SSD prices have crashed over the course of the last year following a glut in demand, and that's good news if you're looking to buy a portable drive. There's plenty of options available in this segment, but the drive that I used a lot in recent weeks is the Crucial X9 Pro, and it has been terrific.
Crucial is owned by Micron, and it is the only brand other than Samsung to make all of its hardware in-house. That gives the X9 Pro a distinct edge over other portable SSDs, and as an added incentive, the 4TB model is now selling for just $182 as part of Black Friday savings. You just get a better deal with the 4TB model; if you don't need that much storage, the 1TB drive is listed at $59, and the 2TB model is going for $109. But if you want to maximize value, the 4TB X9 Pro is the way to go.
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The X9 Pro delivers everything you need in a portable SSD in 2023. It has a rugged design and is drop-proof up to 7.5 feet, you get IP55 dust and water resistance, and it has 256-bit AES hardware encryption by default. The drive connects over USB 3.2 Gen 2, and you get a short USB-C to USB-C cable in the box that lets you connect the X9 Pro to your phone or notebook with ease. I would've liked a USB-A cable as well, but in my use case, the USB-C cable did the job.
There are plenty of great portable SSDs in the market today, but the X9 Pro differentiates itself on the performance front. The drive is touted with reads and writes of 1,050MB/s, and my testing delivered results close to that figure. It hit reads of 980MB/s and writes of 906MB/s in CrystalDiskMark's tests, and that's among the fastest of current-gen USB 3.2-based portable SSDs.
Essentially, the X9 Pro offers a design that's built to last, and performance that's among the best in this category. Throw in a generous warranty that extends to five years, and you have a great overall package that ticks all the right boxes. The 4TB model comes out to just $45.5 per terabyte, versus $59 for the 1TB version, and $54.5 for the 2TB variant.
So if you're eyeing a portable SSD and need something that goes up to 4TB, you should pick up the Crucial X9 Pro while it's on sale at $182. It undercuts Samsung while delivering the same level of performance, and that's a huge deal.
