Micron and Crucial by using Micron's TLC NAND and a single-ASIC portable storage architecture, released a new series of portable SSDs to the market and end users, that aim the deliver outstanding performance and compactness. The Crucial X10 Pro is the top-of-the-line external portable SSD, that boosts reading/writing speeds up to 2.1GB/sec and allows users to safely store, transport, and backup important videos, photos, files, and more on the go, without cloud or internet access. The Crucial X10 Pro series can be found at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB configurations at $119.99, $169.99, and $289.99 retail prices respectively. In this review, we examined the 2TB variant that is very affordable to most users.

We were surprised to see how small and lightweight the Crucial X10 Pro 2TB is and with the included lanyard port it can become your next best friend with your car chain keys. The product weighs around 48gr and has a small footprint of 65x50mm, while the build material combination of aluminum and rubberized feel is fantastic. The retail package includes a Type-C-to-C cable that is 24cm long. There are no USB Type-A adapters included, probably Crucial will offer one in the near future for a small cost. The drive comes pre-formatted at exFAT file system which means that the Crucial 10 Pro 2TB is truly universal with almost all currently sold devices that have TypeC connection (PC/MAC/Android/Linux/Playstation systems, cannot be sure about Xbox, even Crucial claims it is).

Passing to the performance area, this drive is FAST, when paired with a USB Gen 3.2 2x2 TypeC port. That means users will have the latest the "best" possible hardware to have such a USB port, else either will be limited to USB Gen 3.2 port, which supports "only" 1.0GB/sec maximum reading/writing speeds. With our newest test system (AMD 7950X + Asus ProArt X670E) we did the advertised and promised 2.1GB/sec reading and around 1.5~1.8GB/sec writing speeds, with sequential files, depending on the used file system and the I/O Type-C port. Crucial has demonstrated with other configurations that were able to get 2.0GB/sec writing speeds, so we assume the official specifications to be on par with real-life usage. When using big files you will have good writing speeds, however when using single files bigger than 90GB be prepared to see some drop in writing performance, that most DRAM-less SSDS suffer, in that case, our writing speed dropped down to 600MB/sec, which is still good for a portable external device.

Concluding this review, the Crucial X10 Pro 2TB portable SSD, does get the PRO mark correctly, since it supports very high reading/writing speeds, affordable price, 5 years of warranty, IP55 rating protection, high build-quality, small footprint, and 256 AES HW + PP hardware security protocols. Other competitor drives in the market may offer similar specs (~2.0GB/sec reading/writing) but are twice the size. The current price of the Crucial X10 Pro 2TB drive is around ~$169.99 at Crucial's website and we highly suggest this new lineup for enthusiast users who simply want the best and fastest available hardware are their car keychain.