I’ve handled many a RAID enclosure over the last couple of years. After seeing many of the same features, they all start to look the same; you start to feel that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. If it weren’t for the different shapes, colors, and themes, that would probably be true.
With Solid State Drives increasing in numbers, it only makes sense that we should see RAID enclosures built for SSDs. If one SSD is good, then two should be even better. Patriot Memory decided that they would do something different by introducing their own RAID enclosure specifically made to house SSD drives. By forging ahead on their own, they not only have control of the concept, but they don’t have to wait for someone else to do it. This effort is known as the Convoy XL.
Features and Specifications
Known by name as the Patriot Memory Convoy XL, the unit is also known in the retail world as the part number “PCXL25SR”. That doesn’t quite roll off the tongue quite as well as Convoy XL does. There’s also a regular pass through version called the PC25S which does nothing but hold your drives and connects internally only. No RAID. Naturally, the “XL” and “R” let you know you’re picking up the dual hot swappable 2.5″ SSD enclosure which supports RAID. Both of which slide into a regular 3.5 inch bay where your floppy drive used to go.
Speaking of RAID, the Convoy XL supports RAID 0, 1, and JBOD (just a bunch of drives). JBOD is always handy if you’re like me and only have a one of several different models of SSD. That way you can mix and match drive to get RAID performance out of your Solid State Drives if you can’t have matching pairs of drives, which is preferred.
What’s in the box
Checking out the box contents, you’ll find everything nicely packed. Among the contents are the main Convoy XL itself and a yellow ‘foot’ that clips on if you want to use your XL as an external storage solution. It’s another nice simple option if you don’t have another 3.5 inch bay (or 5.25 inch bay with 3.5 inch adapters) in your main desktop machine.
Also in the bundle are red and black data cables. You only need one of the data cables in order to get the XL online so you essentially have another extra cable for use on some other storage project. There is another USB data cable if you’d rather access the enclosure using that route. Of course, a black power cable is included to power the unit if it’s serving you in an external capacity.
The manual is pretty informative and covers using the enclosure in both an internal or external capacities right down to the placement of the yellow foot or more accurately, a stand. If you’re not quite sure what RAID configuration to choose, the manual even offers a basic explanation of each mode it supports.
It Could Be Internal or External
The Convoy XL actually a well fabricated enclosure. The housing is made from very nicely brushed black aluminum. If it weren’t for the holes on the sides, you’d think it was made to show off alongside your desktop rather than inside your system. Whether inside or out, it is a rather neat little piece of hardware.
The front sports two yellow speed lock arms that make for quick hot swap access. Once opened, you can see the two internal SATA ports. It really is nice to see storage solutions and its supporting components slimming down and becoming more efficient in their use of space. A far cry from some of the “fatty” RAID solutions of old.
The back of the unit is all logical business. You can see the SATA power an
d data ports, USB port, Change Mode button, and white RAID mode selector dip switches. The three little dip switches dictate the following RAID configurations: BIG (Span), JBOD (Single), FAST (Stripe), Safe (Mirror), Safe33 (1/3 Build in to a Safe Mirror), and Safe50 (1/2 Build in to a Safe Mirror).
Installation and Setup
Unfortunately, I only had two mismatched SSDs to test the Convoy XL: a Kingston V-Series SSDNOW 128GB and a Patriot Memory TorqX 128GB. The pair were happily connected to my Intel Core i7 975XE system which is fully listed in my original ASRock X58 review though I really should list this out so you can see what exactly we’re using and be able to reproduce our results. The operating system of choice was Windows Vista 64 bit.
Although most novices see a pair of 128GB SSD drives, in reality these are two different SSDs that have two different internal JMicron and Indilinx controllers. Choosing the RAID mode was a little tricky since one SSD is much faster than the other. Since we’re all about performance, the two were Striped for our tests. On with the benchmarks!
CrystalDiskMark
This benchmark has slowly become a standard since it offers both Sequential and Random read/write transfer rates using 100MB to 1000MB files. It also represents small file write speeds with its emphasis on the 4KB file size; a nemesis of some early SSD controllers.
We ran the benchmark first with our slower Kingston V Series 128GB as a single drive and produced sequential results of 118.8 MB/s read and 73.94 MB/s write. That’s not too shabby when used in a regular system environment. Let’s see what it can do striped with another SSD.
Paired with another SSD drive in striped or RAID 0 mode, transfer rates increased about 81%. With a pair of the previously reviewed and faster TorqX 128GB drives, we can only imagine just how much more performance can be attained. Still, it’s nice that the pair of mismatched units could still pull off impressive performance.
ATTO
This is one of the more useful benchmarks when checking out different IOP performance. In individual testing, the Kingston V-Series offered a healthy 94 MB/s write and 127 MB/s read transfer rates at its peak.
When the pair of drives were striped, we see results of 167 MB/s write and 226 MB/s read transfer rates. This is a healthy performance gain for just two little SSDs. Again, rates would be much higher if we used two higher performance drives instead of mismatching our pair.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
When testing RAID configurations, the weakest link really can affect the all around performance. This includes the RAID enclosure as well. That’s why it’s important to choose an enclosure based on what you really intend to do with it. If it’s going to be used in an important office environment as in a data base, you’ll want something larger with its own internal performance controller with redundancy. The Convoy XL is not for this environment.
The Convoy XL is intended for enthusiasts needing more performance that what standard SATA II drives can offer. While two budget performer SSDs is good in RAID, two top end SSD drives in the same enclosure will smoke it. But it is nice to know that the Convoy XL can and does play well with mismatched drives, even ones with such a performance gap as the Kingston V-Series and the Patriot TorqX.
With an MSRP of around $79.99 US, the Convoy XL offers up some cheap performance with an easy setup.
Pros
- Quality lightweight aluminum chassis
- Easy setup and configuration
- Good user manual
- SATA and USB 2.0 interface
- Works with mismatched SSD drives
Cons
- I only have ONE TorqX SSD drive and not two!
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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Patriot Memory PCXL25SR Convoy XL 2.5 inch Dual Hot Swappable RAID Enclosure Photo Gallery
