Testing Summary
To come up, Crucial X6 Portable SSD comes with varied digital storage options of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB to let you take mileage according to your personal needs. Moreover, it can store up to 100 hours of videos, 20,000 photos, 400 GB of documents, and 6000 songs with a spare room in the highest storage choice. When it comes to speed, this drive incorporates around 540 MB/s of reading speed which makes it 3.8x faster than the traditional hard drives. But, the 4TB model can offer 800 MB/s of sequential read speed to meet professional needs.
Surprisingly, this drive is carved in a compact case that weighs quite less than your typical car keys, isn’t it handy? Interestingly, this SSD incorporates broad compatibility to work excellently with many devices. What else would you need to fit in your fingertips? When you have X6 to hold all your data.
Introduction
Saunter through the storage world, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is the best portable SSD for gaming and widely compatible with nearly all devices with its USB Type-C port. Amazingly, it supports advanced USB 3.1 Generation 2 Type-C to fit the needs of recent devices. With the heavy focus on the value, X6 offers a blazing sequential read speed of up to 540 MB/s for 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB models, while with 4TB you can achieve the read speed of around 800 MB/s to meet any high-end professional needs.
Grounded in fact, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is the cheapest SSD of the year which also provides excellent performance for expanding the gaming library or backing up your data at a superfast rate for nearly small files to meet everyday needs. But it can’t bear the workload of heavier files, and the overall transfer speed might decrease upon such use as the QLC flash write speed is quite slow.
Moreover, this drive relied on SLC caching to hit the peak performance and can hold enough cache to maintain the swift performance. As the cache is dynamic, it would scale down as you continue to fill the drive.
Ahead of the curve, the Crucial X6 Portable SSD comes formatted with the exFAT file system which makes it compatible with almost all devices such as MAC, Windows, Android, PS4, Xbox One, iPad Pro, and many more. You might need to format this SSD to the NTFS file system if you want to take benefit from TRIM functionality.
To use the Type-C to Type-A feature, you may require to buy such an adapter as it doesn’t come with one. In addition, with the small size and sturdy plastic construction, this drive is also durable and can bear shock or drops of around 6.5 feet, but surely can sustain in higher falls too. Furthermore, it comes with QLC NAND flash which is leveraged on SATA and entails silicon motion’s SSD controller.
Crucial X6 Portable SSD
Specifications
| Brand Name | Crucial |
| Series | Crucial X6 |
| Manufacturer | Micron |
| Color | Black |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB |
| Hardware Interface | USB 3.1 Type-C |
| Compatibility | PC, MAC, Android, iPad pro8 |
| Read Speed | 540 MB/s or 800 MB/s for 4TB |
| Write Speed | 500 MB/s |
| File System | exFAT |
| Form Factor | 2.5 Inch |
| Hardware Platform | Linux, Mac, PC |
| Drop Resistant | YES (up to 2-meters) |
| Warranty | 3-Years |
| Weight | 1.38 Ounces |
| Dimensions | 2.72 x 0.43 x 2.52 inches |
Design
To get on, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is carved in a square shape by using black plastic material which is quite sturdy and imparts a classy look. Its thickness is around four-tenth of an inch which makes it easy to fit in your pocket to take it anywhere. Additionally, it incorporates a USB Type-C port on the edge to provide you with advanced attachments, and the USB Type-C to C cable also comes with the package.
It’s carved in a way to bear any shock, drops, vibrations, and higher temperatures, it can bear a drop of around 6.5 feet on the hard floor. Surprisingly, the black plastic body is so sturdy that it doesn’t catch many scratches after going through sharp surfaces and it can also sustain mild water drops to maintain the performance during harsh conditions.
Digging around, the company’s branding is printed on the upper surface which looks classy and sculptured in a way to remain cool even over excessive use which is made possible by thermal pods that are placed on both sides of the PCBs which completely cover it to dissipate any heat and the wrapped copper foil ease the process. Moreover, it’s packed with QLC NAND flash and uses BX500.
Plus, the Crucial X6 Portable SSD contains silicon motion’s SM2259XT SSD controller and it connects to SATA 6 Gbps bridge chip via the USB connectivity and end to end data protection to make sure the integrity with the Micron 96-Layered QLC in the 4-plane or 2-plane operation.
Features
On the clear ground, Crucial X6 Portable SSD allows you to carry lots of data between the tips of your fingers. Whether you are downloading heavy videos, keeping all family photos, hanging with friends, or heading off to any adventure, this SSD is here to make your all storage dreams realized by offering you exactly what you need at an affordable price.
If you really want to get rid of fragile, slow hard drives that took your productive time in loading simple files, then Crucial X6 Portable SSD is perfect for you as it is 3.8x faster than the ritual HDDs and comes with fast transfer and load time.
To dig deep, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is stunningly straightforward in terms of integrated features and quite easy to operate compared to some other drives that are protected by high-security attributes and are also smaller than the existing portable calibers. Just like its rival Seagate Barracuda Fast the read speed of up to 540 MB/s for 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacity models are quite significant in terms of dealing with massive data files.
