Introduction

The Hard disk drive is dead; long live the Solid State Drive! These are the words that many are wishing to hear these days. With the reliability of these devices, combined with a consistent read speed, lower profile, less heat, noise and the fact that they are much more efficient in terms of power usage, then the age of the SSD has indeed begun! Memory manufacturers have already jumped on the bandwagon and have invested a great deal of resources into manufacturing the next revolution in storage technology.  Coming in many flavours such as the 32, 64, 128, 256 gigabytes and above,  one can see that the potential benefits of these drives.

Patriot Memory was established in 1985 in Fremont, California (with a name such as Patriot, this would indeed make sense) and has long since established themselves in their native USA as a force to be reckoned with. However, in the United Kingdom and perhaps the rest of Europe, they have not made quite as big of a splash as was made in the USA. This could be due to that fact of the very name of the company, or with the cynics in the United Kingdom, thinking that this is a company built from American propaganda rather from that of solid products.  However having seen some of their memory in action, nothing could be further from the truth. Patriot has ever so slowly built a fierce reputation in this country and they are slowly growing further.

Today we take a look at Patriot’s latest offering the PS-100 Solid State Drive.  Coming in at the smaller capacity of just thirty two gigabytes and only costing roughly seventy pounds which is inclusive of VAT; from www.aria.co.uk then it could be termed as a bargain. The PS-100′s nearest rival in terms of price would be the INTEL value, and the OCZ Solid-2 drives.  However the price on this drive varies greatly and has been sold for as little as a fifty eight pounds from the aforementioned site!  The question is – what exactly would the consumer get for their hard-earned money? Let us read on and find out.

Specifications

The specifications of the drive are modest in comparison to the more costly of SSD’s; however at this price-point it is still the cheapest one around, and for the money the drive offers some decent specifications.

Interface	SATA I/II
Raid Support	0,1,0+1
Sequential Read	up to 210MB/s
Sequential Write	up to 150MB/s
Cache	64MB DRAM
Controller Card	Phisson

“The Patriot PS-100 SSD is a great way to upgrade an existing desktop or notebook computer. The PS-100 drive brings faster boot and application load times, reduced power consumption and improved durability. Looking to extend the length of your notebook’s battery? The PS-100 significantly reduces power draw extending battery life and reducing heat. PS-100 drives are more durable than traditional hard drives and are ready for the rough and tumble world of every day computing. What’s more, they are silent. The Patriot PS-100 SSDs use the standard SATA interface and are available in 2.5″ form factor up to 256GB.”

(http://www.patriotmem.com/products/detailp.jsp?prodline=8&catid=21&prodgroupid=166&id=913&type=17 last accessed 29/1/2010)

Packaging and Initial Impressions

The Patriot drive box is a rather professional affair, with its plain black box and generic fonts used upon its underside. Not that this is a bad thing, one would just have expected an image or some more eye-catching designs etched upon its surface. However this is starkly contrasted by the two-toned orange fonts, with the model number emblazoned on the front. This does indeed help to liven up the overall generic impressions of the box.

The inner carton is much the same as any that would be found in various computer component packaging. With the product in question being a Solid State drive, the inner carton is adequate enough to product the drive. However if this was a regular hard drive it wouldn’t be enough to protect the product.

After opening the inner carton we come to the Patriot drive itself; sporting a rather interesting silver-grey colour. Examining the drive for build quality, initial impressions are excellent! The drive, though thin (as all SSD drives are), is solidly built with the SATA and power connector pins being rigid, so in theory this drive should take some rough handling. Just like the box, the label on the drive itself is a professional one sporting the make, size and model of the drive.  You cannot see it straight away but there is an iridescent effect to the drive label and this is more noticeable under a strong light or a camera flash. The label then seems to explode into a myriad of colours.

Now we start to go further into this drives working. Upon reading Patriot’s forums it has been discovered that this drive uses the ‘Phison Controller card! This reviewer did not have the heart to open up the drives innards on this occasion and the following images are credited to:

(http://www.servethehome.com/?p=206 last accessed 1/2/2010)

The controller card has 64MB of cache on-board from Hynix, which in theory should help to eliminate stuttering. This was an issue with the old J-Micron controllers. In all honesty we have never encountered a Phison controller card, so it is with some excitement that we wish to find out more!  Having stated that we did not wish to open the drive on this occasion, we had a look through the web, searching for much needed answers.

Digging further into the Phison Controller chip specifications (placed upon the Phison site) we can glean the following.

PHISON’s PS3016-P7 CF/IDE-to-Flash micro-controller specially designed for CF card, IDE / PATA/SATA SSD, IDE module and embedded NAND applications. It can support 30/40/50+ nm MLC/SLC Large-Block NAND flash memory up to 32 chip enable capacity.

Fabricated in 0.16um CMOS process
Available in 128-pin TQFP/LQFP package and BGA
Operating Voltage: 2.7~5.5V
Built-in Regulator that supports 3.3V/1.8V Flash I/O

(www.phison.com last accessed on the 1/02/2010)

Next on the agenda is the testing to see if Patriot’s numbers add up to what they claim.

Testing and Benchmarks

As is usually the case at Overclockers Tech we subjected the Patriot PS-100 drive to a battery of tests. Through which the more discerning readers will notice they are a comprehensive set of tests.  Testing is designed so that the consumer can test the product for themselves and replicate the results found here.

