Patriot Inferno 60GB SSD Review

Conclusion

So where are we after all that testing?

It’s difficult to say with any certainty. For every test that showed the fearsome potential of the SandForce controller paired to the Intel MLC, we have one that makes it appear like an absolute dog. In relative terms at least.

In purely linear read or write tests the results are fairly, well, linear. Although there are a few small drops as the controller switches from one MLC NAND chip to another in general everything is handled very well.

Once we move to the random read and write the drive really struts its stuff getting very close to the claimed attainable speeds. Writing in particular is a strength. Many drives forgo a good write speed to focus everything on a read speed that looks good “in lights” but the SandForce equipped Patriot Inferno manages to produce consistently better write speeds than read.

Unfortunately consistency isn’t a term applicable to any other element. Crystal Disk Mark in particular doesn’t like the drive at all, and AIDA64 seems to think it’s capable of out-performing the SATA II interfaces capabilities.

Yet PC Mark Vantage shows it as having the ability to make the hitherto untouched Corsair Nova get left behind.

So for once this is a product that relies more on “feel” than on hard data to try and make sense of the reams of conflicting information. In use we have to probably closest to the linear speeds from the AIDA64 test as although it isn’t the barn-burner that was the Corsair Nova, it’s also not as bad as the other SandForce drive we’ve tested the OCZ Vertex 2.

All in all for a OS drive that doesn’t cost the earth you could do much worse than the TRIM-compliant, SandForce based Patriot Inferno. Just accept it doesn’t always perform to its full potential in every scenario.

For around a hundred pounds if you’ve been looking for a drive to run Windows and your major applications on we can recommend the Patriot Inferno and thus it gets awarded our Bronze Award. We’ll just be pleased when all these slight issues have been eradicated from the SandForce controller.

   

Thanks to Patriot for supplying the Inferno for review. Discuss in our forums.