Crucial - X6 SE 2TB External USB-C/USB-A Portable SSD

Crucial has the X6 external SSD device available now in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB sizes. The package should come with the SSD device, a 9-inch USB-C-to-USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and instruction manual. Crucial offers a 3-year limited warranty for the SSD device. Disclaimer: Devices I used to connect this SSD to are a Microsoft Book 3 and an (Android) Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. PROS: ----------- * Incredibly portable at only around 2.5" square and ultra-thin. (See pic of it in my hand) * Real-world observation: I wrote 2.5GB of photos/videos from my Book 3 to the SSD in 10 seconds. That is extremely fast. * Plug-and-play works every time * Excellent for storing music or any files that you want available to a PC or Android phone instantly. * This drive is the perfect size for connecting to routers that have the ability to connect such a drive for network storage for everyone on that router. The fact that there is no power needed is a huge plus. * Great for anyone that has USB-C on their laptop that may be hard drive lacking - some have 128GB-256GB HDD which may not be enough in some cases. Connecting 2TB to your PC is very convenient. CONS: ----------- * Perhaps the ends of the USB-C connector cable could have less "body". Of the 9 inches of the cable, each end is around 1-inch each with the rest of the cable being pretty thick, it can be more tedious to bend/move. Perhaps that thickness improves the bottleneck of data throughput. * Even though the casing is decent (plastic), it would be great to have a more protective slim case to put the drive and cable inside to protect it further from the elements or from getting hit in a computer bag. At $250 for the 2TB version (and data sometimes being priceless), you don't want this thing to get damaged. OTHER OBSERVATIONS: ----------------------- * PCs typically use NFSD formatting; however, if you connect to a Samsung S21, you will not be able to read the drive until it is in exFAT format OR unless you allow the phone to format your card (in exFAT) format. In this case, both PC and phone will be able to read the drive. If you want to transfer or read files on both your PC and phone, make sure the drive is in exFAT formatted state. In addition, you need to unmount the drive from your phone prior to disconnected (similar to what you do on your PC). * I did not use a speed reader like CrystalDiskMark because this can actually damage the drive. * I'm unsure if it's a phone issue or the SSD issue, but when connected to my Samsung, in one instance, it is called the "USB Storage 1" but on another screen, it is called "Micron USB drive". Just an observation. CONCLUSION: ===================== I have a couple of other external HDDs that I have used in the past, but this Crucial SSD drive is pretty impressive. Power is run through the same cable as the data transfer which keeps things clean. The speed is very good or better than advertised. It's portable. It's a simple product that just works. Just keep it protected. The product itself is great; however, at this price point, including a hard case to protect it further would have been perfect. Remember, it's not just the product you're protecting - it's the data. And if it ever gets damaged, things can go south fast. Include a protective case and this would be a 5-star complete product.

The small and mighty X6 from Crucial is a well made product. Used for games from Steam and Blizzard with acceptable load times. Wasn't able to meet the claimed speeds from Crucial with a brand new Alienware M15 R4 laptop. See screenshots. Used the exact same version of CrystalDiskMark that was used by Crucial. The device runs pretty hot, make sure it has room to breathe. For portability, decent speeds and rock solid durability, Crucial has hit the mark. Since I'm not seeing the same results similar to Crucial's tests on my system, it must be the cable connection and differences between my system and the system used by Crucial to achieve their benchmark result. Not going to post screenshots of tests with the Dell Inspiron 7591 2in1, lets just say they were rather peculiar and nowhere near these test results. With all things said, the speeds are acceptable for day to day use and the X6 will be a mainstay for a while with me thanks to the large capacity and decent speeds and great durability.

I love the versatility of the 2TB Crucial X6 SSD. It has a small form factor at about 2.5x2.5x.4 inches, and it easily slips into a pocket or bag to take along. No matter where I connect it, it just works. For benchmarking and testing, I plugged it into my PC. The benchmark results came back as expected, and read speeds even exceeded the 540 MB/s performance advertised on the packaging. For testing with Android, I copied a 5.5 GB movie and a couple hundred pictures to the Crucial X6 SSD using the included USB-C cable. The transfer was fast and error-free. Connected to my Android phone, it was immediately recognized. The 2TB (1.8TB available) capacity allows me to carry more hours of movies and video than I could watch in a day -- shoot, probably in a month. Video playback was easy and without lag or buffering. It just works. Viewing my selection of photos directly from the drive was likewise accomplished without issue. Navigation back and forth among the photos was seamless. Finally, I wanted to give it a try as additional storage for my XBOX One X. I have had a traditional 5,400 RPM external drive connected to it for years. Using a USB-C to USB-A adapter, I plugged the Crucial X6 SSD it into the XBOX. It needed to be formatted for XBOX, but once that was complete … it just works. The 2TB Crucial X6 SSD upgrade from the old external storage yielded an immediate, obvious performance boost. What an improvement! Load times from the dashboard are less than half what they previously were. While in game, transition delays/load times between levels are virtually gone. Traversing a large map, it doesn’t seem like I’m waiting for textures to load as distant elements come into view. It feels like a different game system. The performance improvement is so great, I’ve decided to use it here with the XBOX One X permanently. The Crucial X6 SSD seems perfectly suited to anything the average user might decide to do with it. I would recommend it without hesitation.

