Patriot Inferno PI100GS25SSDR 2.5" 100GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Pros: -I'm getting the full 285 MB/s sequential which is absolutely ridiculous, you have to see it to believe it
-Access times are insanely low
-100 gb is more than enough for a boot disk + essential programs

Cons: -SSD's will see a huge jump in capacity by the end of the year, so if you're looking for a bigger drive, wait if you can
-Price, but the technology is still in its infancy so expect prices to stay high for a while.

Other Thoughts: The 120 gb models are out and are at the same price as this drive, so go and pick up one of those instead.

Pros: Very noticeable increase in speed. For now I am putting it through its paces with various games I have in Steam. One in particular, the Witcher has a lot of transitions, the fast read/write definitely helps with loads/saves when compared to my old hard drive.

Among the other informal tests I've done was creating Steam backups and then copy/paste them to and from numerous folder locations. Obviously it was way faster than my old hard drive, the write speeds were fairly consistent, usually only dipping to 100mb/sec at the lowest.

Just for kicks I did the ATTO bechmark, and the numbers came up at or near what's posted in most reviews (xbit labs, bechmark reviews, tweaktown, etc.)

Cons: The over provisioning made what would've been a 120GB drive only 100GB. But I understand that Patriot didn't design the controller, Sandforce did, so I guess its not so much of a knock on Patriot as it is on Sandforce. If Patriot did release a newer version of this drive at 120GB, I would probably pick it up and switch out the one I have and put that one into my laptop.

Other Thoughts: I was somewhat of an early adopter so I paid nearly $370+ for this drive, but let it be said that patience is a virtue. Had I been more patient I would've saved a lot of money on this drive. Still pretty good for what you pay for though.

Pros: sandforce controller, fast writes(260mb/s+), fast reads(270mb/s+), .1ms random reads.. large enough to get windows 7 and some games on and space to spare. boot times are ridiculously fast..

Cons: price... did make me a quiche?

Other Thoughts: this is a nice fast ssd that comes with a 3.5 bracket... supports trim, wear level management, and quite a few other goodies to keep it performing at top notch throughout it's life.

Pros: very happy - SSD performs well and Windows boot in 12 seconds - faster than my desktop with the Intel SSD X25-G

AS SSD Benchmark 1.5.3784.37609
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Name: Patriot Inferno 100GB SS
Firmware: 305A
Controller: iaStor
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 93.16 GB
Date: 5/28/2010 12:54:13 AM
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Sequential:
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Read: 205.07 MB/s
Write: 131.28 MB/s
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4K:
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Read: 17.46 MB/s
Write: 40.34 MB/s
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4K-64Threads:
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Read: 122.24 MB/s
Write: 94.66 MB/s
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Access Times:
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Read: 0.119 ms
Write: 0.263 ms
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Score:
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Read: 160
Write: 148
Total: 393
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Cons: the motherboard on my laptop is not maximazing the capabilities of the SSD Patriot Inferno

Pros: The drive is in a nice small case and looks cool

Cons: Everything else. The speeds are no where near rated. I get 66MB/sec on an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 with 1003 bios. I tried different SATA cables and connecting it to different slots and a different motherboard of the same type. I also read that other people are having issues with the speeds on their systems not being up to what they are rated for at read 285MB/sec and write of 275MB/sec.

Other Thoughts: I think this drive is still in the development stage and needs more work from others thoughts/reviews I see.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

The speeds you are seeing are definitely not up to par with what the drive should be performing at. Please don't hesitate to contact support@patriotmem.com to troubleshoot this issue and to see if there are any tips or tweaks we can suggest you try to increase performance.

Regards,
Patriot Memory Support

Pros: This SSD has very fast write speeds. The read speeds are on par with other quality SSDs.

Cons: The included mounting adapter bracket may make installation difficult in some cases. Doesn't quite live up to manufacturer's quoted speeds.

Other Thoughts: AS SSD Benchmark

Sequential
Read: 203.96 MB/s 12.75 iops
Write: 133.57 MB/s 8.35 iops

4K
Read: 16.35 MB/s 4186 iops
Write: 52.56 MB/s 13456 iops

4K-64Threads
Read: 124.04 MB/s 31754 iops
Write: 94.27 MB/s 24132 iops

Access Times
Read: 0.098 ms
Write: 0.284 ms

Score
Read: 161
Write: 160
Total: 406

AS SSD Copy-Benchmark

ISO
Speed: 125.92 MB/s
Duration: 8.53 s

Prog
Speed: 89.63 MB/s
Duration: 15.70 s

Game
Speed: 95.61 MB/s
Duration: 14.44 s