Final Score: 80 out of 100
While the Crucial X8 2TB will be a wee bit controversial it pretty much is the epitome of value in a corner of the market where ‘value’ has become an endangered species… if it existed outside of mythos that is. It is also true that while we would not recommend the X8 2TB as a portable ‘scratch disk’ for professional video/photographers, or ever as a portable ‘dump drive’ where either continuous or large sequential writes requests are the norm, those are basically the only common scenarios where the X8 will fail to impress. Thankfully, it does not have to impress these buyers.
The typical buyer of single drive, NVMe+USB based devices are not professionals. Professionals for the most part are going to be looking at Direct Attach Storage devices like the LaCie ‘Big’ models for heavy duty editing work; and/or more portable models like the IP certified, ThunderBolt 3 based, LaCie Rugged SSD Pro for on-site CFexpress/CFast/SD/etc card dump-drive duties. Instead of going after this buyer and satisfying their highly specific needs, Crucial has wisely targeted the average jane and joe sixpack. The average buyer who is dissatisfied with large capacity SATA SSD models and yet still have those pesky things like ‘budgets’ to worry about. This a massive portion of the market to focus in on and the up-sized Crucial X8 series is going to be serious, serious competition. One where few will be able to argue against its blend of performance and price, and fewer will want to opt for similar capacity, similarly priced SATA models.
With that said, please do not get the wrong impression about our opinion on this model, and who it is right for. The Crucial X8 does make some serious compromises to come in at significantly less than most of the competition. No one, and we mean no one, is going to go quoting Matthew 16:18 when talking about the X8 2TB using the P1 series as its foundation. QLC is more temperature sensitive than TLC, and relies almost entirely upon its pseudo-SLC buffer to keep performance numbers high enough to saturate the USB 3.1 gen 2 bus.
Big buffer or no, if you do plan on hammering your portable SSD device with more than what the X8’s write buffer can handle the value proposition does get flipped on its ear. That however is firmly into the prosumer end of the market and you are looking at the wrong class of drives. On the other hand, if you do fall into its rather wide design envelope you and your wallet will both love what it can do. So know what you need, what you can afford, and make your decision based upon the answers to those two critical questions.
The Review
Crucial X8 2TB External SSD
While the Crucial X8 2TB will be a wee bit controversial it pretty much is the epitome of value in a corner of the market where ‘value’ has become an endangered species… if it existed outside of mythos that is. It is also true that while we would not recommend the X8 2TB as a portable ‘scratch disk’ for professional video/photographers, or ever as a portable ‘dump drive’ where either continuous or large sequential writes requests are the norm, those are basically the only common scenarios where the X8 will fail to impress. Thankfully, it does not have to impress these buyers.
