Patriot Pyro SE 240GB Solid State Drive Review

Introduction

2011 has come to an end, but that doesn't mean technology is slowing down one bit. For the second year in a row the solid state drive market was dominated by SandForce. If you wanted to produce a drive that was capable of the highest performance possible, you needed to start with a SandForce SF-2200 Series controller and pair it with either ONFi 2.0 or Toggle Mode NAND flash.

Looking out on the horizon we don't see SandForce trying to leap frog themselves early this year and we don't see why they would need to. Last month we looked at the latest from Indilinx (OCZ Octane) and Marvell (Corsair Performance Pro) and neither controller managed to muster the performance of the SF-2281. Sometime in the middle of 2012 we'll see Team SandForce manufactures move to 24nm Toggle Mode and maybe even 20nm IMFT flash, but neither of these technologies will bring a great deal to the table over the tried and true SF-2281 / synchronous flash combination we have today. The Patriot Pyro SE uses this magical combination to deliver amazing performance for general computing tasks and at an equally amazing price point.

Patriot's Pyro brand hasn't been a stranger to our pages. We've looked at the 120GB and 240GB baseline models with asynchronous and found them to be the entry level for high speed SSDs in 2011. The Pyro SE is the next evolution, a tick higher on the ladder and uses more expensive but faster performing synchronous flash.

Both products offer very good access times, the performance you feel while opening programs and Windows, but the SE is capable of delivering greater performance when the drive start to get populated with data. Our Fill Test shows the SE is capable of substantial performance gains or more appropriately less performance loss when compared to the asynchronous flash models on the market.

... Read the rest in your browser!

OCZ Technology Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB SSD Review

Introduction

In our very first SandForce SF-2200 article we told you that SandForce opened the door for manufacturers to get creative with products this year. When that article went live we had already learned that some SSD manufacturers were taking a good look at what NAND flash they wanted to use in their SF-2281 offerings. So far, we've only seen IMFT (Intel / Micron) 25nm flash paired with the SandForce SF-2281 controller, but that is about to change.

The OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS uses Toshiba Toggle flash rather than the IMFT flash we saw on the standard Vertex 3 and OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G. In order to use the Toshiba flash, a new PCB was needed and we suspect a few programming tweaks went in as well. The end result was a higher maximum limit for Input / Output operations Per Second.

If a higher IOPS version sounds familiar from OCZ, it's because it is. Last year the Vertex 2 Line was the highest rated IOPS model for the consumer product line of SSDs and the Agility 2 was the 'standard' model. For some reason the naming scheme changed this year. We suspect that OCZ pushed their Vertex 3 out and while doing so found that the Toshiba flash would allow them to push the SF-2281 even higher. The Agility line is returning as is the Solid, both now getting a '3' and both using SandForce controllers. We'll have the Agility 3 in for testing around the time you read this article and at that time we'll break down OCZ's SSD product line for 2011.

... Read the rest in your browser!