Whenever I'm looking to upgrade any part of my gaming setup, I do all the normal tech spec and price point comparisons. A wealth of external drives, many among our best external SSD guide, make it through this fairly bland round of decision-making. With many SSDs alike in dignity before me, I try to then thin the herd by reaching for a real meat-grinder of a question: 'But is it cute?'
Perhaps it's a bad habit, perhaps it's a little thing called taste, honey. If I don't enjoy looking at it, then how can it take pride of place among the detritus of my eternally messy desk? The Crucial X9 1 TB drive is definitely not a showy example of the cuteness factor, but it is delightfully dinky with its 65 x 50 mm enclosure. It also squeaks by this unforgiving decider thanks to a cut-down-to-size price, now only $65 from Amazon.
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That's $0.06 per GB, which remains a darn sight cheaper than many other external SSDs. If you're specifically avoiding all things labelled Prime Day, you can instead get it for the same price at Newegg as well (with free shipping to boot)—though don't be fooled into thinking Newegg isn't partaking in its own sales event, either. Either way, you're picking up a teeny-weeny drive that could easily be popped onto the end of a lanyard—though I'd still be careful doing so if I were you.
To keep that price point oh so compelling, Crucial has had to focus on what really counts for the X9. That means, as our Jacob points out in his Crucial X9 2 TB review, surprisingly robust performance. Jacob writes, "Based on my IOMeter testing, you're looking at about six minutes of peak transfer speeds at about 960 MB/s. That should mean you'll be able to transfer just shy of 350 GB of data over 6 minutes before the drive's pseudo-SLC cache runs out and speeds drop."
But just like picking up an adorable little puppy—or a misrepresented piglet—this cuteness comes with some big caveats. For starters, this is a USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 drive, meaning that it caps out at the not-exactly-dizzying speed of 10 Gbps. While far from a snail's pace, and still fine for if you just want to use this as extra on-hand storage for your games, it could definitely be faster.
To be fair though, if it was a 20 Gbps drive, then it would also be a lot pricier. There are a few other aspects Crucial has designed to keep costs down. For instance, the USB-C port has no dust cover (though it does have an IP55 rating, offering limited water and dust resistance otherwise).
Okay so, maybe this drive wouldn't feel quite at home in my messy home office…
And then, there's the reason I personally wouldn't want my own itty-bitty SSD swinging around on the end of a lanyard. This deal specifically applies to the standard version of the Crucial X9 external SSD, which lacks the Pro version's metal casing. Instead, you've got a plastic shell that Crucial says, as per this PDF, is still "shock, vibration, and drop proof up to 7.5 feet." Still, I personally wouldn't want to chance it. Ah well, nothing for it—I'll be treating this external SSD like the little prince it was always destined to be.
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1. Best overall: WD_Black SN7100
2. Best budget: Lexar NM790
3. Best PCIe 5.0: WD_Black SN8100
4. Best budget PCIe 5.0: Crucial P510
5. Best 4 TB: TeamGroup MP44
6. Best 8 TB: WD_Black SN850X
7. Best M.2 2230: Lexar Play 2230
8. Best for PS5: Silicon Power XS70
9. Best SATA: Crucial MX500
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