A Quick Look At The Crucial X9 Pro And X10 Pro Portable SSDs

Big Storage In A Small Package

IP55 Water And Dust Resistance With AES-256 Too

Crucial updated their line of portable SSDs with the X9 Pro and X10 Pro, offering over 1000MB/s over USB 3.2 Gen-2.  The cables it ships with are USB-C, but even with a decent USB-C to USB-A cord you should still see similar transfer speeds.  The X9 Pro and X10 Pro both ship with a five year warranty, and there have been no reports of sudden data loss unlike some of the competition.

They are tiny and fairly rugged, so slipping one into a bag for use whenever is safe to do, though you might want to hold onto the plastic wrapping that comes with the drive.  As a bonus Crucial is also giving away a month of access to the Adobe Creative Cloud, something these drives could be quite handy for.  You certainly aren’t going to install Starfield on it to play on the go.

A Quick Look At Crucial Storage Executive

The X9 Pro and X10 Pro both ship with Crucial Storage Executive onboard.  As they are portable drives many of the tools do not function but you can certainly get a look at the health of your drive as well as claiming your free month of Adobe CC if you so desire.  There are links to several tools including Acronis back up, a nice touch to not automatically install them but to allow you to chose if you want them or not.  There are also handy support links, if you run into any troubles.

The drives themselves feel nice, textured rubber and a short USB-C cable is all you get and is frankly all you need.  For the copy tests a ~5GB Windows image was used, while the ~2GB copy is a folder with random documents, executables and other compressed files.

X9 Intel Results

AMD and Intel are not equal when it comes to USB, so the tests were conducted on an Intel machine with a USB-C input while the AMD results had to be done on a USB-C to USB-A cord as both my motherboard and case lack a USB-C connection.

X9 AMD Results

X10 Intel Results

X10 AMD Results

A Sturdier Solution To Portable Storage

Thumb drives are OK, though they tend to die if neglected and can do horrendous damage to a USB port if you happen to forget you have one plugged in.  The Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro on the other hand will keep on ticking, even if the drink you tucked into your bag happens to spill.   The performance of the X9 Pro is dead on with the advertised speed and is highly recommended for anyone.

The X10 Pro on the other hand requires a proper USB 3.2 Gen-2 2×2 interface, lacking that you will see speeds similar to the X9 Pro.  You should keep this in mind when you are shopping, if the device you intend to pair the X10 Pro lacks 2×2 connectivity you are better off going with the X9 Pro. Hopefully I will be able to get my hands on a way to properly retest the X10 Pro.

If your computer, camera or other device does have that interface you will be doubling the transfer speeds for a small premium in the price.  That speed will mean the difference between 4K 60FPS video and 4K 120FPS video, not to mention saving you a lot of time copying the files back and forth.  These are a great addition to your go bag, and are definitely recommended.