Patriot Viper VXD USB 3.2 Type-C to NVMe M.2 SSD Enclosure Review

On of the most common items to review in the early days was “hard drive enclosures” and they were quite popular as they were a way to re-use an old hard drive as a portable storage device and backup drive.  This freed up storage on your system and gave you an option for disaster recovery when things go sideways.  USB transfer rates and storage options have come a long way from those days and while USB flash drives are still popular transport options, they are not particular fast and this speed goes down as the capacity rises. 

In this review we will be looking at the Patriot VXD.  This is a USB 3.2 drive enclosure for NVMe based M.2 SSD drives.  It comes with a USB Type-C connection and supports a 10Gbps transfer rate.  The product is a pure drive enclosure so you will need to supply your own drive to make it work.  In addition to making your M.2 drive portable the Patriot VXD is also features RGB Lights to match your other devices and give you something to watch while transferring over those “movies” you like so much.

• Sleek and stylish design with RGB lighting
• Built-in enhanced aluminum heat dissipation design, keeping your SSD 30%~40% cooler
• Multiple platform support
• Supports multiple M.2 SSD sizes, 2230 / 2242 / 2260 / 2280
• Supports USB 3.2 Gen2
• SEQ read and SEQ write performance up to 1000 MB/s
• Supports Capacity from 120GB up to 2TB
• Dual- connectors USB-C to C and USB-C to A cables included

One of the most striking features of the VXD is the case.  This is a full aluminum chassis that features dual RGB LED light bars and a sleek and symmetrical design.  The frame doesn’t do much for cooling but is extremely strong and lightweight.

With the drive you get a USB Type-C extension cable with an attached Type-A adapter, a small screwdriver, replacement screws, thermal pads and heatspreader.

To install your NVMe drive you’ll need to remove the small screw and slide the inner section out of the extruded aluminum frame.  This exposes the drive controller inside along with the RGB diffuser for the RGB lights.

I removed the controller card completely to install the drive.  Unlike on a motherboard there is no screw to hold the drive down.  Instead, you are given a rubber standoff that attaches to the notch in the M.2 drive.  This not only keeps the drive spaced away from the control board but holds in in place while giving you options to support a variety of different drive lengths without excessive rework to move the mounting post.

Make sure the drive is completely seated and then install the heatspreader.  You’ll need to install one of the included thermal pads and snap the heatspreader around your NVMe drive.  Despite the simple install, the heatspreader stays in place.

For testing I am using the EVGA Z790 Dark with Core i9 13900K processor on the latest version of Windows 11.  The motherboard comes with a number of USB 3.2 ports and tested the drive using the on-board USB controller.  To provide a bit of context I’m also testing this drive against the HyperX EXO which is a SATA6 based M.2 external drive.

While the need for portable hard drives has diminished there is still some demand for high-speed external storage.  Normal flash-based USB drives offer fast reads but a horrid when it comes to saving data.  This might be ok for small files but when you need to move a bunch of data it can take hours.  External hard drives often lack USAP support and is why the VXD from Patriot is a good replacement.

Out of the box the enclosure looks amazing and features a nice neutral color to contrast against the RGB lights.  Form factor is not bad making the drive small enough to carry and yet not so small that you lose it.  In terms of weight, the VXD feels light for its size but has some “heft” weighing in at 58g (unloaded) showing that the aluminum heatsink is more than a great looking decoration.

I am glad to see that drive enclosures are making a comeback and with the help of the USB 3.2 interface we are starting to see extremely usable storage solutions that progress well beyond the common Flash based USB drives.  External enclosures like the Patriot Viper VXD offer a way to take advantage of SuperSpeed USB interface while giving users a way to backup and securely transfer files at speeds that can match onboard storage solutions.

For this review I was using the Patriot P300 NVMe Gen3 drive.  This was a 2TB drive and worked flawless in my benchmark and personal storage tests.  While just about any NMVe drive can be used in the VXD it is nice to see that practical storage limits are not a concern when it comes to external drive enclosures and that the USB interface is finally fast enough to make these drives a worthwhile investment.

Speaking of investment, external drive enclosures like this work great for backing up your primary computer and is something you can schedule using 3rd party software or even the Windows Task Scheduler.  For those of us who travel a drive like the Patriot Viper VXD is a great solution for downloading SD Card data, videos and other images while also storing them on a device that is fast enough to actually work from.