Corsair EX100U 2TB External SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Corsair EX100U 2TB3. ATTO/CrystalDiskMark/AS SSD4. Throughput5. PCMark 10 Data Drive Benchmark6. Real Life File Transfers7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Corsair's latest external SSD, the EX100U, is one of, if not the smallest external drives we've seen to date. It measures just 79.37 x 36.65 x 11mm and hardly bothers the scales at 22g. Despite its diminutive size, it packs quite a punch as it uses a USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 (20 Gbps) connection. The port is protected by a small rubber cap but there doesn't seem to be any official protection rating for the drive.

Available in three capacities; 1TB 2TB (the drive we are reviewing) and a flagship 4TB model, Corsair's EX100U has official Sequential performance ratings of 1,600MB/s for reads and up to 1,500MB/s for writes. All three drives in the range have the same figures.

Corsair's official Sequential performance ratings for the EX100U are up to 1,600MB/s for reads and up to 1,500MB/s for writes. Using the ATTO benchmark we could not only confirm those figures but managed to squeeze a little more performance out of it especially writes.  The best read result we saw from ATTO was 1,680MB/s, 80MB/s faster than the official rating but the tested write figure was even better at 1,850MB/s, some 350MB/s faster than the official maximum figure.

We found the 2TB Corsair EX100U on Scan for £197.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

Pros

• Tiny size.
• Sequential performance.

Cons

• Not the fastest USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 we've seen.
• Needs a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 connection to get the best out of it.
• No security.

KitGuru says: Tiny, fast and available up to 4TB in capacity, probably the main thing to worry about Corsair's EX100U is trying not to lose it!

 

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