Crucial Unveils X9 Portable SSD: QLC for the Cost-Conscious Consumer

Crucial entered the portable SSD market relatively late, with their X6 and X8 PSSDs being the mainstay for many years. Based on QLC NAND, they were marketed for read-intensive use-cases, though the generous amount of SLC cache ended up delivering good write performance too for mainstream consumers - particularly in the X8. Recently, the company also started focusing on the prosumer / power users market with the launch of the X9 Pro and X10 Pro. Based on Micron's 176L 3D TLC NAND, these drives came with guaranteed write speeds.