Patriot Pyro SE 120GB & 240GB SSD Review - PAGE 1

Over the last few months we have examined Patriot’s high-end Wildfire SSD, along with their more cost effective Pyro model. Both of these SSDs were based on the SandForce SF-2281 processor and supported fast speeds via the SATA 6Gbps support. However, each drive utilized a separate NAND design which meant the performance difference between the two was so vast, anyone looking for bleeding edge performance really had to shell out for the Wildfire. This no longer needs to be the case however, as Patriot now has a new drive on the market designed to fill the gap between the Wildfire and Pryo.

The new drive is the Pryo SE (Second Edition) and like its predecessor is based on the SandForce controller. However, the design has been tweaked as the Pyro SE utilizes 25nm synchronous MLC NAND flash memory, as opposed to asynchronous. This should improve the drive's performance when it comes to transferring files of incompressible data, thus improving the performance over the standard Pyro drive. The Pyro SE offers read and write speeds of 500+ MB/s, and delivers IOPS at up to 85,000 (4K random write).

Patriot was kind enough to send us both their 120GB and 240GB Pyro SE models. While both utilize the same design and offer similar performance, the 240GB model has an MSRP of $449, while the 120GB model retails for a more modest $204. Also, since we have two drives on hand it gives us the chance to rn the drives together in RAID to really unleash their potential.