In this article we will concentrate our attention upon another 2.5’’ SSD from Patriot, the next revision of the Burst series, which is the Elite. This is a mainstream product meant to be used in devices which support this format, while the higher-capacity versions are nice to have as storage in miniature media centers as well (for home Plex servers as an example).

The product has been shipped inside a cardboard/plastic packaging (or as the manufacturer says, hang cardboard packaging), which shows how the drive does look but also highlights the main product features:

On the back side, we will note some other product features in multiple languages but also a short product description and links to online resources. A sticker with the product code name and serial number is visible in the lower right corner:

Unlike some other drives we have tested in the past which sport the 2.5’’ format, this one is using a plastic housing. The top cover includes a large sticker with shows the total storage space, the product internal code name but also the named of the interface used:

The back side comes with the same textured black plastic, only the mounting areas are metallic:

The Burst Elite uses the regular 2.5’’ drive SATA Data + Power ports:

Our sample included the warranty seal as well:

Opening the chassis for inspecting what is inside is no easy task and one may even break the plastic components; after fiddling with the clips on the side, we managed to open it without causing any damage. As you do see, the drive PCB takes only very little space out of the entire chassis:

The back side of the PCB includes two Micron NW947 packages, which are 64-layer 3D TLC NAND; having this type of packages also means that we are getting better performance when writing continuously to the drive versus QLC:

Having a look on the frontal area, we will note the DRAMless solution; here we have two more 3D TLC NAND packages, but also a controller in the middle:

The same SM2259XT controller from Silicon Motion can be found here, as with the Patriot P210 SSD. This is a 4-channel SATA controller for delivering a cost-effective solution: