Patriot EVLVR

[3SQ Machine]

Tested out 3 different NVME external drives for the last week for my Logic Pro X projects + library and have finally settled on this one. You can see my postings on the other drives (Crucial X8 and Oyen Digital Helix) in another thread. They are being returned.

I was looking for 1TB minimum and 900 GB/s read/writes. The QLC USB-C drives, while cheap, wouldn't fit the bill because writes quickly drop to the 80s. Not good for recording, might as well stick with SATA. So far, this one fits the bill. X5 would've been overkill (but nice of course). On the EVLVR, getting consistent 850 writes/1400+ reads. Very satisfied.

It's a thunderbolt-only drive, although it barely uses any of the bandwith, which is ok. It's cheap -- only $210 for the 1TB drive. However, the warranty is only 2 years which is weak. BUT, knew this going in. Already disassembled to investigate--it's an easy open enclosure that supports a 4 lane M.2 2280 so I can swap another drive down the road for an upgrade. It's just a basic stick in there now with the Phison controller only 2-lane, hence the lower speeds. I figured this was a good value as most thunderbolt enclosures can run $150 and I get a basic 1TB TLC drive as a bonus that I'm sure I can get a couple years out of.

Anyway, just wanted to put this out there for anyone looking around at some externals and options. There aren't a lot of external thunderbolt drives at this price point. MacOS showed trim enabled and I did boot off the drive, which was pleasantly fast.

 

[wardie]

I was looking for 1TB minimum and 900 GB/s read/writes.

It's a thunderbolt-only drive, although it barely uses any of the bandwith, which is ok. It's cheap -- only $210 for the 1TB drive. However, the warranty is only 2 years which is weak. BUT, knew this going in. Already disassembled to investigate--it's an easy open enclosure that supports a 4 lane M.2 2280 so I can swap another drive down the road for an upgrade.

You sure that’s operating at TB3 speeds not USB3? I would have thought with a decent set of chips and a TB3 enclosure you should be pushing 2000MB/s (not GB/s BTW). See other post of some tests I did.

2017 iMac T3 drives: TEKQ Rapide vs Internal vs T5

Here we go... I needed to offload some space on my internal iMac drive (for bootcamp) so I just got a T3 NVMe drive - a TEKQ Rapide 1TB drive. I tested it against both the internal apple SSD (1TB also) and also a Samsung X5 1TB I have. I used AmorphousDiskMark (1GB) tests because that benchmarks...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[3SQ Machine]

Yeah it’s operating at “spec” because the included 1tb stick only has a 2-lane Phison controller. However, the read speeds are close to 1500, which is well beyond USB. the enclosure itself supports 4-lane so if I wanted to double the speeds with a better drive I could. the enclosure is super easy to disassemble.

i needed 1tb and the tekq was $100 more. Since those speeds weren’t necessary for me (but nice) I opted for this.

Agree that USB-C drives are competitive (except for read speeds) but I found most of those at a cheaper price point to be QLC and they can’t seem to sustain their write speeds. This drive seems better than those, although not as capable as some other thunderbolt drives.

 

[wardie]

The thing I like about the TEKQ is that the enclosure is metal and corrugated - acts as a big heat sink especially as I leave it on top of the iMac stand base plate.

 

[Stephen.R]

if I wanted to double the speeds with a better drive I could. the enclosure is super easy to disassemble.

Did you ever end up trying to upgrade to a faster SSD? I'm looking for something faster than a USB3.1 M2 case, but the only thing I can find sold locally (i.e. in country, otherwise I need to deal with a bunch of import duties) is the Patriot EVLVR.

 

[3SQ Machine]

Did you ever end up trying to upgrade to a faster SSD?

You won't be disappointed. I haven't replaced the drive because sustainable (which is key) 850 write/1400+ reads is quite satisfying for my needs right now. Also, the device has a 2-year warranty and I'll just ride it out and not invalidate my warranty, and then consider replacing the generic included drive after the warranty period.

It's not even a bad deal just for an enclosure as the specs indicate it's capable of 4 lanes, they just put a 2 lane in there I guess to save costs. No issues with heat on the enclosure.