Recently PCWizkid reviewed the Patriot Box Office with a SSD drive.  Today we take a closer look at the SSD drive we used, the Patriot Torqx 64GB SATA II SSD.  There are many obvious advantages of using an SSD which we cover in our video review.  Unlike regular hard drives an SSD uses semi conductors to create the storage needed. This means that there is no moving parts inside the drive to which is a common reason why today's hard drives tend to fail. 

Inside the box you will receive everything you need to install the drive in a desktop PC with a bracket to mount the drive into a standard hard drive bay.

Features and Specifications

* Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities
* Interface: SATA I/II
* Raid Support: 0, 1, 0+1
* 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
* Shock Resistant: 1500G/0.5ms
* Vibration Resistant: 20G/10~2000Hz with 3 Axis
* Operating Consumption & Power: DC 5V <550mA 2.75W
* Operating Temperature: 0°C~70°C
* Storage Temperature: -40°C~ 85°C
* MTBF: >2,500,000 Hours
* Data Retention: 5 years at 25°C
* Data Reliability: Built in BCH 8, 12 and 16-bit ECC
* O/S Support: Windows®XP and Vista® Linux, and Mac OS X®
* Dimensions: 99.88 x 69.63x 9.3 mm
* Weight: 91g
* Certification: FCC/CE/RoHS
* 10 Year Warranty

PCWizKid's Test System

For our test system we are using the latest desktop PC hardware that can embrace the Patriot Torqx SSD capabilities to the max. Our test strategy involves testing the SSD drive as a boot drive for the Windows 7 operating system and compare it to a mainstream hard drives with various tests.

• Intel Core i5 750 (at 4Ghz)
• MSI P55 GD80 motherboard
  
  
  
• Two Diamond ATI Radeon HD4890's in crossfire
• 4GB DDR3 OCZ XMP Memory
  
• Ultra X4 850 Watt Power supply
• Noctua CPU Cooler
  
• Cooler Master HAF932 Full Tower Case
• Western Digital 500GB SATA II HDD
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit

Video Review

Conclusion

Patriot Memory has always been on of the fore runners in the memory market and it only makes sense that they are continuing that tradition with the new solid state drives.  The SSD has good new firmware support and a huge 10 year warranty which offers peace of mind.   One thing I would like to see in the future is a way to upgrade the firmware on the Torqx without losing all of the data on the drive, so be sure to backup or do a drive image of everything before you do a firmware upgrade so you can re-install it back.  As for the speed and performance, the Patriot Torqx proved to exceed expectations in our read tests, and met most on write.  Overall it out did other drives we had tested it against in the same PC and definitely blows a standard SATA hard drive out of the water!  You can tel that Patriot Memory stands by its product with its 10 year warranty you cant go wrong.  PCWizKid gives the Patriot Torqx a "Recommended Award".