Corsair EX100U Review: Small but Potent External SSD

Price at time of review

Starting at $90.99 | Model Review $184.99

Today’s Best Price: Corsair EX100U

$107.99

Corsair has developed some exciting SSD technology over the last few years, especially with regards to NVMe drives. But until recently, that external storage option mostly revolved around his Flash Voyager series. This is a successful design that dates back quite some time.

With external SSDs from the likes of Crucial, SanDisk, and Seagate flooding the market, it’s time for Corsair to enter the market with one of its own styles. The EX100U is that product.

Is this the right drive to compete with the Crucial X8 and SanDisk Extreme, or was it too late for the external SSD party?

design and build

The EX100U has a distinctive design that may confuse some buyers at first.

It’s a 79.37 x 36.65 x 11mm silvery gray plastic lozenge with a strap slot on one end and a rubber cap on the other. I think it’s big enough to fit a 2240 M.2 NVMe inside, but that size could be a coincidence.

What I don’t know when I first take it out of the packaging is that the rubber cap is removable, but I eventually conclude that it must be under it since there is no other place for external connections. attached.

Mark Pickavance

The USB-C port behind the plug is recessed, and Corsair doesn’t claim the EX100U is waterproof other than to keep dust out of the port, so the reason for the plug’s inclusion is neat. It’s more unknown than not.

What Corsair claims about the EX100U is that it can withstand accelerations up to 500G and is also vibration resistant, whether you have a drive or not.

The box contains two cables, one for a USB-C port and one for a USB-A port, but there’s no carrying pouch to hold the cables when they’re not attached to a drive or lanyard. The cable length is a good 30cm and the drive only weighs 22g, so it probably won’t matter if the drive hangs on the cable when connected to a desktop system.

A little annoying is that I didn’t notice the drive’s activity LED. This is normally expected.

Specs and features

I’m very happy that Corsair didn’t offer ridiculous 250 GB or 500 GB models and instead chose three capacities that people are more likely to need and use, specifically 1, 2 and 4 TB. increase.

Internally, these are 3D NAND wafers connected to a Phison PS2251-18 controller and other electronics, facilitating connections to USB interfaces. Corsair also said that all capacities show the same performance, and that they do not use DRAM cache, instead allocating part of the NAND as static pSLC cache.

It’s nice to see drive manufacturers open up about the internals of their drives instead of hiding controllers and caching mechanisms like trade secrets. I also applaud Corsair’s candid approach.

Manufacturers also quote TBW (Total Bytes Written) values ​​for each drive size, which is unusual. These start at 250 TB for 1 TB models and increase to 500 TB for 2 TB models and 1000 TB for 4 TB models. These are acceptable TBW values ​​for much faster M.2 NVMe internal drives, so EX100U owners are less likely to experience these limits.

Mark Pickavance

The controllers for these drives perform garbage collection and SMART support, but these units do not support TRIM functionality or have hardware encryption.

Perhaps the EX100U’s biggest selling point is that its USB interface not only supports the older USB standard, but also adopts the often-ignored Gen 2×2 standard. Relatively few machines have Gen 2×2 ports, but those who do have it will double the potential bandwidth available with USB 3.2 Gen 2 and match the throughput of Thunderbolt 3. Comparable throughput can be achieved.

For most users using only Gen 2, the speeds offered here are around 1,000MB/s both read and write. Gen 2×2 ports are capable of up to 1,600MB/s read and 1,500MB/s write, regardless of capacity. size.

The 2TB review model comes pre-formatted with exFAT and can be used directly in any modern PC running Windows. It can also be easily reformatted for use with macOS or Linux on these operating systems.

Overall, the EX100U has key features that allow Crucial, SanDisk, and Kingston to compete in this segment of the SSD market. But does it have performance?

performance

Note that my test equipment has a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, but most systems do not have this version of USB, an essential requirement to get the most out of the EX100U.

So the speeds quoted here are significantly better than what users experience with USB 3.2 Gen 2, hitting a limit of around 1,000MB/s for both reading and writing.

With CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 in default mode, the EX100U managed 1,701MB/s read and 1,564MB/s write, better than quoted performance. These results were backed by ATTO, achieving peaks of 1.69GB/s read and 1.61GB/s write.

Mark Pickavance

But perhaps the most realistic test was the AS SSD, and this drive rated 1,476MB/s and 1,413MB/s for reads and writes, a bit shy of the quoted speeds.

In this same benchmark, the Kingston XS2000 managed 1881MB/s read and 1720MB/s write, close to the maximum Gen 2X2 bandwidth can achieve.

So it’s not the fastest Gen 2×2 drive available, but it’s at least 50% better than drives that only support Gen 2 mode.

price

As you’d expect from Corsair, the EX100U isn’t the cheapest external SSD, but it’s affordable for its capacity and performance.

In the US, the 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB MSRPs are $90.99, $184.99 and $464.99 respectively. These costs correspond to £99.99, £199.99 and £489.99 in the UK and EUR 109.99, EUR 219.99 and EUR 549.99 in Europe.

As a general rule, the 2 TB model has the highest cost per GB, and the 4 TB is the most expensive per GB option, regardless of region or currency. Available at retailers such as Corsair and his Scan in the UK and almost everywhere on Amazon.

The EX100U’s closest competitor is the Kingston XS2000, which offers a very similar size and enhanced performance at USB 3.2 Gen 2×2.

On Amazon.com, the Kingston XS2000 is priced at $109.99, $199.99, and $555.06 in the same three capacities that Corsair offers with the EX100U. So it’s slightly more expensive than the EX100U, but slightly faster.

Mark Pickavance

All in all, the EX100U’s current pricing is definitely higher than the price that will likely come down once initial demand is met and the channel is restocked. If you’re only interested in high-capacity Gen 2 compatible drives, the Crucial X6 is just $329.99 for his 4TB model. If a Gen 2×2 port isn’t available, these drives can run nearly as fast as the EX100U and represent better value.

For more options, check out our chart of the best portable hard drives and SSDs.

verdict

We are in a strange technological slump. Sailing, for example, is a dead space that refuses to let the prevailing winds of change blow.

As a result, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, a niche and band-aid technology that most tech pundits overlooked, seems to have found unexpected support from the likes of the Corsair EX100U and Kingston XS2000.

To be clear, this could be a false dawn for Gen 2×2 technology in the medium term.

Once USB 4.0, with its superior bandwidth and potential Thunderbolt compatibility, hits the road, this resurgence of USB flavors could sink into thin air. USB 4.0 does not include support for 2×2 mode and has been replaced by equivalent bandwidth protocols that are not backwards compatible.

The Corsair EX100U, on the other hand, is a good option for those lucky enough to have a Gen 2×2 port in their system. This isn’t the fastest drive of this flavor we’ve tested.

Mark Pickavance

spec

• Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 2×2
• Speed: 1600MB/s read, 1500MB/s write
• Capacity: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB
• Dimensions: 79.37 x 36.65 x 11mm
• Weight: 22g
• Case material: plastic
• Operating temperature: 0℃~70℃
• Warranty: Limited 3 year warranty
• Compatible models: macOS 10.13 or later (Time Machine compatible), Windows 10 or later