Page 2 - A Closer Look, Test System
Taking a look at the outside, Patriot takes a relatively safe choice with a rough black exterior. Much like many other solid state drives, the Patriot Blaze is rounded at the corners. The front displays a nice burgundy red, with the name "Blaze" emblazoned across the side. Underneath is the size capacity specification of 240GB. Just to note, four different capacities are available at press time, including 60GB, 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB. Patriot's logo can also be found on the front label too. Unlike the OCZ ARC 100, the Blaze's label only covers the middle of the disk. Taking a look at other Patriot SSDs, this follows a similar design, with a color generally related to fire. For example, the Pyro and Pyro SE both had an orange and black scheme. According to Patriot, the Blaze weighs in at approximately 78.6 grams. This is quite a bit lighter than our past solid state drives, but you will see why when we inspect the internal components. Measuring at 100 mm x 69.85 mm x 7 mm, the Blaze is pretty standard in measurements. The 7mm thickness in particular will, as I noted prior, ensure compatibility with thinner laptops or Ultrabooks.
Flip over the Patriot Blaze and you will find the standard information that is usually on the backside of any SSD. The Blaze's model number is printed here, with another reassurance in case people forgot the size of the internal capacity. Specifications and certification logos are also printed here, which is what we would expect. There is a warning on the label stating the voiding of warranty should you open up the enclosure, so be sure to heed the warning. Finally, the back side exposes the SATA 6Gb/s connector and the power connection. The Patriot Blaze 240GB heralds from the Republic of China, or Taiwan as it is commonly known. This is not to be mistaken with the People's Republic of China, or the PRC, which refers to mainland China.
The Patriot Blaze 240GB has a separate top and bottom plate, with the screws exposed on the bottom. As I have mentioned, please do not open the drive's enclosure, as we will do so soon enough. If you are curious, you can continue reading as we venture into the SSD itself. However, if you do feel inclined to open it up, we have warned you already that the three year warranty coming with the Patriot Blaze will be voided. Carrying on, I pulled out a screwdriver, and opened up the internals. Unlike a traditional HDD where you would find an actual spinning platter, all you will see is a small printed circuit board, littered with chips and embedded onto a blue piece of glass fiber laminate. Here you will also notice the board is half or even a third of the size you would normally see in other solid state drives. Instead, you have a tightly knit configuration, with a Phison PS3108-S8 controller at the center of it all.
Phison is a Taiwanese manufacturer of NAND flash controllers, and has been doing so since the turn of the millennium. In the past, their main focus was non-SSD applications, such as USB flash memory. However, the Phison PS3108-S8 has gained popularity for providing performance at a relatively low cost. Other solid state drives with the PS3108-S8 inside include the Silicon Power Slim S80, Kingston V310, and Corsair Force LS. The Phison PS3108-S8 in the Patriot Blaze 240GB is an eight channel controller, with up to 64 chip-enables. This controller supports up to 512MB of DDR3 memory, with a built-in 72bit ECC, or error correction codes. The controller is fabricated on a 55nm process. Otherwise, besides BCH ECC Correction, the controller also features SmartRefresh, SmartFlush, GuaranteedFlush, and DEVSLP Support. In addition, the drive comes with the standard TRIM and SMART support. The PS3108-S8 does not have any encryption protocol support, such as Microsoft eDrive.
Paired with the mentioned controller are four NAND flash chips from IM Flash Technologies, a semiconductor company founded in 2006 in collaboration with Intel and Micron. The four NAND chips are IMFT IP79G5SAPH asynchronous multi-level cells manufactured in a 16nm process. There are two of them on each side. Since the NAND flash clearly has "APH" in the model number, this solid state drive is already APH Recommended, haha. Joking aside, each chip carries a 64GB capacity, to make for a total of 256GB. Around 7% of the total capacity is meant for overprovisioning, so users only have access to 240GB. In Windows OS, you will find only 223GB of accessible space. A single Nanya Technology NT5CC256M16CP-DI is also found on the board, and it holds the 512MB DDR3L memory. This runs in DDR3-1600 at CAS latency timings of 11-11-11, and at a frequency of 800MHz. Overall, the whole package has a rated mean time between failure of 1.2 million hours, or 136 years. The Blaze 240GB is also backed by a three year warranty from Patriot Memory, which is average across similarly priced drives.
Our test configuration as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.6GHz
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-U14S (2x Noctua NF-A15)
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution
RAM: Kingston HyperX Savage HX324C11SRK2/16 2x8GB
Graphics: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC
Chassis: SilverStone Temjin TJ04-E (Noctua NF-S12A PWM, Noctua NF-P12 PWM)
Storage: SanDisk Extreme II 240GB; OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB
Power: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 1200W
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi Bravura
Optical Drive: LiteOn iHAS224-06 24X DVD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional
Compared Hardware:
- Patriot Blaze 240GB
- Crucial MX100 256GB
- G.Skill Phoenix EVO 115GB
- Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB
- Kingston HyperX 120GB
- Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB
- 2x Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB RAID 0
- OCZ ARC 100 240GB
- OCZ Agility 3 240GB
- OCZ Agility 4 256GB
- OCZ Octane 512GB
- OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB
- OCZ Vector 150 240GB
- OCZ Vector 256GB
- OCZ Vertex 2 160GB 25nm
- OCZ Vertex 2 60GB 34nm
- OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB
- OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB
- OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
- OCZ Vertex 450 256GB
- OCZ Vertex 460 240GB
- Patriot Pyro 120GB
- Patriot Pyro SE 240GB
- SanDisk Extreme II 240GB
- SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB
- SanDisk Ultra II 240GB
- SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB
- Silicon Power Slim S80 240GB
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
10. Conclusion
