Premium devices sporting the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) interface have been making it to the market over the last 18 months or so, but have been held back by the lack of widespread host support in desktops and other computing platforms. Within the USB ecosystem, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) is fast becoming the entry level for thumb drives and portable SSDs. While those speeds can be achieved with Thunderbolt 4, mass-market devices have to rely on USB. We now have palm-sized flash-based storage devices capable of delivering 3GBps+ speeds. While PCIe / NVMe has been the driver of SSD speeds, faster host interfaces (such as Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.x) have helped on the direct-attached storage (DAS) side. Introduction and Product ImpressionsĮxternal bus-powered storage devices have grown both in storage capacity as well as speeds over the last decade. This review looks at the features of the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2 4TB and the Crucial X6 4TB portable SSDs, along with an analysis of their performance numbers and value propositions. At the same capacity point, they present an interesting view of the tradeoffs involved in achieving a particular price point - performance, consistency, BOM features, and value additions. WD's flagships and Crucial's mainstream X6 offerings represent two ends of the pricing spectrum. In March, Crucial updated its affordable X6 lineup to include a 4TB version.
At the 2021 CES, Western Digital introduced 4TB variants of almost all drives in their portable SSD families, including their flagship SanDisk Extreme PRO v2 and the WD_BLACK P50 lines. With economies of scale kicking in, multiple vendors are finally able to offer consumer-focused flash-based storage devices in capacities up to 4TB.
Meanwhile, technological advancements such as 3D NAND with high layer counts and the emergence of QLC have enabled SSD capacities to increase substantially over the last few years. And the backup requirements for the average consumer have also grown in tandem.
Content creators find themselves capturing photos and videos at higher and higher resolutions and bit-rates, while gamers are encountering installation sizes running into 100s of GBs.
The portable SSD market has been steadily expanding thanks to the increasing digital footprint of consumers.
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