No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had - Samuel Johnson
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Patriot TORQX 128GB SSD
WHILE SOLID STATE DISKS (SSDs) may be the PC storage fashion fad of the moment, their cost per GB remains high compared to that of the old familiar HDDs, while achievable performance and write durability still seem to be inconsistent. However, the SSD vendors are fixing these problems one by one. Here I test a desktop SSD drive from Patriot that surpasses all the similar drives I've seen up 'til now, except for Intel's ultra-expensive X25-E Enterprise SLC unit.
The Patriot TorqX is also the first drive to come with a straightforward 10-year warranty based on simple terms: as long as the unit is not physically damaged, it will be replaced or repaired. So, just days before Intel's updated SSDs hit the shelves, it was intriguing to test one of the rare drives that will be in the same performance category, most likely at a lower price.
Here I had a 128GB unit, a standard design for desktop or mobile use, nothing extraordinary. I plugged it into my Intel Core i7 975XE test bed with an Asus Rampage II Extreme mainboard and 6GB of DDR3-2000 Kingston HyperX DIMMs - yeah, the surviving Elpida ones - running safely at DDR3-1600 CL6-6-6-15 timing. Windows Vista 64 ran Sandra 2009 SP3 tests for read and write performance, as well as the infamous I/O ops per, umm, minute.
Here are the reads:
And the writes:
And the I/O rates:
Wow! Consistent 240-plus MB/sec read and nearly 200 MB/sec write? That is extraordinary, matching SLC enterprise model performance. Now, if put four of these into a RAID10 array, they will overload any south bridge - either Intel or AMD - on the market right now with their total available throughput. In fact, only a hardware RAID controller on a dedicated PCIe x4 path would do them justice. And four of these would come real close in I/O throughput to the famed and ultra-expensive $7,500 FusionIO dedicated PCIe SSD card.
The I/O performance looks good, far better than the el-cheapo SSDs that we tested on the same platform a few weeks ago to some readers' chagrin. Now, the question arises, will Patriot be able to differentiate itself further? I'd suggest looking at an early SATA 6G implementation here, possibly combined with a spare USB 3.0 connector for external rapid backup use. Even without that, though, this is pretty close to a perfect SSD for the moment. Let's see the Intel and other new units soon, too. µ
Good
Top notch performance, 10 year warranty.
Bad
I didn't get the 256GB unit to review (just kidding).
Ugly
SSDs are usually stylish looking and this unit is no exception, so there's nothing ugly here.
Beers
9/10
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How much and where can you buy one in the UK?
Title says it all!
What a useless review. I thought everybody knew by now that the benchmark that matters on SSDs is random write performance after the drive filled.
I know it's very pleasing for your advertisers when you try and show expensive stuff in the most favorable light.
It might be pleasing to your readers, though, if you showed it in a realistic light instead: by how much will such a drive speed up boot, app launching, and game level loading ?
That's what such a consumer-oriented drive is for, and from what i've gleaned around the web, the answer is: not much ?
Looks different here.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4
um, you didnt compare it to any other ssd's of course it looks good compared to taditional spinning platters but compare it to the other ssd's and then i'll make a judgement
sorry but this is a crap article, and those are crap tests. if you want to test a drive then use the 2k and 4k random read/write as THAT is the biggest thing affecting OS. and for the record - a fried got one of those drives, with the new jmicron chip, and compared it to two velociraptor's [300gb] in raid 0 - his impressions of real world performance? velociraptors == SMOOOTH / SSD == quieter.
ended up returning them all, LOL
wow, this is one of the worst SSD "reviews" I've ever read.
Running Sandra and then calling it a "review" - please don't. People might hurt themselfes!
That the Inq stick to reporting news, and leave the benchmarking to benchmark sites.
You guys got bashed last time you did a "review" like this, why the heck repeat it ?
They do have SUPER TALENT UltraDrive ME FTM28GX25H rated 260MB/s read 195MB/s write
Someone who doesn't know how to benchmark an SSD drive. I know everyone else said it, but what about:
1) Random reads?
2) Random writes?
3) Comparison to other SSD drives?
