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Conclusion
Patriot's Evlvr bridges the gap between the ultra-performance (and price) Samsung X5 and "standard" USB SSDs. Patriot's pricing undercuts other devices with similar specs so the drive is a comparative value, but it is still a pricey storage device that has a few quirks you should be aware of before you press the buy button.
You'll need to use the supplied cable and a true Thunderbolt 3 port. We tried using a USB Type C cable we had in the lab, but it didn’t work with the Evlvr. We also tried using the drive in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C port, but we were greeted with a “Thunderbolt device functionality might be limited” popup notification and the Evlvr didn’t show up in Windows Explorer or disk management.
The Evlvr also has a relatively short two-year warranty. If you're looking for a longer warranty period, the MyDigitalSSD PVX appears to be the same drive with a darker finish and a five-year warranty. It also doesn’t have a listed endurance rating, but it does cost a bit more.
The Evlvr's read/write speeds of 1.6/1GB/s are nothing to sneeze at. The drive even surpassed Samsung’s X5 during our photo transfer test, which is great news for photographers weighing if high-performance TB3 devices are worth the extra bucks over mid-range drives.
Overall, the Evlvr offers plenty of performance for most users. Iif you do a lot of video work, it might be worth stepping up to the Samsung X5, which is twice as fast in some workloads, but the Evlvr offers a great mix of price and performance for most users.