While the 4TB model comes with around 800 MB/s of reading speed, which is quite excellent to meet the needs of any professional. However, this is much lower than 1050 MB/s by Sandisk Extreme, and Samsung T7 Touch, and 2000 MB/s by WD_Black P50 Game Drive. Anyway, the provided variety range allows you to pick exactly what can suit best your needs.
Practically, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is available in different capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB to take your digital life with you wherever you want. In this pocket-sized SSD, you can save your files, games, movies, and massive photos in less than 40-gram weight which is even lighter than your car keys.
Additionally, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is compatible with Mac, Desktop Gaming PC, Xbox One X and One S, PS4 Pro, Android devices, and many more to let you take the benefit of both worlds. The connectivity with USB Type-C is available right out of the box, while you may need to grab a USB Type-A adapter if you ever need to use it for some purposes.
Discussing further, Crucial X6 Portable SSD remains cool even on excessive use because it’s wrapped in copper foil and incorporates the thermal pads that are covered on both sides of the PCBs. Plus, the integrated SATA SSD controller is built on the 28nm node for power efficiency and low cost. Moreover, it is carved in a single-core, a four-channeled design that works on silicon motion proprietary and the end-to-end data protection to make sure the integrity of data with Micron 96-Layer flash in either 4-plane or 2-plane operation.
To take good mileage out of it, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is built in a sturdy case that can withstand 6.5 feet drop which allows you to carry it anywhere without the tension of getting it damage. Additionally, this SSD is vibration, shock, and extreme temperature resistant to conserve your important data along the go tends to make it a more reliable choice for many.
But keep in mind that this frill-free storage device doesn’t come with an incorporated security feature, nor it has any compatible software that is available in the market. Overall, it’s a fast and spacious portable storage device that is carved in a little package to carry lots of data along your journey without putting much burden on your backpack or pocket.
Performance
When it comes to performance, Crucial X6 Portable SSD can efficiently work with Mac, Windows, Linux, iPad pro, running iPad-0S 13 or later models, its ready to work with some devices right out of the box whilst for others you are free to format it according to your needs. This SSD can reach 540 MB/s sequential read speed, which is quite excellent in this price range and fulfill the basic needs of any user. Hole on for a while, the offered 4TB model can attain a read speed of up to 800 MB/s to meet the professional needs or can excellently fit for heavy data storage.
On a clear note, Crucial X6 Portable SSD supports USB 3.1 Type-C Generation 2 that can reach up to 10 Gbps bandwidth, which is excellent to transfer huge files in seconds. Additionally, it’s backward compatible with the USB 3.2 Type-C Generation 1 and also with USB 3.0 which can reach up to 5 Gbps bandwidth to completely allow you to come up with exactly what you are looking for by providing you lots of options of connectivity and getting desired performance results.
Moreover, the interior of this drive is entirely based on Serial ATA technology linked to USB, which directly means that this SSD works on traditional SATA speeds, but the flow of data through the USB pipe will never fill in to halt any activity.
In order to run the performance tests, we can go through PCMark 10 Storage, DiskMark 6.0, and BlackMagic Disk Speed Test, the first two can be run on PC by using the NTFS formatting, while the rest two give excellent results on Mac having exFAT formatting.
The versions below 4TB can reach up to 520 MB/s of the read and 480 MB/s of the write speed, which is exceptionally excellent among the similarly priced range models. Exceptionally, a 15 GB file can be transferred in less than 40 seconds, which means the transfer rate can reach up to 400 MB/s which is much better than similar rivals.
The SSD is the cheapest portable drive that can offer ample performance even up to 2TB models for the massive gaming library or backing up any files, but keep in mind that its performance might reduce under heavy write workload because the incorporated QLC flash comes with the slow native write speed. If you want to overcome such hurdles, you might go for the 4TB model of Crucial X6 Portable SSD to take good mileage out of your purchase.
The X6 Portable comes formatted with the exFAT file system to make it compatible with numerous devices such as Mac, windows, androids, consoles, you may need to format it to the NTFS file system if you wish to take benefit of TRIM functionality. Overall, the read/write speed, file transfer rate, storage, and durability of Crucial X6 Portable SSD make it suitable for anyone including professional gamers to store almost all personal and work-related data in a sturdy, portable case to deliver excellence at an affordable price.
Reasons to Buy
Reasons to Avoid
Testing Results
Grounded in fact, Crucial X6 Portable SSD is an excellent external SSD for small backups, file transfers, and overall good for everyday use, but we won’t recommend it for heavier reads and writes of larger folders or files. If you are looking for a budget-friendly, sturdy, portable drive, then Crucial X6 Portable SSD is an ideal choice for you.
Additionally, its shock and drop resistance offer durability and maintained performance even in harsh conditions. The lightweight and slim construction of this drive along with varied capacity options are taking the heart of many. We have reviewed almost all the essential matters about this drive, you can read it thoroughly before making a purchase.
