Crucial X6 Portable SSD Arrives and Crucial X8 Gets 2TB Version

Crucial believes that this is right time to release their second Portable SSD called the Crucial X6. Crucial says it’s extremely fast, it’s high capacity, it’s really small, very durable and very compatible. Legit Reviews was recently on a call with Crucial about their new X6 portable SSD and we’ll be bringing you the highlights of that call in this piece. The goal for the Crucial X6 (product page) was to be competitive in terms of performance relative to its peers in the SATA-based portable SSD market and at an affordable price. In order to do this the Crucial X6 had to be designed from the ground up to be cost conscious and a few things had to be done differently. Let’s see what that means…

When it comes to performance the only published specifications for the Crucial X6 is read speed and that is 540 MB/s for sequential reads. Crucial says that the X6 will be 3.8 times faster than most portable hard drives on the market. Crucial noted that the X6 will give you 75% faster restores from backup and 50% faster game loads on consoles like the PS4 and XBOX One.

Crucial will launch the X6 with 1TB and 2TB capacity models out of the gate and they are available to order today. Crucial says that the X6 2TB portable SSD is enough space for consumers digital library. They believe that around 10,000 photos, 50 hours of video, 3000 pieces of music, and 200GB of documents will fit on the drive and still allow you to have 200GB of free space on the drive. 2TB sounds like a ton of space, but gamers know that games are getting big and AAA game titles are becoming massive. Crucial believes 2TB capacity drives are able to hold roughly a dozen AAA game titles and of course, your mileage may vary depending on exactly which games are stored.

Crucial also pointed out that many consumers have purchased Amazon Fire tablets for their kids this year. Most of those tablets only offer 32GB of storage space and that is only good for a handful of apps and a couple of seasons of some cartoons or educational programming. The Crucial X6 portable SSD will allow these tablet owners to expand their storage capacity to enable them the ability to download all of the content that they want to watch. Crucial noted that the X6 2TB drive will be able to store up to 3,500 hours of Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu or YouTube Red content to watch offline.

The Crucial X6 is smaller than the Crucial X8 and features an all plastic design rather than metal. This kept the weight down and the 1TB drive is just under 39 grams while the 2TB capacity is just under 40 grams. The dimensions are roughly 69 mm by 64 mm so it’s about, so it will comfortably fit in the hands of both children and adults. Crucial says the new compact design still delivers a premium fit and finish. The Crucial X6 is not shaped like a traditional USB flash drive as they aren’t using an M.2 2280 ‘gum stick’ drive inside.

The bridge chip used inside the Crucial X6 isnt part of the public specification, but Legit Reviews was really persuasive and found out that the ASMedia ASM235CM USB 3.1 to SATA 6Gbps bridge controller is being used on the X6 series at this point in time. Crucial made it clear to us that they actively reserve the right to and may change the controller as market conditions evolve. That said they are committed to maintaining performance metrics (or improve on them) from the published specifications of 540 MB/s.

In terms of compatibility, Crucial says that they have tested the X6 portable SSD on the latest generation PCs and Macs and found it was completely compatible. They also tried it on over 30 different host devices to ensure that they don’t have problems with certain motherboards and things like that. They said the Crucial X6 is ready for the PCs, Android phones, tablets, Apple devices like the iPad Pro and Chromebooks.

The Crucial X6 doesn’t have an IP rating, but it is drop-proof up to 6.5 feet and resistant to shock, vibration and extreme temperatures.

One of the more interesting things with the Crucial X6 is that they are shipping it without the USB-C to USB-A adapter. The Crucial X6 only comes with the USB-C to USB-C cable, so you’ll have to buy the USB-C to USB-A adapter if that is something you’ll need. Crucial flat out said that this was done to not burden the product with the additional cost of an adapter. The cost of the adapter is expected to be $2.95 on Amazon with the purchase of the X6 or $9.95 if bought separately. That doesn’t sound like much savings, but Crucial wanted to shave a few bucks off of the X6 to make it super competitive.

So, what will the Crucial X6 portable SSD cost? The Crucial X6 1TB is priced at $154.95 shipped ($0.15 per GB) and the Crucial X6 2TB is $284.95 shipped ($0.14 per GB). Both of the drives are available to purchase on Amazon now, but will be released for shipping on September 1, 2020.

Legit Reviews does not have a Crucial X6 in our possession just yet, but we have been told that one will be shipped to us in early September to give it an in-depth performance test!

Crucial also announced the Crucial X8 2TB portable SSD is finally available and is priced at $329.95 shipped. The Crucial X8 NVMe-based portable SSDs offer up to 1050 MB/s of performance, a more durable metal enclosure and include the USB-C to USB-A adapter. The price difference between the Crucial X8 1TB and the Crucial X6 1TB is only $10. That makes the Crucial X6 a tough sell as $10 gets to a much better portable drive. That said, the Crucial X8 2TB is $45 more than the Crucial X6 2TB. Very interesting price points and we can’t wait to review the X6 series!