90 PCWorld MAY 2020REVIEWS CRUCIAL X8 PORTABLE SSD
The X8 is one of the larger portable drives
I’ve tested. Measuring 4.33 x 0.45 x 2.08
inches (width/depth/height), and weighing
just shy of 3.5 ounces, it’s not quite as husky
as Samsung’s X5, but more like SanDisk’s
Extreme Pro Portable SSD (go.pcworld.com/
snxp). It sits in your hand nicely.
The X8 connects using USB 3.2 Gen 2
(10Gbps) and is available in two capacities:
500GB ($119.95 from Crucial [go.pcworld.
com/19cr]) and 1TB ($164.95 on Amazon
[go.pcworld.com/64am]), the latter being
the capacity we tested. The NAND is TLC,
which is plenty fast for an external USB
SSD—most of the time. Yes, another tease
about performance.
The X8 ships with a Type-C to Type-C
cable, with a Type-C to Type-A adapter.PERFORMANCE
For the vast majority of our testing, the 1TB
Crucial X8 Portable SSD performed like a
champ. That covers 99.999% of likely
scenarios. However, in the one test where
the X8 Portable SSD fell short—the 450GB
write test—it fell short by miles. More on that
in a bit, and back to the good news in
CrystalDiskMark 6 (see darkest bars in chart).
CrystalDiskMark 6 ranked the X8 Portable
SSD as basically equal to the competition. The
numbers in the chart are very competitive, and
indicate performance for relatively short 1GB
read and write tasks. All the other CDM 6
numbers were on track as well.
However, as with the other portable USB
SSD drives we’ve tested, real-life performance
didn’t match the synthetic benchmark results.Crucial’s X8 portable SSD is a handsome drive that’s svelte, but with a nice smooth texture and heft.