Shortly after the release of the performance-orientated Wildfire series, Patriot developed a cheaper alternative for mainstream system builders. Based on SandForce's SF-2281 controller, the Pyro series took a similar path to that of the Agility 3. OCZ's budget offering used the same SandForce controller and similar NAND flash memory.

The problem with the Pyro was that while it was indeed cheaper than the Wildfire series, it was not more cost effective. For example although the 120GB version might be a little over 20% cheaper, we found it to be well over 40% slower in a number of our own real-world tests.

However it got worse for the Pyro when compared to other SandForce SF-2281 based SSDs. The popular OCZ Vertex 3 120GB currently costs just $190, while the 240GB version retails for $440. In comparison the Pyro 120GB retails for $200 and the 240GB version $395, given how much slower the Pyro is neither option makes sense.

This left Patriot with two SandForce SF-2281 based SSD’s at either end of the spectrum. The Wildfire being a no compromise kind of SSD designed to tackle the Vertex 3 MAX IOPS Edition, while the Pyro is supposed to be a bargain basement product that competes with the Agility 3. Neither targets the mainstream Vertex 3 and this is a problem.

Therefore Patriot announced the “Pyro SE” on October 11th 2011 in 60GB, 120GB, and 240GB capacities. Whereas the original Pyro series used cheaper asynchronous memory, the Pyro SE brings the added performance of synchronous NAND to the brand. The 120GB version is only slightly more expensive than the original Pyro, fetching $205, while the 240GB version is surprisingly expensive at $470, making it pricier than even the Wildfire.

To-date we have tested a number of SandForce SF-2281 based SSDs, making the Pyro SE rather unexciting as we really know what to expect. Therefore we are curious to test the RAID0 performance of the Pyro SE. At $410, a pair of Pyro 120GB drives cost considerably less than a single Wildfire 240GB drive ($255), which could reveal some compelling results. We could speculate on drive performance all day, but let's press onward and see where Patriot's Pyro SE stands in the market...

The 120GB and 240GB units get 550MB/s reads and 520MB/s writes, while the 60GB model is reduced to 550MB/s and 500MB/s. Like most SSDs, the Pyro SE adheres to the 2.5" form factor, measuring 10.1 x 6.9 x 9.3mm and weighing 118.3g. It consumes 2.0 watts of power in use and only 0.45 watts in standby, which is the same as the Wildfire and Pyro series.

Naturally, using the SATA 6Gb/s interface is essential to achieving those speeds. The only issue with this is that Sandy Bridge is the only platform in Intel's arsenal to provide native SATA 6Gb/s support -- and it does so with only two ports. Likewise, AMD only just recently launched a chipset with native SATA 6Gb/s support, though it can handle six ports.

Third party embedded solutions such as the Marvell 88SE9128 can provide motherboards with SATA 6Gb/s connectivity, but offer very poor results compared to Intel's implementation. That said, there is a new Marvell 88SE9182 controller that can mimic the performance of Intel's 6 series chipsets, so support for the 6Gb/s SATA is improving.

The Pyro SE series comes loaded with Micron 29F64G08CBAAB MLC NAND (25nm) flash memory. Our review sample has sixteen 8GB NAND ICs for a total capacity of 128GB. As you might be wondering, Patriot advertises the drive as a 120GB SSD because 8GB is reserved for data parity, garbage collection, and block replacement.

Once formatted in Windows, the original 120GB drops to 111GiB, meaning you lose 7.5% from the GB to GiB conversion. With a retail value of $205 the Pyro SE 120GB costs $1.70 per gigabyte, which is pretty decent by flash drive standards.

Like the original SF-1200 controller, the second-gen SF-2200 uses data compression technology called DuraWrite that's designed to help lower write amplification and extend the drive's life by using fewer program-erase cycles. The upside is that this doesn't require a memory buffer, while the downside is that it occupies more storage space.

The SF-2200 uses the same Tensilica DC_570T CPU as its predecessor and although the chip remains unchanged hardware-wise, the compression engine has improved. The second-gen SandForce controllers have a bigger block of silicon dedicated to DuraWrite, while the garbage collection algorithms have also been improved.

Hardware - Intel Core i7-2600K (LGA1155) - x2 4GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill (CAS 8-8-8-20) - Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) - Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) - Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67) - OCZ ZX Series (1250w) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Nvidia Forceware 280.26

In addition to our featured storage devices, the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB 3.5" 7200-RPM hard drive has been included for comparison purposes.

For comparison purposes we have included SSDs using a wide range of different controllers. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load time tests.

As you should know by now, the problem with testing SSDs is that while the manufacturer claims impressive peak I/O performance out of the box, this performance can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard drive, any write operation made to an SSD is a two-step process, first the data block must be erased and then written to. Obviously if the drive is brand new and unused there will be nothing to erase and therefore the first step can be bypassed, but this only happens once unless the drive is trimmed.

In consideration of this, we will test how much performance you can expect to lose from each SSD over time. We will test all drives in their clean unused state and then run the HD Tach full benchmark several times, which fills the entire drive. This simulates heavy usage and gives us a clear indication of how performance will be affected in normal long-term use.

Having said all that, all drives support the Windows 7 TRIM function, which is meant to counteract these negative effects in the long run, so it will be interesting to see how the drives perform against each other.

The Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration performed extremely well in our 6GB ISO copy test with a throughput of 227.8MB/s. When compared to a single SandForce SF-2281 based SSD such as the Vertex 3 240GB, the Pyro SE drives were 44% faster. Moreover they were 58% faster than the original Pyro 120GB drives which were also in a RAID0 configuration.

The program copy test is comprised of many small non-compressed files (6104 files totaling 2.75GB).

