Reviews - Patriot Inferno 120GB SSD review

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Are all SandForce drives created equal? We find out by pitting Patriot's 120GB Inferno against OCZ's Vertex 2.

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There is a huge difference in terms of performance comparing traditional hard drives to ssd's, but with these sandforce 1200 based ssd's, with typical use browsing the web, firing a few emails off, bit of spotify ect, would one even notice the small differences between these drives?

Just wondering what sort of use/application one would see a performance benefit of these similar drives, from my point of view would just go with the cheapest sf1200 based drive as i am not sure on the justification of the higher priced drives... expect maybe database or fileserver, but then thats more the server market than desktop market

Anyone able to expand on this further?

It would be interesting to see how the Intel drives do compared to the SandForce lineup - might they (or perhaps G3 when released) be added at a later date?

Cheers

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Originally Posted by jonny4288

There is a huge difference in terms of performance comparing traditional hard drives to ssd's, but with these sandforce 1200 based ssd's, with typical use browsing the web, firing a few emails off, bit of spotify ect, would one even notice the small differences between these drives?

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jonny, it will depend on your usage, but for your given examples, you're really unlikely to notice the difference between the high-end SSDs. They're all quick.

As you say, the big difference is between SSDs and HDDs. I recently upgraded a laptop from a 250GB HDD to a 64GB SSD. The SSD is an old model, and it doesn't support TRIM, but after a couple of weeks of use, it still feels very quick. Best upgrade I've had in recent years.

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Originally Posted by miniyazz

It would be interesting to see how the Intel drives do compared to the SandForce lineup - might they (or perhaps G3 when released) be added at a later date?

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Can't promise anything for the G2, but we're hoping to add the G3 to the line up as soon as possible, as well as a couple of PCIe solutions. :)

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Originally Posted by jonny4288

There is a huge difference in terms of performance comparing traditional hard drives to ssd's, but with these sandforce 1200 based ssd's, with typical use browsing the web, firing a few emails off, bit of spotify ect, would one even notice the small differences between these drives?

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Same as graphics cards (lots of brands using the same chips at similar price points) - everyone wants a piece of a nice pie. ;)

Discernible difference? Nah, not among similar drives (obvious, but it goes for most of the IT world).

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Originally Posted by Parm

Can't promise anything for the G2, but we're hoping to add the G3 to the line up as soon as possible, as well as a couple of PCIe solutions. :)

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Cheers :)

While we're on the topic, I'm sure many people would find it useful to be adding velociraptors in there too (though I must admit, I'd find it only of academic interest).

There seem to be two different Sandforce 1200 chips. See the SF-1200 Product Brief PDF on the Sandforce site which mentions a 1222 and a 1232. The second having 30,000 4K IOPS instead of 10,000. I suspect it is the same chip bundled with different firmware. Interestingly both the Patriot Inferno and the Vertex 2E both use the 1222 but the Vertex claims 50,000 4K IOPS. Seems like elements of the 1500 firmware is creeping back into the 1200 range. One of the early Sandforce 1200 drives also had very high IOPS.

It seems that Sandforce flips flops back and forward on IOPS for the 1200 drives, forcing Enterprise buyers to go for the 1500. IOPS is more an Enterprise Database profile than a desktop.