Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro High-Performance Portable SSDs Announced

Crucial’s X6 and X8 portable SSDs are attractive budget options for mainstream consumers looking to purchase high-capacity direct-attached storage drives. The company has provided several industry firsts in these drives. However, these drives use his QLC, which makes them not particularly appealing to power users (such as content creators) who need to write large amounts of data as quickly as possible.

Over the past several quarters, the company has been aggressive in introducing high-performance flash products to client markets. As an example, Crucial’s T700 Gen 5 internal SSD is the only one of his M.2 SSDs that hits the 14 GBps mark at retail. The company today announces his two new products in the PSSD category, the USB 3.2 Gen 2 X9 Pro and the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 X10 Pro. These 1 GBps and 2 GBps class drives come with a Type-C port and a Type-C to Type-C cable (Type-A adapter sold separately). The performance specifications of these two products indicate that they are suitable for power users. The company is the first to cite his PSSD write speeds in marketing materials.

The X9 Pro is a 38g 65mm x 50mm USB 3.2 Gen 2 PSSD made from anodized aluminum. It includes a lanyard hole (the LED is near the hole, not near the Type-C port) and a rubberized soft-touch base that protects against impact. The sides are slightly recessed for better traction when handling. It is IP55 rated and can withstand drops of up to 7.5 feet. PSSD supports hardware encryption (compatible with Windows BitLocker, but Crucial’s own software for setting passwords will be available later this year). The company claims read speeds of up to 1050 MBps and write speeds of 1050 MBps, with overall drive write speeds of at least 970 MBps using sequential writes.

Micron’s X9 Pro Competitive Positioning (Vendor Claims)

The X10 Pro is a 42g 65mm x 50mm USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 PSSD with an industrial design very similar to the X9 Pro (keeping almost all features). Additional weight is contributed by some internal changes for a better thermal solution. It claims read speeds of up to 2100 MBps and write speeds of up to 2000 MBps, but does not guarantee a minimum sequential write speed.

Micron’s X10 Pro Competitive Positioning (Vendor Claims)

Both the X9 Pro and X10 Pro utilize the Silicon Motion SM2320 native UFD controller. We used Micron’s 96L 3D TLC NAND to preview its performance (and that of the Kingston XS2000 based on it). Recently, the Transcend ESD310C was evaluated using the same controller and Kioxia’s BiCS5 112L 3D TLC NAND. Micron uses 176L 3D TLC NAND, so it can be argued that long-term performance consistency is much better compared to those products. The form factor and size show the potential for thermal throttling, and perhaps this is why Crucial isn’t claiming a minimum sustained write speed of 20 Gbps on its part. You can learn more during the on-site evaluation process.

Seagate was one of the first vendors to bundle Adobe Creative Cloud and Mylio Photos for free for a month on select direct-attached storage drives. Micron has taken the same added value with the X9 Pro and X10 Pro, and includes a free copy of Acronis True Image for Crucial.

Prices range from $80 for the 1 TB version of the X9 Pro to $290 for the 4 TB version of the X10 Pro, and the drives are available now. The flash industry is currently in a recession cycle and prices are very low. Not good news for manufacturers, but good news for consumers. With the introduction of the attractively priced X9 Pro and X10 Pro, there is finally some competition between the SanDisk Extreme / Samsung T7 Shield in the 1 GBps category and the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2 in the 2 GBps category. The SanDisk offering with its bridge-based design will likely perform better for a variety of workloads, but the physical footprint and power consumption of the Micron offering are undoubtedly more advantageous.