Crucial X10 2TB Portable SSD Review
To get Crucial’s compact X10 drive in blue you must first be willing to give up the Pro moniker of the X10 Pro, and with it the extended (5-year) warranty, but three years is probably sufficient if the price it right, so let’s have a closer look!
| Crucial X10 2TB (CT2000X10SSD9) | |
| Type | USB Flash Drive |
| Form Factor | Pocket Portable |
| Dimensions | 65x50x10mm |
| Weight | 50g (w/cable) |
| Interface | USB3.2 Gen2x2 (20Gb/s) |
| Durability | IP65 water/dust resistant |
| Warranty | 3-year limited |
| Price | $210 |
That $210 MSRP was probably a bit forward-looking of Crucial to include a tariff adjustment, but it certainly leaves its non-adjusted 2TB X10 Pro a value leader for the time being at $173. Yet those who aren’t jumping in today will likely see adjustments over the next few weeks, so those considering the X10 Pro right now should probably buy right now.
The box includes a multilanguage guide with nothing more than links to the active page, along with the drive itself and a Type-C cable. You’ll also find links on the drive itself, though all of the software links will take you to Crucial’s registration page until you’ve at least registered.
Though similar in shape to the X10 Pro, the new generation’s casing loses the former part’s activity LED and moves its strap loop to the edge.
We’ll be testing ours on the 40Gbps I/O panel port and the 20Gbps front-panel connector of ASRock’s leftover X870E Taichi review sample.
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 7950X: 16C/32T 4.5-5.7 GHz, 64MB L3 Cache, Socket AM5 |
| CPU Cooler | Alphacool Core 1 Aurora, VPP655 with Eisbecher D5 150mm, NexXxoS UT60 X-Flow |
| Motherboard | ASRock X870E Taichi, Socket AM5, BIOS 1.28 (07-27-2023) |
| Graphics | Powercolor Red Devil Radeon 6750 XT: 2324-2623MHz GPU, 12GB GDDR6 |
| Memory | Crucial Pro OC Gaming Edition DDR5-6400 2x16GB (32GB) CL32-38-38-96 1.30V |
| System Drive | Crucial T700 w/hs Gen5 PCIe 2.0TB SSD |
X10 2TB Portable SSD Performance
The new drive appears to hold its heat in a little more than the previous version, but that could just be happenstance. Even after four runs of Sandra File System test, it barely got warm internally.
The lower-model non-pro X10 is roughly as fast as the X10 Pro in most of our pure synthetic tests, but does stumble a little in AIDA64’s Buffered Read.
The non-pro X10 2TB bests the X10 Pro in some of 3DMark’s synthesized real-world apps, but the more surprising result is the back and forth between front-panel and rear-panel jacks.
Moving on to some more-repetitive synthetics, we hardly see a compelling performance reason to pick the Pro over the non-Pro.
But DiskBench is probably the only test that most portable drive users should consider, since it gauges only the time required to transfer a single large file. Is that not how you’d typically use yours? The X10 is roughly a third slower than the X10 Pro in this metric.
According to our calculations, the X10 Pro is the only fast drive that offers acceptable value, though that might change as the cost of importing goods shifts and existing stock is replenished.
We reserve the right to revise this content if ever the X10’s price drops below that of the X10 Pro.
Get it at Amazon
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| Crucial X10 2TB (CT2000X10SSD9) | |
| Pros | Cons |
| Full USB 3.2 Gen2x2 bandwidth (20Gb/s) Compact, ruggedized design | Currently pricier than X10 Pro Shorter warranty than X10 Pro |
| The Verdict | |
| With a launch price that exceeds that of existing X10 Pro stock, the new baseline X10 is a reminder of just how great the X10 Pro has been. We recommend the X10 Pro while it’s still relatively inexpensive. | |