As a part of the testing, conditions the BIOS options have been set to IDE mode to give a more accurate and real-world result.

Software Used to Test

• HDTACH
• CrystalDisk Mark
• ATTO Diskmark
• HDTUNE
• AS SSD MARK

Equipment Used to Test

• DFI X58 UT T3EH8 Sytem Board (on the Intel ICH10 controller)
• CORE I7 920 at Default Speeds
• Triple CHannel 3X1 gigabytes of CORSAIR 1866 RAM
• Corsair P64 Solid State Drive (for a rough comparision)
• Both SSD drives had a fresh copy of Windows 7 installed along with the needed drivers

HDTACH

After examining the difference between the two drives at sequential reads we can deduce that the Patriot Drive beats the much more expensive Corsair hands down, at least in the sequential reads test. The P64 Corsair SSD proves to not have the same read consistency as the Patriot, which is in the latter companies favour. However the initial theory holds true that there is an issue with the Patriot drive and its burst speed. With the Corsair managing to achieve nearly SATA II Speeds and the Patriot struggling to even approach SATA I then we have an issue that must be looked at more in-depth!

Once again and to be fair it is to Patriot’s credit it is able to outclass the Corsair P64 in its sequential read tests.

Atto Disk Mark

In an attempt to try and clarify the HDTACH results, Atto Disk mark was used in order to try and explain what is happening.

Although the read times of the Patriot PS-100 are excellent, we find that the write times are once again another story. Of course the Corsair is a much more expensive product. Even so, we would have expected the Patriot Drive to have better write results. In order to make a conclusion collaborating evidence is needed.

CrystalDiskMark

It is of this reviewer’s opinion that CrystalDisk mark is a more user friendly benchmarking program than the Atto Disk Mark. With its ability to display the much needed information in  an easy to understand format

Unlike the HDTACH results, the Corsair drive edges ahead of the Patriot PS-100! What is worrying is the 4K read/write speeds. This is a cause for concern and it is our opinion that we have a major issue that can be addressed with a firmware update. However, here lies the crux of the issue – with this product being available for a couple of months already, a firmware update does not seem to be available. Patriot are working on a new update, but it does not exactly help anyone whom has purchased the drive already!

Though are some issues, the good points are that the sequential read speeds are fantastic and do show that the Patriot PS-100 does have a lot of potential.

HDTune

In order to collaborate with the sequential read results of HDTach then HDTune was implemented in order to support the fantastic sequential read results of the aforementioned program. As shown below, the evidence does indeed support the claim of wonderful read results of the Patriot drive. Even the minimum results are higher than the much higher price Corsair. However, if one wishes to examine the access time of 0.9 then they may wonder what is the point of a SSD drive?  In all fairness, this test was run a few times and it gave results from o.4 to 0.9 milliseconds.

Patriot HDTune Results

Corsair HDTune Results

AS-SSD Benchmark

Further evidence is needed to test the write speeds on the Patriot PS-100. However, we already know the answer! AS-SSD has been implemented in order to show further evidence of the write issues.

AS SSD is brand new program that is solely dedicated in benchmarking Solid State Drives.

Patriot AS-SSD Results

Corsair AS-SSD Results

Once again, AS-SSD shows the poor write speeds for the Patriot PS-100. Again, should the firmware be available soon and it addresses the issues and improves the write speed then this drive could potentially be a classic!

However this does not help those whom have purchased the drive and are having serious issues.

Patriot is aware of the issue and has been promising to address it for over a month. Looking through aforementioned company forums, there are a great many that are experiencing the same issues. A link to the forum thread can be viewed below.

(http://www.patriotmem.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2114 last accessed 5/2/2010)

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Conclusion

Although the Patriot PS-100 has some firmware issues with regard to the write speeds, it is still an ideal drive simply because of its consistent sequential read results. The firmware issues are nagging on this reviewer’s mind a little and one could not (at this point) recommend this drive for a high-performance boot system. However given the price-point of the drive one can recommend it for the following reasons:

Makes a wonderful Laptop drive due to it’s read speed, power usage and reliability

An ideal drive for a ATOM or a Home Theatre PC

A fantastic upgrade for those whom wish to see what a Solid State Drives are like; as the read speeds are faster than a Western Digital Raptor drive.

If one wishes to take all the facts present into account – the write times, sequential reads, drive consistency, price and functional use – then we would give this a drive a seven out of ten rating. No, the write times are not fantastic (until a firmware update) but for the reason that the sequential reads are consistent and fast, in addition to its price point!  For those that are upgrading from a traditional hard drive with Windows XP installed, then for around £140 a consumer can have a major upgrade; consisting of the Patriot PS-100 and a OEM copy of Windows 7 premium (64 bit edition) In any person’s eyes, that is a very attractive upgrade indeed!

If this reviewer were to compare this product to that of sculpture; then one would say that this is a work of beauty, but marred by a few scars.

Pros:

• Best sequential read speeds on any 32gigabyte SSD drive
• Price, Price and Price!

Cons:

• Abysmal Write Speeds, due to an immature firmware!

Overclockers Tech are pleased to announce that the Patriot PS-100 has been awarded a Bronze award

The Patriot PS-100 Solid State Drives are available from Aria at an attractive price.

It is at this point that OverclockersTech wish to thank Aria for providing the review sample.

Click on Logo for Link

Author gilgamesh

Any Questions or comments? http://overclockerstech.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11792#post11792