Patriot EVLVR Portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD Review: Sleek, Snappy, Solid

Performance Summary: The Patriot EVLVR delivered good performance throughout our testing, considering its price point and PCIe lane configurations.  The EVLVR's PCIe x2 lane configuration holds it back from competing with more expensive external drives with PCIe x4 configurations strictly in terms of peak throughput, but it easily outpaces SATA-based offerings and can exceed 1.5GB/s with large sequential transfers. High queue depth 4K transfers also proved to be a strong point for the drive.

Patriot EVLVR Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD -- Find Them At Amazon

As previously mentioned, the 1TB Patriot EVLVR we tested is priced at $429.99; a $249.99 512GB version with similar performance specifications is also available. The price may seem a bit high when internal NVMe SSDs that perform better are available at much lower costs, but keep in mind this is a specialized product made to be durable and portable, so we have to give that some consideration. Thunderbolt controllers are not cheap. When you take into account the internal TB to M.2 adapter board, the included Thunderbolt cable, and the sturdy enclosure, the reason for the perceived price premium starts to come into focus. We wish Patriot had dropped a PCIe X4 based drive in the unit to boost performance, but as it is, the EVLVR is till pretty snappy and the faster M.2 drive would likely have driven costs somewhat higher.

If you need high speed external storage and want to step up from basic USB 3.0 external drives, the Patriot EVLVR may meet your needs. It's not the fastest Thunderbolt 3 drive, but it will get the job done, and to be fair, unless you are only copying large files all the time to or from another NVMe SSD you wont necessarily see the higher sequential performance benefits of more expensive drives anyway. Content creation professionals, students, or anyone needing a sturdy high speed external storage solution should give the Patriot EVLVR some consideration, provided you've got the necessary Thunderbolt 3 port on your PC.

Durable metal enclosure Solid Performance Decent price point 2 year warranty	Only using PCIe x2 SSD Short Included Cable