Patriot have long been known for releasing a steady stream of memory sticks and cards for PC’s and Apple Mac’s for many years. Over the past year, since Solid State Drives (SSD) came into the forefront of consumers minds, they have also produced a number of varying quality units. Today we are reviewing their top range Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD.
SSD’s are now becoming quite mainstream thanks both to a drop in price and an increase in capacity, while a 60 or 80GB drive is fine for installing your main operating system on, you need at least an 80GB drive or higher to really make use of the space for games and applications. Now that Windows 7 has been released, to get the best performance out of the operating system, if you have a high performance PC, a SSD drive is a must right now.
The Blurb
Patriot Torqx Solid State (SSD) drives are the latest in storage technology based on flash memory. Using state-of-the-art NAND flash chips and an ultra-fast controller, Torqx SSDs offer a fast, quiet and ultra-reliable solution for your data storage needs. Torqx SSD is designed with built in DRAM cache which allows faster real-time transfers that leads to faster drive performance.
Patriot Torqx SSDs provide the ultimate in storage technology for desktops, laptops, workstations, servers and Apple computers..
Note: SSD’s do not need to be defragmented. Doing so may lower the lifespan.
- Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities
- Interface: SATA I/II
- Raid Support: 0, 1, 0+1
- 256GB and 128GB: Sequential Read: up to 260MB/s Sequential Write: up to 180MB/s
- 64GB: Sequential Read: up to 220MB/s Sequential Write: up to 135MB/s
- Shock Resistant: 1500G/0.5ms
- Vibration Resistant: 20G/10~2000Hz with 3 Axis
- Operating Consumption & Power: DC 5V <550mA 2.75W
- Operating Temperature: 0ºC~70ºC
- Storage Temperature: -40ºC~ 85ºC
- MTBF: >2,500,000 Hours
- Data Retention: 5 years at 25ºC
- Data Reliability: Built in BCH 8, 12 and 16-bit ECC
- O/S Support: Windows®XP and Vista® Linux, and Mac OS X®
- Dimensions: 99.88 x 69.63x 9.3 mm
- Weight: 91g
- Certification: FCC/CE/RoHS
- 10 Year Warranty
Packaging
Patriot has designed the box as white with blue highlights, compared to their previous packaging for products such as the Warp drive, it is quite a change. Opening up the box and you get two internal compartments that are separated via a cardboard divider, the back area has the accessories while the front area protects the Torqx drive from receiving any damage.
The accessories are very good, Patriot realises that most of the sales of SSD’s right now are going into large size PC cases and not into laptops, they include a 2.5″ to 3.5″ drive converter and a set of jumpers which are used for resetting the drive via firmware to factory defaults and installing up to date firmware in the future.
Benchmarks
Overall
Well in some respects the Patriot Torqx runs faster than the nearest competitor, the latest Intel SSD, but in other tests it is slightly slower, overall though it is a great performer. That doesn’t mean I don’t recommend the Patriot Torqx, it is an excellent drive and a much cheaper option than the Intel ones right now and with very little speed difference between the two it would be silly not to recommend it.
I have been using it as my main gaming drive now for the past 2 weeks, installing around 100GB of games from Lord of the Rings Online to Risen and every game has shown load speed decreases as well as some actual very slight frame rate improvements, especially in online games. So in general terms it is a great drive, it has decent capacity, is fast, maintains itself well and has a number of download utilities that work well. A great purchase.
Conclusion
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fast, more capacity than some more expensive drives | Expensive |
| Verdict | Buy it! |
| Rating |
