Corsair EX100U 2TB External SSD Review

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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