for x64). Your performance may vary. Comparative speed claims measured as maximum sequential performance of similarly situated portable SSDs, mainstream portable HDDs and mainstream USB flash drives from vertically-integrated manufacturers selling under their own brands as of June 2019. Latest firmware may be required for operation. For more information, see https://crucial.com/support/x8 The Crucial X8 flew past the Samsung T7 Touch when I moved over to USB-C as well, completing the ISO test in an even nippier 562MB/s (1.91 seconds), the Program test in 297MB/s (4.73 seconds), and the Game test in 420MB/s (3.29 seconds). Compare that to the T7 Touch's results of 501MB/s (2.14 seconds) for the ISO, 128MB/s (10.96 seconds) for the Program and 325MB/s (4.25 seconds) for the Game test and the Crucial X8 has it beaten hands down. The Crucial X8 Portable SSD’s long copy rate was good for the first 180GB or so, thenit fell off the cliff. Its subsequent pace, barely above 80MBps, was slower than a hard drive. Shorter bars are definitely better. Available in 500GB and 1TB size capacities, the Crucial X8 isn't quite as stylish as Samsung's T7 Touch, but its rounded edges, plain design and anodized aluminium body still makes it feel like a premium bit of kit that won't get dented or chipped when you're out and about. Indeed, Crucial claim you can drop the X8 from a height of 2m (albeit onto a carpeted floor) without causing any damage to your files and data - although quite how well it will fare on a concrete or wooden floor isn't stated.

Crucial goes about building the X8 in a familiar way by connecting to a computer via USB-C. A supplied 25cm cable is suitable for newer systems, while for everyone else, we commend Crucial for also including a USB-C-to-A adapter. To test this, I used AS SSD's copy benchmark, which involves transferring three different file types from my OS drive to the X8 – an ISO folder consisting of two large files, a programs folder with lots of little files, and finally a game folder that’s made up of both big and small files. The X6 seems to have a power consumption profile similar to other drives in the set. The 1W+ idling number is a bit too high for our liking when attempting to use the drive with battery-powered devices, but the competition is not much better in any case.Acting as a proxy in understanding speed when moving or installing games, there is little difference between the best and worst here. Form meets function with the Crucial X8. Built with a unibody core of anodized aluminum, the case not only looks and feels great, but dissipates heat efficiently to maximize performance. The X8, on the other hand, performs admirably with the SLC cache - For around 256GB of continuous writes, the drive provides 825 MBps+ of bandwidth before slipping down to around 150 MBps for the direct-to-QLC writes. The reason for the X8's stellar performance for normal workloads lies in this SLC cache. Normal workloads rarely go beyond this huge cache, and that is enough to make the X8 lead the charts in almost all tests. The problem is when the SLC cache runs out - as is possible for creative professionals transferring huge work files. Crucial does mention read-intensive workloads as the main focus of the drive, and hence folks with those types of workloads may well prefer SSDs such as the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2. Power Consumption Inside, Crucial uses 64-layer QLC NAND allied to a four-channel Silicon Motion SM2263 controller bridging over to USB. X8 opts to include the version using DDR4 memory – there is another relying on the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) interface for buffering duties – but do appreciate sequential speed is capped at 10Gbps, even though the controller and NAND can run faster in a PCIe-attached M.2 NVMe environment. We previously reviewed the Crucial X6 2TB portable SSD, which made a good impression on us, so there is a high expectation on the X8 model to perform better.