Patriot PXD 1TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSD Review

We don't see too many storage devices come from Patriot these days, but they have been relatively busy with portable SSDs, launching the EVLVR in 2018 and PXD very early this year.

The PXD is the model Patriot sent over for review. It is offered in several capacities, including 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB deployed over a USB-C connection. Behind that USB-C connection, Patriot is using USB 3.2 Gen 2, allowing for 10Gb/s capabilities and marketing performance that touts up to 1000 MB/s read for sequentials and up to 85K 4K write IOPS.

Compatibility includes Windows 10 along with macOS 10.13+ and the latest Linux builds. With the 1TB model in house, our sample carries an MSRP of $164.99 with a three-year warranty.

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Packaging offers an image of the drive behind a window, features written on the box's right side.

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The back goes into more detail with features listed in several languages and a quick rundown of the drive itself at the top.

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Unboxing, the PXD is delivered with USB-C and A-C cables. The drive itself is a blue aluminum with PXD branding and capacity on the front.

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The end of the drive offers a look at the USB-C connection.

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Removing the drive from the enclosure, this is a Patriot P300 NVMe solution. Phison E13T design with 3D NAND.

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CDM is a staple in performance testing; version 7 has seen some updates in the testing workloads. Sequential performance tops out at 1047 MB/s read and 953 MB/s write for the PXD while we reach a touch over 20K IOPS write for 4KQ1 and 85K IOPS at 4KQ8.

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We find no notable performance loss moving the workload to 8GB in CDM. 1068 MB/s read and 954 MB/s write.

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PCMark10 offers the data drive benchmark as a way to quantify and compare portable drives. The PXD in its 1TB capacity lands 4th from the bottom of our charts with a score of 1023.

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Testing reliability, we run a 200GB file transfer test to see if the drive will drop performance under backup scenarios. The Patriot PXD took a little over 13 minutes to transfer the 200GB of data at 250 MB/s.

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Price/Performance is really good for the PXD, rated 94%, just behind the T7 from Samsung and Rocket Nano from Sabrent.

The PXD is an aesthetically pleasing solution with solid build quality, aluminum anodized blue on the exterior with a plastic chassis to secure the components internally. USB-C aids that hardware in offering top-notch performance capabilities, with Patriot saying up to 1000 MB/s in read operations.

Testing the drive, we confirmed those marketing claims with our sample reaching a peak of 1068 MB/s in CDM. We were also able to verify the 85K IOPS claim, again in CDM 4KQ8. PCMark10 was not kind to the PXD, a score of 1023 put it near the bottom of our charts, and that was compounded by the 200GB file transfer test with the PXD taking 13 minutes to complete.

One thing Patriot does have going for the PXD is pricing. At the $164.99 MSRP, the drive offers ample performance to break into our top 3 for value 1TB solutions, with only the Sabrent Rocket Nano and Samsung T7 doing better.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)