The performance in the program copy test wasn’t quiet as impressive, as the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 drives were a little slower than the Kingston HyperX equivalent. Meanwhile, they were just 18% faster than a single Vertex 3 240GB drive, and although the 36MB/s performance bump was welcomed we were hoping for more.

The game copy evaluation is a mixture of small and large, compressed and non-compressed files. There are 1336 files in this test weighing 2.70GB.

The game performance trends were similar to those seen in our program test. Here the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration delivered a throughput of 234.7MB/s, making it a fraction faster than the Kingston HyperX 120GB RAID0 drives. This time when compared to the Vertex 3 240GB the Pyro SE drives were 24% faster.

The Windows 7 boot performance of the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration was strong but not exceptional. With a load time of 9.9 seconds they were roughly as fast as a single SandForce SF-2281 based SSD, RAID does not appear to be of much use here.

Again we find that the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 drives only provide average performance for SandForce SF-2281 based SSDs, with a load time of 5.2 seconds in the Windows 7 multitasking test.

The Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 drives were able to launch Photoshop CS4 in just 1.2 seconds, which is the best time we have been able to record using an SSD, and it has been achieved by over half a dozen drives.

Finally the StarCraft II game level load test and here we find that the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 is able to roughly match the Vertex 3 240GB, which has provided our best result to date in this test.

The sequential read performance was phenomenal as the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration provided a throughput of 874.9MB/s, making it 77% faster than the Vertex 3 240GB. That said, it was also 6% slower than the Kingston HyperX 120GB drives.

The write performance on the other hand was not nearly as impressive, as the Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration delivered just 341.4MB/s, making the duo slower than a single Samsung 830 Series drive. Moreover they were just 13% faster than a single Vertex 3 240GB SSD. It is worth noting that while the Pyro SE 120GB drives were slower than Kingston’s equivalent in the read test, they were faster when measuring write performance.

Again we find very strong read performance from the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration, this time when measuring random 512K performance. However when looking at write performance the Pyro SE 120GB drives are only 15% faster than a single Vertex 3 240GB SSD.

It appears that RAID0 has little impact on 4K performance as evident by the random 4K-QD32 performance of the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration. Here the duo was slightly slower than a single Vertex 3 240GB drive and this could explain the average real-world performance.

The AS SSD Benchmark sequential numbers are similar to what we saw when testing with CrystalDiskMark. Again the Pyro SE 120GB drives are slower compared to the HyperX 120GB drives when measuring read performance while they provided stronger write performance.

Here we see that RAID0 does little to help the 4K-64 thread read performance, though interestingly the write results do appear much stronger thanks to the use of RAID. For example the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration was 30% faster than the Vertex 3 240GB.

Something we found interesting here was how much stronger the read access time performance of the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration was when compared to the Kingston HyperX 120GB RAID0 drives. That said, the single HyperX 240GB drive also displayed weak read access time performance, especially when compared to the Vertex 3 240GB.

The write performance however saw the HyperX and Pyro SE RAID0 configurations neck and neck, with around a 0.250ms access time. This was comparable to the Vertex 3 240GB drive and even the HyperX 240GB.

As you can see the 1K, 2K and 8K performance of the RAID0 configurations are no greater than their single drive counterparts. It is not until the data size reaches 32K that we start to see the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration pull ahead of the Vertex 3 240GB. Once the data reaches 128K the performance is drastically improved and the Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 reached 800MB/s.

Much the same situation is found when measuring write performance. Here in the 1K, 2K, 8K and even 32K tests the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 fails to pull ahead of a single Vertex 3 240GB drive. However once the data reaches 128K the RAID0 configuration races ahead, exceeding 800MB/s.

However the new SandForce SF-2281 drives, which are able to utilize the SATA 6Gb/s interface for greater bandwidths, are now making everything a great deal faster. Take our on-disk copy tests for example, here a traditional 7200-RPM hard drive provides a throughput of just 26.5MB/s when working with large files. Meanwhile the average SF-2281 equipped SSD is capable of over 150MB/s, making it nearly 6x faster.

In fact it was the file copy tests that really benefited from the use of RAID, as we found the Patriot Pyro SE 120GB drives were over 40% faster than a 240GB SandForce SF-2281 drive. In all three of our copy tests the Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 configuration delivered over 200MB/s and this kind of performance certainly helps justify the $410 investment.

Do-it-yourself RAID setups are very easy to create nowadays, largely because all AMD and Intel mid-range to high-end chipsets support the technology, making it widely supported. This is why we find it hard to pay a price premium for products such as the OCZ RevoDrive 3. In a 240GB capacity it costs $580, which is over 40% more than what users can expect to pay for a pair of Pyro SE 120GB drives which will deliver the same performance.

The only problem with throwing a few SSDs in a RAID array is that for the most part application performance will not be improved. Where SSDs need a performance boost the most is when working with data smaller than 128K and pairing up two drives using RAID0 does nothing to help here. This was evident in benchmarks such as CrystalDiskMark and Atto.

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So, unless you want to improve your file copy speed, there is very little need to invest in a pair of SSDs. That said, from a value perspective a pair of 120GB drives does make more sense when compared to a single 240GB drive. This is because a pair of 120GB Pyro SE drives costs $410 while a single 240GB drive costs $470, making the pair of 120GB drives 13% cheaper. It’s a similar situation when looking at the OCZ Vertex 3 series or even the Kingston HyperX range.

For now Patriot is doing a reasonable job of competing with OCZ on the pricing front, though the Pyro SE series is still slightly more expensive than the Vertex 3 range. That said, when compared to other competitors such as Kingston, the Patriot drives are much cheaper. Therefore we have no problem recommending the new Patriot Pyro SE series as it provides strong performance at a reasonable price.