Patriot Memory has been kind enough to send us a Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD (Solid State Drive) to review. We were sent one of their 128GB SSD Warp v2 for review back in April and were very impressed, so it is nice to see how their new SSD handles.
Everything that we do on our computers is done with the help of our hard drive, and most times this is the weakest link in the chain. As the standard hard drive has moving parts, load times can vary and the more you store on the drive the slower it gets.
We have to often run a defrag to help speed the hard drive up again, but there is only so much the software can do. There is however, an alternative, and that is by replacing your standard hard drive with an SSD, and this is just what we have done.
There are a couple of things that you need to know first, if your computer or laptop is under warranty make certain that you do not void it by replacing the hard drive with this SSD. I was told that it is only the part that I void, so was happy to go ahead with the upgrade. Secondly to preserve the life of your new SSD, never run a defrag program, as this could damage the device.
After taking the back of the laptop, it is easy to find the hard drive, then just remove the retaining screws and pull the connections away gently, just remember to back everything up from your hard drive before you do this.
Connecting the new Patriot Torqx 128GB Solid State Drive was very simple, it was not long before I was ready to boot up again. I decided to do a fresh install of Windows Vista and put all the drivers and software on my laptop separately, that way I knew that my machine would have nothing that I did not need.
I know that the way I loaded all my software back on was the long way, but I felt it was the best, we did not want any unwanted guests on this new SSD. Well after a few hours work we were up and running again, the first few start ups seemed to take the same amount of time as a standard hard drive, but we have done a lot of loading and updates, so takes some time for all the windows registry to catch up.
We are now fully up to speed and are ready to go, I have made certain that auto defrag has been turned off. The things that we have noticed are just how fast my laptop shuts down and starts back up again. Before on my standard Hitachi 320GB hard drive it would often take up to 30 seconds to shut down, this now takes around 10 seconds.
When switching on, getting from the blank screen to the desktop takes about the same time, but it is when you are logged into Windows and the desktop is in front of you that it all changes. When we had the old hard drive in we was still waiting a few minutes for all the programs to load up, now when the desktop pops up, our programs seems to be up and running within 30 seconds.
I am not one for doing all these graphs to show you just how fast the new Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD (Solid State Drive) is, let’s face it most of us just want a faster device and that is it. Once you have the new SSD what is the use of all the graphs, the best way to see if it is any faster is just by doing what you would normally do on your laptop or PC.
After spending a few weeks with the Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD there are a few things that I have noticed, firstly my Dell Studio laptop runs much cooler, and the battery life has also been extended by at least 20 minutes, this is not much but it all helps. I have also noticed that as soon as I click on a program, it is open almost immediately; this certainly helps when you are in a rush.
There is nothing bad that we can say about this SSD, it is fast, offering speeds of 200+ Mbs, it is small and light, and you get more life from your battery. There is however one downfall and that is the price, but the price of SSDs are falling all the time, and it will not be long before SSD is the standard and the normal hard drive will be phased out.
For more details visit: www.patriotmem.com
Specifications:
- 2 Year Warranty
- 256GB and 128GB: Sequential Read: up to 260MB/s Sequential Write: up to 180MB/s
- 64GB: Sequential Read: up to 220MB/s Sequential Write: up to 135MB/s
- Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities
- Certification: FCC/CE/RoHS
- Data Reliability: Built in BCH 8, 12 and 16-bit ECC
- Data Retention: 5 years at 25ºC
- Dimensions: 99.88 x 69.63x 9.3 mm
- Interface: SATA I/II
- MTBF: >2,500,000 Hours
- O/S Support: Windows®XP and Vista® Linux, and Mac OS X®
- Operating Consumption & Power: DC 5V <550mA 2.75W
- Operating Temperature: 0ºC~70ºC
- Raid Support: 0, 1, 0+1
- Shock Resistant: 1500G/0.5ms
- Storage Temperature: -40ºC~ 85ºC
- Vibration Resistant: 20G/10~2000Hz with 3 Axis
- Weight: 91g
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