With the X6 Portable, the storage experts at Crucial have introduced another external hard drive. This one is supposed to hit the same notch as the X8. But it is much more compact. With only 42 grams it is also a real lightweight. But for this you have to make significant sacrifices in speed.
A true mini SSD
The X6 Portable is with 69 x 64 x 11 mm is a true dwarf among external hard drives. But the smaller size also means that you have to make some compromises compared to the X8. This applies especially to the speed of data transfer. The maximum on the X6 Portable with SATA SSD is just 540 MB/s. Here the X8 easily manages twice that. For the small X6 Portable you can choose between the versions with 1 TB and 2 TB. It is pleasing that Crucial relies on a modern USB-C connection. But less pleasing is that there is no suitable adapter included. So if you have a computer with USB-A, you have to look for suitable accessories on your own. Unfortunately we don’t know anything about technical details yet. Especially which controller and NAND-Flash is used, we don’t know yet.
Aged inner life
Unfortunately, the X6 Portable lags behind the competition in many respects. Here Crucial seems to have bought the price of the small size. The technical specs are more like those of the three year old Samsung Portable T5. It’s surprising that Crucial only last December launched the X8 Portable, an external SSD that is twice as fast as the upcoming X6 Portable. But it is not only the low speed that makes you wonder. Furthermore, the X6 Portable is not specially protected from external influences. In particular, there is no elemental protection or protection against impacts. Considering the fact that the small SSD should be taken everywhere, this is surprising. However, Crucial promises to be resistant to falls from a height of up to two meters. Even high temperatures should not be able to impair the SSD’s functionality. Here one must probably wait for the first self-tests.
Price and availability
But Crucial has not only announced X6 Portable. In the course of this the manufacturer announced that the popular series X8 Portable with 2 TB storage space will get a new version. Up to now you could only buy the external hard disk in 500 GB or 1 TB size. Crucial plans to launch the new X6 Portable on September 1st. For the “small” version with 1 TB storage Crucial charges 157 Euro. If you need more storage you should go for the 2 TB model. This costs 289 Euro.
