Wildfire

Wildfire is Patriot’s first SATA 6 Gbps drive. It utilizes the prowess of the SF-2281 drive controller with a 32 nm Toshiba MLC NAND. This series of SATA III SSDs are poised to make a run for the fastest drive available.

The Wildfire series include drives with capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB. The 120 GB and 240 GB variants boast on a read speed of 555 MB/s and write speed of 520 MB/s while the 480 GB type has a read and write speed of 540 MB/s and 450 MB/s respectively. The Wildfire’s IOPs performance reaches 85,000 (4K aligned) – a number comparable to what multiple drives in a RAID array can offer just last year.  The switch to an older 32 nm NAND is the culprit for the Wildfire’s increased read/write performance.  It is also the reason why the Wildfire is more expensive (around $300 for 120 GB and $500 for 240 GB) than similarly sized Vertex 3. Although having a different NAND design, Wildfire still has the caveats of a SF-2281 controller. SandForce’s DuraWrite technology enables the Wildfire to write less data than it is given via on-the-fly data compression. This greatly saves NAND write cycles and provides an advantage in performance.

SPECIFICATIONS:

• Sequential Read: Up to 555 Mbps
• Sequential Write: Up to 520 Mbps
• NAND Type: MLC
• Interface: SATA 3
• Controller: Sandforce SF-2281
• Form Factor: 2.5 inch (with 3.5 inch mounting bracket)
• DRAM Cache: None
• Power Consumption (Active): 2 W
• Power Consumption (Idle):  0.5 W
• TRIM Support: Yes
• SMART Support: Yes
• Warranty: 3 Years

PART NUMBERS:

• 120 GB: PW120GS25SSDR
• 240 GB: PW240GS25SSDR
• 480 GB: PW480GS25SSDR

REVIEWS:

neoseeker:

All in all the WildFire is an outstanding SSD that offers top-class performance while dodging the problems of the second generation SandForce controller by using the latest 3.1.9 firmware.

hardwareheaven:

Patriot’s WildFire SSD offers a desirable alternative to models from Intel and Samsung, impressing on write operations in particular.

overclockersclub:

If you take benchmarks out of the equation, you are left with what you can see and “feel” when it comes to operating a computer. Startup, shutdown, application loading, battery life, and just overall snap, are improvements you can see and feel. In that respect, Patriot has one heck of a drive — it’s fast and delivers performance you can feel.