Patriot EVLVR Portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD Review: Sleek, Snappy, Solid
Patriot EVLVR NVMe TB3 SSD: Rugged, Stylish And Snappy Storage On The Go
Patriot is perhaps one of the lesser-known PC component and accessory manufacturers in comparison to large players like Kingston or Corsair, but the Northern California-based company has actually been around since 1985. About 10 years ago, Patriot launched its Viper Gaming brand, which offers high-performance gaming memory and peripherals. The product we have today, the Patriot EVLVR, is from Patriot's more business-facing product lines and it is an external, portable NVMe SSD which employs the Thunderbolt 3 interface for full PCIe Gen 3 performance capabilities.
The Patriot EVLVR we have in hand is a 1TB model that retails for about $429.99 at Amazon, give or take a few bucks. We’ve got the Patriot EVLVR Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD’s full spec and feature highlights detailed below and will dive into its components and performance on the pages ahead. If you find yourself needing a sizable and snappy external Thunderbolt storage solution, you're going to want to check this out...
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Here's a quick look at the Patriot EVLVR's packaging. We feel the need to mention it for reasons that will become apparent a little later. There is a window on the packaging, but the front flap is secured with a sticker, so you'd have to cut through that to get a glimpse of the actual drive at retail, which may not go over very well. Also note that if you look closely, there is a discoloration on the front window, just above the word EVLVR on the front of the drive. We will be coming back to that in a bit.
Here is the foam the drive rides in from the factory. Once again, this all is being shown for a purpose, we promise. The foam is very dense, but will give when squeezed hard enough, so it appears to be a great medium to house the drive and ensure it survives the roughest of shipping conditions.
Here's the reason we spent so much time on the packaging. You may have noticed the foam insert is comprised of two layers, stacked and glued. Well that glue can be quite hard and it caused some abrasions to the metal housing on our unit, which we initially thought were just glue remnants. Once we tried to buff them out to take photos, however, we realized the surface was actually marred slightly.
The marring you also see at the top edge of the drive is apparently caused by the front plastic of the window. We have notified Patriot of this and hope that this can be fixed, as most consumers would prefer to receive a new product in pristine condition, when it is fresh out of the box. Of course, this isn't a huge deal and doesn't affect the performance of the EVLVR, but we felt the need to point it out nonetheless.