The Crucial - X6 SE 2TB SSD provides a decent amount of portable storage at a relatively low cost. However, the drive apparently has no Ingress Protection rating (IP code) and suffers from significant thermal throttling during write operations. [ Performance ] I tested this drive connected to my computer’s USB 3.2 Gen 2 type C port using the included USB-C cable, having quick-formatted the drive to NTFS as per manufacturer’s recommendation for best performance. This is the same computer on which I’ve benchmarked other NVMe SSDs having much higher read and write speeds, so the only performance bottleneck would be with the drive itself (and/or possibly the included USB cable). To help ‘break in’ the drive, I first recorded about 2 hours of nearly continuous raw video at ~40MB/s, equating to hundreds of gigabytes of sequential writes. On reviewing the recorded video, I didn’t notice any hiccups, though this bitrate wasn’t expected to be thermally taxing. After plenty of cooldown time, I used CrystalDiskMark to run benchmarks, where I achieved a maximum read speed of 568.16 MB/s (above the advertised maximum) and write speed of 382.66 MB/s in the SEQ1M Q8T1 test. For a longer-duration real-world test, I copied a 100 GB file containing completely random (incompressible) data to this drive from another SSD drive, and ran into the thermal throttling shown in the attached screenshot. The drive would ride a consistent wave reaching ~295 MB/s peaks and ~44 MB/s troughs. This is no doubt the reason why Crucial doesn’t bother advertising a write speed for this drive. [ Design ] The external design is small, sleek, and well suited for easy pocketing. The apparent lack of an Ingress Protection rating (IP code) doesn’t grant confidence that this drive would stand up well to environmental hazards such as a spilled drink. The included USB cable is quite short (the over-all length includes the fairly long, non-bendable plugs), which could be awkward or problematic when connecting to a tower desktop computer. There are no power or activity LED lights. [ Conclusion ] If price is the utmost concern, this drive could be a reasonable external storage option. However, competing drives costing not much more (as of the writing of this review) are available that include an Ingress Protection rating, higher maximum read and write speeds, and are less hampered by thermal throttling issues. With that in mind, I will give this product a very conditional thumbs up.

