Corsair EX100U Review: Small but Powerful External SSD

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Corsair has created some interesting SSD technologies over the past few years, especially in regards to NVMe drives. But until recently, its external storage options have mostly boiled down to the Flash Voyager line, a successful design that’s been around for quite some time.

With Crucial, SanDisk, Seagate and others selling a plethora of external SSDs, it’s time for Corsair to enter this market segment with one of its unique offerings, and that’s exactly what the EX100U is.

Will this drive be up to par with the Crucial X8 and SanDisk Extreme, or is it too late for the external SSD party?

Design and assembly

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

It is a silver gray plastic diamond measuring 79.37 x 36.65 x 11mm with a lanyard slot on one end and a rubber cap on the other. I estimate that this is enough to fit 2240 M.2 NVMe inside, but this scale could be a coincidence.

What’s not obvious when you first take it out of the package is that the rubber cap is removable, although there are no other places for an external connection, so in the end I came to the conclusion that it should be there.

Mark Pickavance

Since the USB-C port is recessed behind the plug, and Corsair doesn’t claim the EX100U is waterproof, other than to keep dust out of the port, why it’s included in the plug is unclear other than neatness.

What Corsair claims for the EX100U is that it can handle acceleration up to 500G even if the person holding this drive fails, and it’s also vibration resistant.

There are two cables in the box, one each for the USB-C and USB-A ports, but there’s no carrying case to hold them in when not connected to a drive or strap. The cables are a respectable 30cm long, and because the drive only weighs 22g, having the drive dangling on the cable when plugged into a desktop system is probably not an issue.

One slight annoyance is that I didn’t notice any disk activity indicators, which is what we usually expect.

Characteristics and features

I’m so glad Corsair isn’t offering silly 250GB or 500GB models, but instead opted for three capacities that people are more likely to want and use, namely 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB.

Inside are 3D NAND wafers connected to a Phison PS2251-18 controller and other electronics for easy USB connectivity. Corsair lists the same performance for all capacities, and also says it doesn’t use the DRAM cache, but instead allocates a portion of the NAND as a static pSLC cache.

It’s amazing to see a drive manufacturer be so candid about the internals of their drives rather than hide the controller or caching mechanism like it’s a trade secret. And I commend Corsair for being candid.

The manufacturer also lists a TBW (Total Bytes Written) value for each drive size, which is unusual and they start at 250TB for the 1TB model and then go up to 500TB for the 2TB and 1000TB for the 4TB. These would be acceptable TBW values ​​for internal M.2 NVMe drives at much faster speeds, so it’s unlikely that EX100U owners will run into these limits.

Mark Pickavance

Although the controller on these drives manages garbage collection and supports SMART, these drives do not support the TRIM feature and do not have hardware encryption.

Probably the biggest advantage of the EX100U is that the USB interface supports older USB standards, but also supports the often overlooked Gen 2×2 standard. Although the number of machines with Gen 2×2 ports is relatively small, those with it can double the potential bandwidth available via USB 3.2. Gen 2 provides bandwidth equal to that of Thunderbolt 3.

For most Gen 2-only users, speeds on offer here are roughly 1000MB/s for both reads and writes, and the Gen 2×2 port delivers up to 1600MB/s read and 1500MB/s write, regardless of capacity. the size.

The 2TB Review Model has been pre-formatted to exFAT, making it suitable for direct use on any modern Windows PC. And it can be easily reformatted for use with macOS or Linux for those operating systems.

Overall, the EX100U has the critical features to give Crucial, SanDisk and Kingston some competition in this segment of the SSD market. But does it have performance?

Spectacle

Although my test equipment is equipped with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, it should be understood that most systems do not have this version of USB, and this is an important requirement to get the most out of the EX100U.

So the speeds listed here are significantly faster than users using USB 3.2 Gen 2, where the limit is around 1000MB/s for both reads and writes.

Using CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 in default mode, the EX100U managed 1701 MB/s read and 1564 MB/s write, which is faster than advertised. These results were supported by ATTO reaching peak read speeds of 1.69 GB/s and writes of 1.61 GB/s.

Mark Pickavance

But probably the most realistic test was AS SSD, which rated this drive at 1476 MB/s and 1413 MB/s read and write, which is slightly short of the advertised speeds.

In the same test, the Kingston XS2000 managed 1881MB/s read and 1720MB/s write, which is close to the Gen 2X2’s maximum throughput.

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

Price

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

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

Generally, regardless of region or currency, the 2TB model offers the best price per GB, while the 4TB model is the most expensive option per GB. You can buy it from Corsair and retailers including Scan in the UK and Amazon almost everywhere.

The competitor that the EX100U competes most closely with is the Kingston XS2000, which offers a very similar size and improved performance over USB 3.2 Gen 2×2.

On Amazon.com, the Kingston XS2000 sells for $109.99, $199.99, and $555.06 for the same three capacities as Corsair for the EX100U. This makes it a bit more expensive than the EX100U, but it’s a bit faster.

Mark Pickavance

Overall, the current price of the EX100U is undoubtedly higher than what is likely to remain after initial requirements are met and the channel is restocked. For those only interested in higher capacity Gen 2 compatible drives, the Crucial X6 is just $329.99 for the 4TB model. If you don’t have Gen 2×2 ports available, these drives can run at almost the same speed as the EX100U for better value.

Check out our table of the best portable hard drives and solid state drives to learn more.

Verdict

We find ourselves in a strange technological decline, sailing parlance, in a dead space where the prevailing winds of change refuse to blow.

As a result, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, a technology that most tech experts have dismissed as a niche and a stopgap, seems to be getting unexpected support from the Corsair EX100U and Kingston XS2000, among others.

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

Once USB 4.0 is in place, with its superior bandwidth and potential Thunderbolt compatibility, the resurgence of this USB variant is likely to disappear without a trace. USB 4.0 does not support 2×2 mode, replacing it with an equivalent bandwidth protocol that is not backwards compatible.

Meanwhile, the Corsair EX100U is a good option for those lucky enough to have Gen 2×2 ports in their systems, even if it’s not the fastest drive of its kind we’ve tested.

Mark Pickavance

Specifications

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