Patriot gets in on the portable PCIe SSD game, undercuts Samsung on price

An epiphany seems to have hit storage makers, in that they're realizing they can stuff PCIe solid state drives into portable housings and sell them to users who need high-speed storage on-the-go. As such, Patriot today announced the EVLVR, a "groundbreaking" Thunderbolt 3 external SSD.

“EVLVR is an abbreviation for Evolver', and the technology itself presents a breakthrough evolution in SSD technology," Patriot says.

If you wade through the marketing hyperbole, what you'll find is a portable SSD that is similar to Samsung's recently announced SSD X5. It pairs a Phison E8 PCIe controller with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, and is rated to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 1,600MB/s and 1,000MB/s, respectively.

Technical jargon aside, it's really fast. To put those numbers into perspective, our favorite high-speed USB flash drive, Patriot's Supersonic Rage 2, is rated to deliver sequential reads of up to 400MB/s and sequential writes of up to 300MB/s. On paper, the EVLVR is three to four times faster.

Samsung's SSD X5 family is even faster, though. Those drives are rated to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s, respectively. However, the added speed comes at a cost. Here's how street pricing compares between the two drive families:

Samsung also sells at 2TB model for $1,397.99 on Amazon, whereas Patriot tops out at 1TB for the moment.

Patriot's new portable SSDs are all available now and backed by a 2-year warranty.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

Latest in SSDs
Crucial X9 external SSD on blue background
You can pick up the 2 TB version of my favorite budget external SSD for less than $0.06 per GB, transfers 300+ GB of data in 6 minutes
A Samsung 9100 Pro SSD in both 2 TB and 4 TB sizes.
Samsung 9100 Pro 2 TB SSD review
An image of a WD_Black SN850X SSD against a teal background with a white border
The best 1 TB gaming SSD you can buy is now just $79, the cheapest it's been for a good while
WD Black SN850X SSD on a gaming PC case.
Looks like we won't be seeing Western Digital SSDs in our gaming PCs as the company hands the reins back over to SanDisk
A SanDisk Desk Drive external SSD on a blue background
I adore this chunky, reliable external SSD, so for a third off the 4 TB version I will absolutely recommend it in a heartbeat
The WD Black SN850X 8 TB out of the packaging.
If you thought PCIe Gen 5 SSDs were a little pointless, don't worry, here comes 32 GB's worth of Gen 6 technology
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened