Corsair EX300U SSD overview: 10Gbps USB efficiency with a MagSafe magnet

Greatest Costs Right this moment: Corsair EX300U

Small, skinny, and squarish SSDs appear to be in vogue nowadays, with Corsair as lively in producing them as any firm. Witness the EX300U, a cheaper, 10Gbps different to the USB4 (40Gbps) EX400U I reviewed about six months again.

It shares its sibling’s MagSafe magnetic circle on again for simple attachment to gadgets that enable it, although not its pace.

What are the EX300U’s options?

The EX300U is a 10Gbps USB drive inside a 2.5-inch sq. that’s roughly 0.5-inch thick. In look, it’s precisely just like the sooner EX400U, except the mannequin quantity on the again label.

There’s the identical round MagSafe magnet on the again that may connect to any appropriate floor, together with many telephones. Sure, auxiliary storage for a lot of beginner videographers.

The one different distinction is the load — at just one.4 ounces, the EX300U is palpably lighter than the 1.8-ounce EX400U. I used to be a bit shocked I might really feel the distinction, however I did.

The controller is a Phison PS2217-17 and the NAND is 3D, in fact. Corsair wasn’t particular as as to if it’s TLC or QLC, however the minimal write price in my exams was 450MBps so no matter it’s (my guess is the most recent QLC), the native write price isn’t tragic.

Corsair features a helpful quick, grey Kind-C to Kind-C cable with one of many connectors angled for a much less obtrusive connection to telephones and the like.

The guarantee on the EX300U is three years, which is the standard for exterior SSDs, however the 250TBW (terabytes that may be written) per terabyte of capability is a bit of stingy. Nonetheless, the chances of anybody exceeding that restrict is reasonably low in a light-duty exterior 10Gbps USB SSD.

A 3-year/250TBW guarantee is extra regarding within the EX400U, which is quick sufficient to see some heavy-duty write masses.

How a lot does the EX300U price?

The EX300U is obtainable in 1TB/$100, 2TB/$180, and 4TB/$340 capacities. On the time of this writing, that’s $10 cheaper than the 1TB EX400U, and $20 cheaper on the 2TB and 4TB capacities.

Whereas a penny saved is a penny earned, I used to be actually hoping that the EX300U would prevent a number of extra given the decreased efficiency. Nonetheless, when you don’t have the sooner port to reap the benefits of a USB 3.2×2 or USB4 SSD, you would possibly as effectively save what you possibly can.

How briskly is the EX300U?

The EX300U is an effective performer for a 10Gbps SSD. It’s completely different in form, however comparable in dimension and weight to the 2 10Gbps thumb drives (the Seagate Extremely Compact SSD and SK Hynix Tube T31) it’s in comparison with within the charts.

As already talked about, the EX300U is, fairly logically, far slower than its 40Gbps EX400U sibling. Though that drive is itself sluggish for a USB4 SSD.

Regardless, the EX300U was simply sooner in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential exams than the aforementioned 10Gbps competitors.

In CrystalDiskMark 8’s random exams, nevertheless, the Extremely Compact SSD cleaned the EX300U’s clock.

In our real-life 48GB transfers, the EX300U was again on high of the competitors in lots of exams, although fell quick in others. Totaled up, it’s nonetheless a win for the EX300U.

Whereas the T31 was a contact sooner with FastCopy, the EX300U was tops with Home windows Explorer in writing 450GB to its cells.

General, I noticed higher efficiency from the EX300U than from the competitors.

One aberration: CrystalDiskMark 8 wouldn’t run when the EX300U was connected to my Thunderbolt 5 port. It created the 64GiB file, however the numbers by no means modified from 0. Whether or not this was the BIOS, Thunderbolt 5/USB4 implementation, or the SSD is anybody’s guess and Corsair hadn’t decided the reason for the difficulty by the point of this writing. All my copy exams over Thunderbolt 5 went off and not using a hitch.

The EX300U additionally carried out as anticipated with all of the artificial benchmarks when connected to the 10Gbps and 20Gbps USB ports.

Must you purchase the Corsair EX300U?

Although not as fast as its 40Gbps EX400U cousin, the EX300U is definitely quick sufficient for many customers and most transportable gadgets. And, it’s extra inexpensive than the 20/40Gbps competitors, albeit not by as a lot as I’d hope.

So, sure, if value is paramount or you don’t have any sooner USB ports to reap the benefits of sooner drives, assume EX300. However go together with the EX400U if you’d like actually top-notch small-and-square efficiency.

How we take a look at

Drive exams at the moment make the most of Home windows 11 24H2, 64-bit working off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Professional in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Extremely i5 225 feeding/fed by two Essential 64GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (128GB of reminiscence whole).

Each 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are built-in into the motherboard and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. Inside PCIe 5.0 SSDs concerned in testing are mounted in a Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 adapter card.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8.04 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks (to maintain article size down, we solely report one) to seek out the storage system’s potential efficiency, then a collection of 48GB and 450GB transfers exams utilizing Home windows Explorer drag and drop to point out what customers will see throughout routine copy operations, in addition to the far sooner FastCopy run as administrator to point out what’s doable.

A 20GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 is used because the second drive in our switch exams. Previously the 48GB exams have been executed with a RAM disk serving that objective.

Every take a look at is carried out on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Be aware that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower as a result of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different elements. This situation has abated considerably with the present crop of SSDs using extra mature controllers and much sooner, late-generation NAND.

Be aware that our testing MO evolves and these outcomes might not match these from earlier articles. Solely comparisons contained in the article are 100% legitimate as these outcomes are gathered utilizing the present {hardware} and MO.