Page 2 - A Closer Look, Test System
The Crucial X9 Pro 2TB has a sleek minimalist design virtually identical to the Crucial X10 Pro 2TB. Front and center is the Crucial logo on a matte aluminum background. The silver color of the portable SSD keeps it looking clean. Towards the sides of the SSD, the front angles slightly downward until it reaches the edge, which brings some depth to the design instead of having a flat front. There is a small cutout at the top right corner, which has an LED that lights up when the SSD is plugged in and can be used to attach to something like a lanyard. The overall build of the Crucial X9 Pro 2TB is solid and feels great. There is barely any flex to the SSD's enclosure.
The dimensions for the Crucial X9 Pro 2TB comes in at 65mm wide, 50mm deep, and 10mm thick. This USB SSD is really small, making it easily portable. Its weight comes in at about 42g, which again adds to its ability to be traveled around with. The Crucial X9 Pro is certified with IP55 dust, water, and sand resistance, and built to be reasonably resilient against drops. The X9 Pro is built to be taken on-the-go and provides ease of use for work wherever you go.
The included cable is 16cm long with a USB-Type C connection on both sides. The cable is built well, and is not very flexible. It will not easily take a new shape. The length works well for working on-the-go and plugging into a laptop somewhere. The left side of the SSD is where the plug in is located, allowing the SSD to lay flat when plugged in.
On the back of the Crucial X9 Pro, we find a soft rubber coating. The rubber provides a small amount of grip on a table when the SSD lays flat. However, with its light weight, it can still easily shift around when intended. The capacity is placed in large writing. In our case, it is the 2TB model, but a 1TB and 4TB version can be bought as well.
Otherwise, the Crucial X9 Pro provides additional security features. It has 256-bit AES hardware encryption with password protection to prevent unauthorized access to your valuable files. Crucial will release a utility for OS-agnostic data protection, but it is also compatible with Windows BitLocker to Go and MacOS FileVault. This is especially valuable if you are consistently traveling around with the drive. Crucial is specifically targeting on-the-go creatives, who might want to store their photos and videos on the drive. This target is especially relevant since Crucial is providing one free month access to Adobe Creative Cloud. Similarly, the emphasis is on ensuring that transferring large photo or video files can be done easily and seamlessly, even being able to work off of the drive.
I did not disassemble the drive, so I am not sure of the specific drive and controller model inside. Crucial does not post the write endurance either. We will, however, test the Crucial X9 Pro 2TB to see how it performs.
Our test configuration is as follows:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
CPU Cooling: AMD Wraith STEALTH
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming B450M-Pro S
RAM: XPG GAMMIX D10 DDR4-3200 2x8GB
Graphics: ASUS Dual GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
Chassis: Thermaltake Ceres 300 TG ARGB Snow
Storage: Western Digital WD_BLACK SN770 NVMe SSD 1TB
Power: Corsair VS600 600W
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Compared Hardware:
- Crucial X9 Pro 2TB
- ADATA Elite SE880 1TB
- Crucial X10 Pro 2TB
- Crucial X6 2TB
- Crucial X8 1TB
- Crucial X8 2TB
- LaCie Mobile SSD 500GB
- LaCie Rugged SSD 1TB
- Lexar SL660 BLAZE 1TB
- Lexar Professional SL100 Pro 500GB
- Western Digital Black P50 Game Drive SSD 1TB
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Conclusion