4) Common sense?! This drive is not the "fastest ssd" the Intel X series are still better overall.
It was never claime as a full review (or any kind of review)
'First INQpression'
If you struggle with the inq jargon
replace NQ with a M and re-read
for future this link may help you
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1016083/the-inquirer-guide-inquirer-jargon
Intel SSD's (even the mainstream ones) trash everything else in the thing that matters the most - 4k Rrrrrandom writesssssss.
Please keep your "reviews" to yourself, INQ. You should learn something from Anand.
I know about INQ jargon.
All the "First INQpression" articles are filed under the "review" section of the website:
http://www.theinquirer.net/type/review
So they're supposed to be reviews. Which they are not.
they are £1,195 to buy new but you can get an 80gb one for £949
what's happened to inq? i find more and more articles to be pointless, stupid, unfounded... and yes, against apple. can you employ proper journos?
The 128gb one is £303.89 and the 64gb one is £174.09. Both prices from MemoryC.com
I love to read the inq for some years now, and I very well know the "inq jargon", but that's just a lame excuse for this really, really badly made and written fanboy-stuff. let's go through it, you challenged me:
"Here I test a desktop SSD drive from Patriot that surpasses all the similar drives I've seen up 'til now, except for Intel's ultra-expensive X25-E Enterprise SLC unit." well, Nebojsa obviously hadn't had much experience with other SSD drives (and from my knowledge, only has seen the bad ones up until now) and is in the same sentence implying that this patriot drive might be on the same performance level as the intel SLC drives WHICH IT IS CLEARLY NOT, but let's come to that now:
"Wow! Consistent 240-plus MB/sec read and nearly 200 MB/sec write? That is extraordinary, matching SLC enterprise model performance."
well, that's what SANDRA (and the marketing sheet) is telling, but then again, sandra might be useful for a first INQpression (are you guys even doing REAL reviews also?), but these numbers aren't worth SHIT as Nebojsa might have learned with a little googling, especially when comparing "write performance" (WTF exactly is SANDRA measuring?) only with a hitachi platter drive. again, he states that he only had experience with older shitty jmicron drives, but as he's doing comparison "benchmarking" with other drives, he should've chosen comparable SSDs.
I don't wanna start with the following blabla about the RAID10 array and USB3.0 bullshit as most readers are interested in real world performance and usage, not the wet disturbing fantasies of your author.
concluding, I must add that the patriot drive is in no way a bad drive, in fact it should be virtually identical with the excellent OCZ vertex drive. then again, with the X25-M G1 available for some time now (and sitting comfortably in my notebook I might add) and the G2 dawning on the horizon, I might give Nebojsa a second chance with these beasts. then again, next time just let the pros thoroughly test these drives or at least read some benchmarks before making a new SSD bigger as the second coming of christ.
I dunno...I tend to agree with some of the comments. The review does not show much of what people need to make a decision for them to spend. I currently own an Intel E 64GB and Patriot WARPs, an MTron and a new Super Talent. For what I do, the Intel E is still king, with random access on reads at 0.75ms and the TORQX at 2.1ms...the Intel being SLC and the Patriot looks to be MLC...it would explain the difference in cost.
It is always good to remember that while companies want to make money there are far too many people out there keeping an eye on them. It is harder to take an informed consumer for a ride; in this case there are differences between the Intel and the Patriot. Now is the Intel still too much, yeah, I had to use some unexpected money to afford it but it has been the king of the hill for a while and to still be on top for Gaming, Light Room, Flight SIM and other applications is hard to do in a market with so much growth.
Sorry all my numbers were off the TOROX is 0.21ms and the Intel is 0.075ms...sorry about that. lol :)
9 out of ten beers for the product and 1 out of ten beers for the review quality.
What a useless test run, although I would expect no more from the reviewer as everything he/she handles involves a single benchmark which shows very little of real world usage.
Inq really is going downhill lately. Probably down to Paul Hales and Charlie leaving. Lets hope 'Madeline Bennett' can sort it out.
Let me see...9 beers for the comments & 1 beer for the review.
Best leave the benchies for the pro's.