Final Thoughts

Patriot has a good mix of exciting add ons and features that make the Inferno a strong contender in the 100 to 128GB capacity / price SSD category. Our testing shows solid performance in every test that far exceeds the mechanical capabilities of traditional platter drives; even those offered in the enterprise category costing double that of the Patriot Inferno. SSDs are still limited in capacity, but this is something we have grown accustomed to with fast data storage products like 10 and 15K RPM HDDs. HDDs have grown in capacity and SSDs will do the same over time as flash memory technology will allow prices to be reduced.

Patriot has a winning combination with their industry leading five year warranty, product availability, included desktop bracket and one of the fastest drives anyone has ever tested. The Inferno takes care of business everywhere you look and leaves the user feeling satisfied in knowing that their investment is covered for five years and came with a bracket accessory that other products on the market ship without.

It is difficult to imagine that such performance could come from a consumer product and that the limits of SATA II are now a factor in performance in this market. SATA III drives are on the market from Crucial, but you have to dive deep into your pocket to purchase the 256GB version that delivers performance like the 100GB Patriot Inferno in most common real world usage scenarios.

In the PCMark Vantage section I pointed out that the new 600GB VelociRaptor is able to load applications in one test just a bit under 10MB/s and that the Inferno runs the same test at 212MB/s. This is just one example; many can be cited, but it is also just half the story. The VelociRaptor takes an average 7 milliseconds to even start reading the data to open an application, while the Inferno takes just .17 ms. You can do the math if you want to, but we are measuring SSDs in hundredths of milliseconds and HDDs in milliseconds.

I know that many reading this have yet to use an SSD in their computer, but numbers, no matter how impressive, can't even begin to convey what the user experience is like. Since we are comparing SSD to HDD, it should be said that you will lose data capacity. If this is a problem, get a NAS for home / online long term storage or desktop users can just move their old platter drive into D: and store all it can hold. There are two kinds of storage; SSDs and an old man walking with a cane. Get both and everything will be covered.

When it comes to cost the Patriot Inferno will set you back 369.00 USD at the time of writing and 679.00 for a 200GB. Given how much your computing experience changes by installing and using a Patriot Inferno, I call it a great buy. Add in the five year warranty, accessory desktop bracket and I now call it a TweakTown Editor's Choice Winner.