INTRODUCTION

   Solid state drives have become the number one choice for people looking for a storage media with superior performance levels compared to that of regular mechanical drives. Most people obviously use them as primary OS drives while others have their games installed on them to reduce loading times. Still although all consumers want to benefit from the increased read/write performance levels not all have the same needs/demands neither in terms of performance and endurance nor in terms of capacity. With that in mind manufacturers keep releasing different models in the market in order to cover everyone out there and although it's been a long road ever since SSDs were first introduced we really think they're finally getting there. Patriot just released their budget-friendly Blast line of SSDs and once again we're amongst the very first to get the 240GB model in our hands.

   Patriot designs, manufactures and markets high performance, enthusiast memory modules, flash memory, and mobile accessory products. Patriot products have become world renown for their extreme performance, reliability and innovation. Patriot sells its products through original equipment manufacturers, retailers, e-tailers and distributors throughout the world with operations in North America, Asia and Europe. Patriot Memory LLC was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

     The Blast line of SSDs by Patriot is built around the Phison S10 quad-core 8-channel NAND flash controller which features quite a few advanced technologies such as TRIM (depends on the OS however), end-to-end data path protection (ETEP), advanced wear-leveling, advanced garbage collection, smart ECC, native command queuing (NCQ), smart refresh, guaranteed flush technology and smart flush technology. Together with the Phison S10 Patriot has used eight 16nm Asynchronous NAND flash modules (probably by Crucial/Micron) and a 256mb DDR3L @ 1600MHz DRAM package by Nanya. This is actually not the first time Patriot has used a Phison NAND flash controller since they used the same exact one with their Ignite line of SSDs which although not at the top of the charts still it represented a good price/performance solution.