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SSDs like SanDisk’s Extreme Pro and Samsung’s X5 are incredibly fast, but they are very expensive devices. If you’re more budget-conscious, the Crucial X6 is an appealing option. While not constructed of luxurious materials such as metal or featuring an anti-slip grip coating, at just $105 for the 1TB capacity and $190 for the 2TB capacity, the X6 is a great value.
Crucial’s gears the X6 for those looking for lower pricing more than blazing performance, so the company uses a DRAMless architecture paired with QLC flash to cut down manufacturing costs. This trade-off was very apparent during the 2TB X6’s sustained write testing.
For those who find themselves wanting better sustained write speeds, such as content creators, WD’s My Passport SSD may be worth the extra coin. At 1TB, the WD My Passport SSD carries a $40 premium and roughly a $100 premium at 2TB, but it’s worth it if you want added security and the longer five-year warranty, too.
The X6 is responsive with small working sets thanks to a tweaked and tuned dynamic SLC cache, trading blows with the TLC-based SanDisk Extreme v1, but ultimately it wasn’t as fast, especially during longer sustained data transfers. In that regard, SanDisk’s Extreme v1 is a much better pick. However, the Extreme v1 costs roughly $20-$30 more, so it might be a stretch if your budget is tight.
If your budget can stretch, the Crucial X8 is priced the same as the SanDisk Extreme v1. While the X8 also suffers from poor sustained write performance, it’s much snappier than the X6 with small datasets and will deliver responsive game load times on your gaming PC or console, given you have a USB 10 Gbps port to support it. Crucial’s X6 lacks hardware-accelerated encryption support, but it’s hard to complain given the price point.
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