[O/C]Patriot Inferno 100GB SSD Review

[Overclockers.com]

Patriot Inferno 100GB SSD Review
by Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)

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“A solid state drive (SSD) is the greatest single upgrade you can perform on a modern computer.” At least that’s what we’ve been told at one time or another. SSDs have come a very long way since their first release. They’re more reliable, larger and most importantly, their cost-per-gigabyte has come down. Today, we’ll see if that modern day adage is true as we examine Patriot’s high performance Inferno SSD.

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[EarthDog]

Great read!

A couple of questions...(via PM)

Also, how did you get to the IOPS on CDM?

 

[hokiealumnus]

The iops result was from AS SSD, and I don't recall off-hand. Just poked around really; if you can't find it, let me know and I'll run it at home.

I also think EarthDog's PM was a very valid question, so I'm posting it here (with his permission):

Hey jeremy... great article on that SSD...!!!

A question though... last I heard, HDTune and HDTach were made for HDD's, not SSDs and b/c of that, the details which escape me now, they can show inaccurate and inconsistent results. Have those programs been updated to allow for proper testing of SSD's?

I will dig up the link for the details in the meantime.

I found it. Like I said its kind of old so.....

Traditional tests such as IOMeter, HD Tach, HD Tune, and Passmark PerformaceTest all use buffered spot-samples for testing and are not reliable for SSD benchmarks. After testing with HD Tach RW for the better part of two years, I know that this tool is perfect for testing Hard Disk Drives, but SSD technology adds an element to all of these benchmarks which render them less accurate. Simpli Software doesn't promote their product for SSD testing, so I can waive the differences I've noticed between controllers, system memory, and drive cache mechanisms to the fact that they've never intended their 'HD' software for SSD products. Regardless, these tests are not suitable for SSD product benchmarks, and do not render an accurate performance profile.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...k=view&id=270&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=11

Even though it's old, it could still be a valid opinion. Glad I included other benchmarks as well (plus they were needed to be thorough).

The short of it is, while the tests may not be ideal, there are only a few tests out there for SSDs/HDDs to begin with. I'll probably add PC Mark Vantage's HDD test next time. I still think they're good metrics to measure SSDs against each other. Given the same metric across the board, the results should be comparable to each other. At least that's how it works in my head.

I do think AS SSD & CrystalDiskMark are better for SSD testing, but I still think there is value in the others. The numbers HD Tach / HD Tune came up with were pretty close actually if you look at CDM's 1- an 0-fill results, FWIW.

So, are they perfect tests? Maybe not, but I do think there is still value in their use. If nothing else, they would be a good comparison between drives. I will say that there wasn't anything inconsistent about their results though. I could run them until the cows come home and their results were very close to identical every time.

In addition to that, Anandtech uses IOMeter, so even though they're older metrics, it seems they have value. Always willing to be wrong though. If anyone has any reason to consider these results completely useless, please share.

Lastly, thanks for the kind words EarthDog!

 

[Mr Alpha]

About the Anandtech use of IOMeter: they don't use that old 2006 build of IOMeter that everybody else seems to use, but a newer 2008 build, which has, according to the change log, an change to how IOMeter writes data to avoid undesired side effects when benchmarking flash based media, which was submitted by a couple of guys at Intel.

I believe they went even further with SandForce testing and compiled their own version of IOMeter that lets you write randomized data, which matters since the write performance of the SandForce drives depend on data compression.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Indeed, that is true; you can get the 2008 build from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/iometer/files/ . They did mention a custom build as well, you're correct. Unfortunately we have no means to do such a thing at the present juncture.

 

[SecrtAgentMan]

That boot-up time difference was redonkulous.

 

[jonsrud]

You got only 261 points in AS SSD Benchmark.
If the set-up of the computer had been correct, you had probably gotten about 430 points...

The reason is that the BIOS is in IDE mode (you can spot it in AS SSD ...)
So the SSD is not performing at is best.

Set the BIOS in AHCI mode, and take a reinstall.

 

[hokiealumnus]

You got only 261 points in AS SSD Benchmark.
If the set-up of the computer had been correct, you had probably gotten about 430 points...

The reason is that the BIOS is in IDE mode (you can spot it in AS SSD ...)
So the SSD is not performing at is best.

Set the BIOS in AHCI mode, and take a reinstall.

You're absolutely right, I should have tried that. The drive has been repurposed at present b/c I (stupidly) killed my 24/7 Win7 install overclocking a video card for review.

When I have a moment I may try switching to ACHI on my existing install and bench the difference. Thank you for pointing out that oversight!

 

[macklin01]

*very* nicely written.

These SSD's are getting better all the time. I like the mixture of "theory" and measured results in your write-up. It helps give a context for understanding the benchmark results. Very nicely done. -- Paul

 

[hokiealumnus]

Thank you very much, Paul. That means a ton coming from you!

Regarding the ACHI issue, I've re-benched CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD (with an OS installed, and on an ICH10R now). Unfortunately my registry-foo isn't up to snuff and I'm unable to switch to ACHI after changing the requisite keys. This will take some more research, which I unfortunately don't have time to do at the moment. After I get this GPU review out mid-week, I'll try again.

 

[jonsrud]

When I have a moment I may try switching to ACHI on my existing install and bench the difference.

Doing that will give better result , no question about that.

If you wan't to get the best possible result from the SSD , you should perform a HDDErase 3.3 before installing the OS (formatting , or doing thing in the registry on the existing install is not good enough).
Anyway, if you feel that adjusting the registry is enough , here is a guide

I always make use of HDDErase 3.3 before installing the OS.
Instead of installing OS the standard way, I use image.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Aye, that's the registry trick I tried and it didn't work unfortunately. Resulted in restarting on bootup (yet oddly still worked fine in IDE mode??). I'll give it another try when I have time though. Your solution is best, but it's not one I can do just now.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Bump from the depths! There were two registry settings I had to change, one in CurrentControlSet and the other in CurrentControlset002 (CurrentControlSet001 was already at 0).

Anyway; with a full compliment of OS & programs on, the score still improves dramatically with AHCI enabled. Rest assured I will NOT be making that mistake again. Ladies & gentlemen, I give to you the AHCI enabled Patriot Inferno 100G SSD.

​

 

[Evilsizer]

nicely done hokie! though im a day late and a dollar short.. lol

 

[hokiealumnus]

I'm going to redo all benches as soon as I have an opportunity to clear out another HDD and ghost this install (VERY busy this week, hoping next week). That's too big of a difference and too large of an oversight to let it slide. We'll do this drive justice yet!

 

[midijunky]

Boot times

Does anyone know what utility was used to measure boot times in this review? It's something I'd want to try for myself. Thanks.

 

[hokiealumnus]

It's BootTimer. You can get it from Planetsoft.org.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Huh. The drive is out, formatted and benching. It seems the SB850 doesn't necessarily like benching AHCI as much as the P55 does. Results are certainly better, but even after a decent list of tweaks I've had to find, the P55 might just have the upper hand. Only time will tell...this article just got a bit longer and quite a bit more interesting to investigate.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Err...I said ICH10R, didn't I? I meant P55. Fixed above post. I wish I had an ICH10R board!

After running a couple benches, it seems the results aren't all that much different after all. It does require some setup knowhow on the AMD side of things though.

 

[MattNo5ss]

I'm confused, isn't the SB850 AMD's south bridge? If that's the case, then you should have said ICH10R since it's south bridge on X58/P55.