Overall: The Crucial X6 is an affordable and very compact portable SSD with speeds that will be plenty fast for the average user. --- Solid-state drives, or SSDs, have become the mainstream choice for computer storage in most laptops and PCs. They're fast, light and extremely reliable, with no moving parts to break. Their performance easily bests what's possible with a spinning hard drive, both internally and externally, and they've come down in price significantly over the past few years. I remember upgrading my laptop to an SSD almost 10 years ago -- SSD prices have gone down by half since then, and performance has likely nearly doubled. Wow! Having moved on from that laptop years ago and now doing all my work on speedy, solid-state-based laptops and tablets, I decided it was time to ditch my old external (spinning) hard disk drives for an external SSD. I store almost all my data in the cloud, but as a casual DSLR photographer I like to keep a physical backup of all my photos and videos, both for safekeeping and to save on cloud storage costs. I have about a decade's worth of photos as well as some video projects from college that have lived on various external HDDs over the years. I was concerned about the reliability of these drives, some of which are 10 years old or older. While speed isn't my top priority, I was finding it took longer than I wanted to load files and/or move things from my computer to my external HDD. Enter the Crucial X6: a portable SSD no larger than a few flash drives, with 2TB of storage compared to the 500GB of my old external HDD. The X6 is advertised as a mainstream consumer device, something straightforward, fast and compact (but maybe not the fastest/most compact/best-of-the-best SSD). For a casual user like me, this device is a great compromise of features and value for the price. Setup is straightforward out of the box: plug the X6 into a USB-C port with the included USB-C to USB-C cable, format it as desired, and load up your files. I chose to format the drive as exFAT rather than the default NTFS, as I wanted to ensure compatibility with both Windows and Mac. After a quick format the drive displayed available space of just over 1.8TB and was ready for use. I appreciate that Crucial doesn't include "bloatware" on the drive, like proprietary backup or security software. The X6 basically functions as a giant flash drive, which again, should be easy for any mainstream consumer to use. To put the drive to the test, I tried copying both my entire photos folder (19.3GB) and then my entire videos folder (3.48GB) from my desktop to the freshly-formatted X6. I also performed the same copy tests with my old external HDD for comparison's sake. These tests were both performed on my Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 Professional, with each drive plugged directly into the computer's USB ports. I was able to copy my entire videos folder to the X6 in 12.9 seconds, versus 36.6 seconds with my old external HDD. Even better, I was able to copy my entire photos folder to the X6 in 2 minutes and 8 seconds, versus 17 minutes with my HDD. Now that's a speed difference! I saw real-time write speeds of 200 MB/s or more with the X6, versus around 60 MB/s with the spinning HDD. Now these are not carefully-instrumented tests with special software -- these are just my real-world experiences with File Explorer on my relatively new-and-fast Windows computer. That being said, I think they give you a good idea of the X6's performance in day-to-day use, rather than a carefully-crafted testing environment. Crucial says the 2TB X6 is capable of read speeds of up to 540 MB/s, but they do not advertise write speeds, which is what I was testing. I can say that browsing folders, opening image files and playing videos was noticeably faster on the X6 when compared to my older external HDD and I am inclined to believe Crucial's advertised speeds. The 4TB version of the X6 as well as Crucial's X8 line all advertise faster speeds, but they also cost significantly more (and in the case of the X8 are also larger in size). I don't have any major negative complaints with the X6 -- it performed solidly from the get-go and offers reliable storage in a very compact form factor. Compared to other top portable SSDs the Crucial advertises slower speeds, but it's less than half the size of many competitors, and at least in my browsing it's also appreciably less expensive. It should be plenty rugged for most users and will certainly withstand travel in a carry-on or briefcase without issue. The included cable is short, but appears durable and offers USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds and compatibility. I appreciate that the X6 uses a standard USB-C port, so if you need a longer cable or lose the one it comes with you can find replacements easily. All told, I think this is a great portable SSD for the price. It's extremely compact, much faster than a portable spinning HDD, and should be extremely reliable for years to come. Sure, you can find faster or more rugged drives, but they'll almost certainly be larger in size and more expensive. The X6 is a great choice for a mainstream consumer and I'm very pleased with it myself.

At 2.5" L x 2.625" W x 0.5" it is very portable, which a square and flat design that hides away in most shirt and pants pockets without bulging out. It is also very light. I think the best thing about the external SSD's design is that the USB port on it is the standard USB-C. So while the USB-C to USB-A cable is included with the SSD, if you lose it or need a longer cable, you can always replace it with any standard USB-C cable. Keep in mind though that all USB-C cables are not the same, and to get the full speed of the SSD you'll need a USB 3 speed USB-C cable. When used while the SSD is at cool or normal temperature, it is extremely quick for transferring large single files, faster than a lot of comparable SSDs at this price point. When transferring many small files that add up to a large file size, the speed is dramatically slower, like a lot of competing SSDs at this price point but it's not any slower than the competition. This external SSD's biggest flaw is the speed throttling that happens when the SSD becomes warmer (I've never had it become 'hot' although this is probably because the speed throttling never allows it too. I'm almost sure of it.) What this means is that, when the SSD gets really warm, the file transfer speeds become dramatically slower. From 2x to 4x slower; the hotter it gets, the slower it becomes. How it gets hot is through extended use of the SSD over a very short period of time. The good news is, it transfers very quickly. However, if you're using it for backup transfers that are 256GB or larger that can take minutes, this will heat up the SSD and eventually it will slow to a crawl, and the initial 10 minutes you see can end up being over an hour. For less intensive transfers like transferring a large ISO file from one device to another, this SSD is perfect. As advertised, this external SSD works with Android flawlessly as well, provided your device has a file manager installed to browse the data on the SSD. If speeds are slow on the Android device, it's possible that it's your Android device's USB port that's the issue, and may not be capable of the max speed transfers of the SSD because the SSD itself is extremely fast. Summary: Small, lightweight, and extremely fast, the Crucial X6 SE is an excellent travel companion for the casual user, but not ideal for the IT professional transferring large amounts of data constantly over a short period of time. The thermal throttling makes it unreliable for large, lengthy file transferring projects that require timeliness.

This drive is very small, but powerful. I was able to store a great amount of data and it worked well with my devices.

Small / lightweight excellent storage amount. Excellent storage read/write speed. You can never go wrong woth the Crucial brand.