Package and Contents

Inside the package you will find the SSD itself, some documentation, a USB Type-C cable, and an adapter to connect the USB-C cable to a standard USB (Type-A) port.

The Drive

The Crucial X8 comes with a very clean, understated look that almost reminds of Apple products.

While the sides are soft rubberized plastic, the center main body is made from thick metal, which not only improves durability, but also acts as a heatsink for the NVMe SSD inside.


For connectivity with the rest of the world, the Crucial X8 uses the USB-C interface with support for up to 10 Gbps transfer speeds. When connected to a lower-grade speed USB port, it will still work, just at reduced maximum speed. An additional power connector is not required—all power is provided over the USB-C cable.

What's missing here is some kind of visual activity indicator for the "connected" and possibly "read/write" status.

Disassembly

Taking the drive apart, we see that inside the X8, you'll find a base PCB that has an M.2 PCIe drive screwed into it—a simple, yet flexible design. Do note the thermal pads that ensure heat is transferred properly to the enclosure.


The main PCB provides USB connectivity and the USB-to-NVMe translation hardware.


The SSD itself looks exactly like the Crucial P1, but I'm sure we'll see other variants depending on market demand.


We've encountered the Silicon Motion SM2263ENG controller on several M.2 SSDs before. It is a fairly new model with four flash channels, solid performance, and support for TLC.


The two flash chips are Micron's own 64-layer QLC NAND. Each chip has a capacity of 512 GB.


ASMedia's ASM2362 USB-to-PCIe bridge controller handles all the translation work between the USB-C port and the M.2 NVMe interface on the integrated SSD. It supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 on the USB side and PCI-Express x2 3.0 for attached devices.


A Micron 1 GB DDR3 chip provides fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables in.