Okay, so I needed a new portable SSD, and I was torn between the Crucial X9 and the X9 Pro. I’d heard good things about both, but I really wanted to see the difference for myself. So, I got my hands on both of them and started messing around.
Getting Started
First, I just unboxed them. They’re both pretty small and sleek, which is what I wanted. Nothing fancy, just looked like they could take a bit of a beating, which is good because I’m clumsy.
Hooking Them Up
Next, I plugged them into my laptop. I’ve got a fairly new laptop with USB-C, so I was able to use the full speed of both drives. I made sure to use the same port for both, just to keep things fair.
Running Some Tests
I wanted to see how fast these things really were. So I used this CrystalDiskMark tool, it’s pretty simple to read. I copied some big video files, the kind I usually work with, back and forth. I did this a few times, just to be sure, and wrote down the speeds.
Here’s what I found, roughly:
- Crucial X9: Read and write speeds were hovering around 1000MB/s.
- Crucial X9 Pro: This one was consistently closer to 2000MB/s for both read and write.
Copy and Paste to Feel the Real Difference
So, on paper, the X9 Pro is like, twice as fast. I wanted to feel it, so I start to use them to save my daily files, including large videos, documents, and photos. Believe it or not, The speed of X9 pro is obviously faster than X9. I mean I almost can not tell if I was saving my files to my local hard drive, while X9 can feel its delay.
My Final Thoughts
The X9 Pro is definitely faster. No question. For my daily work routine, that speed makes a difference when saving big files. If I need to handle many large files, the X9 Pro is my choice. But if I just deal with documents or photos and have a limited budget, the X9 is enough.
I guess it just comes down to what one needs and how much one wants to spend.