Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Conclusion:
PROS:
- Highest file create performance we’ve seen to date out of a SATA 6Gb/sec device.
- Good overall performance.
- Quality construction.
CONS:
- Baseline SandForce firmware has lower mixed mode (iometer) performance than others.
Pricing and Availability:
Street Prices (newegg):
Pyro:
- 60G @ $105 ($1.75 / GB)
- 120G @ $175 ($1.46 / GB)*
- 240G @ $390 ($1.63 / GB)
Wildfire:
- 120G @ $265 ($2.20 / GB)
- 240G @ $450 ($1.88 / GB)
- 480G @ $1140 ($2.38 / GB)
* note – there are some heavy rebates going on at the time of this writing. The 120GB Pyro is $145 ($1.21 / GB).
While the Pyro prices are good (especially with that current rebate), the Wildfire didn’t seem to perform so much better as to warrant such a premium. Looking at the prices above, the lowest cost/GB Wildfire costs more than even the highest cost/GB Pyro. While Toshiba’s Toggle-mode flash may yield higher performance over IMFT flash, we’re ultimately limited by how well a given controller + firmware combination can take advantage of it.
* Firmware *:
SandForce controllers had a ‘BSOD bug’ which would cause intermittent dropouts and in extreme cases would cause the SSD to become permanently unresponsive (i.e. brick) when used in some specific hardware configurations. This was patched back in October. Patriot made the required 3.3.2 firmware update available for their drives shortly thereafter.
I highly recommend any owners of the Pyro or Wildfire to update their firmware to this version ASAP. This is not one of those typical ‘don’t update unless you need to’ firmwares. This issue is intermittent and random, and can cause a drive to brick with no advanced warning whatsoever. I personally had an Agility 3 die (without warning) to this exact type of failure.
Final Thoughts:
These two Patriot Memory SSD’s gave us a pleasant surprise in our content creation testing, and kept with the pack on most other tests. The stock firmware appeared to have a few quirks when it came to mixed workload (IOMeter) testing, but all other tests went well. While the IMFT flash brings the price of the Pyro alongside most of the competition, Toshiba’s Toggle-mode flash is fetching too high a price premium given the Wildfire’s nearly identical performance.
Hi Allyn & crew,
Nice review,
Hi Allyn & crew,
Nice review, but have you ever tested any IDE (PATA) SSDs? I bought a RunCore SSD (Model 0900027140 32GB)and have tried almost everything (I get a BSOD) and can only get into the Safe Mode. I know IDE is old, but I was trying use one in an old SONY PCG-V505DC1 laptop and have never been able to boot into Windows XP. Whether I start with a fresh install or using Norton Ghost, Casper 6 or Acronis True Image, the results are the same (BSOD).
It seems to me that either the drivers are wrong or a firmware update is need. I’ve contacted RunCore, but so far no good answer. The funny thing is, I tried this SSD (via and IDE/USB cable) on my MacBook Pro (using Super Duper) and it works just fine.
Have you any suggestions?
Thanks,
Bernie
It’s likely that your aging
It’s likely that your aging Sony lacks the necessary compatibility to handle the RunCore SSD – or vice versa.
@Bernie
IDE SSDs are rare,
@Bernie
IDE SSDs are rare, slow, and expensive for the size/performance you get. Adding an IDE SSD to an old laptop is not a good idea because Windows XP does not support SSDs as well as Windows 7 and new operating systesms, and the value of the SSD is likely to be higher than the old IDE device you are installing it in. If you have a system that only takes IDE drives, then your first priority should be to update to a SATA based laptop or new motherboard/CPU for a desktop. You can then later add a SATA based SSD to the system to increase performance.
Even if your SONY PCG-V505DC1 could take a SATA SSD, it will suffer from other bottle necks that would diminish the value and advantage that an SSD would provide.
It would be nice if you could
It would be nice if you could remind us which of these tests use random data, so we can tell how much of the difference is due to compression by the Sandforce controller that won’t apply to previously compressed files.
Any reason server operators shouldn’t expect expect longer life (more write cycles) from 32nm than 25nm? Performance is not the only criterion.
Doesn’t the Pyro only get 60k
Doesn’t the Pyro only get 60k iops, and it’s the Pyro SE that gets 85k iops isn’t it? Great review, been looking at the different Pyro’s for my first SSD, might bite the bullet one day!