The Patriot Hellfire M.2 480GB Review: Phison NVMe Tested
by Billy Tallis on February 10, 2017 8:30 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here.
The Patriot Hellfire exhibits an unusually large disparity in performance when the Heavy test is run on a full drive compared to an empty drive. Fresh out of the box, the Hellfire largely keeps pace with the other MLC NVMe SSDs, but when full its average data rate drops down into the high end of SATA performance territory.
The average service times tell the same story as the average data rates: when the Patriot Hellfire is not filled, it can be lumped in with most of the other NVMe SSDs, but when it is completely full it loses almost all of its advantage over high-end SATA SSDs.
The Patriot Hellfire experiences relatively few high-latency outliers when the Heavy test is run on a fresh drive, but when filled is experiences substantially more outliers and it ranks worse than any MLC SSD in this comparison—NVMe or SATA.
The Patriot Hellfire is not the most power-hungry NVMe SSD in this bunch, but it is still substantially less efficient than Samsung's SSDs and mainstream SATA SSDs.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
43 Comments
View All Comments
lilmoe - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
It's sad that all these non-Samsung MLC NVMe SSDs can't even compete with the TLC 960 Evo... But then again, which has more endurance? VNAND TLC or 15nm MLC?bug77 - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
V-NAND TLC has about the same number of p/e cycles as planar MLC.Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
"Which has more endurance" is a false choice!You need to specify Brand, Process, Controller and Firmware Version when comparing endurance
Mixing MLC and TLC also does not help in the least
I pay less over time for a better process like 40nm Samsung MLC than I do for a cheaper process like 15nm Toshiba MLC, even though the initial cost of the Samsung is higher
Likewise, you should only compare TLC with TLC
The only Non-Endurance issue I've ever had with 3D V-Nand is that I had to update Acronis True Image from the 2012 version to 2015/16 or 17 so the backups would restore correctly
guidryp - Friday, February 17, 2017 - link
That makes no sense.MLC has more endurance than TLC.
Adding more layers to TLC doesn't improve endurance.
lilmoe - Monday, February 20, 2017 - link
That's 40nm TLC vs 15nm MLC... I'd vouch for Samsung's process, and vertically integrated product.bogdan.anghel1986 - Friday, February 17, 2017 - link
can't even compete? this SSD is priced about the same with a 850 EVO SATA3, and a lot faster. try not to compare it with other SSD's that cost double. in reviews they put it up against the best so you can have an ideea where it sits.do you compare a Lamborghini with a VW Polo ?
lilmoe - Monday, February 20, 2017 - link
You call 20$ a difference for NVMe drives? Really? Lambos cost 20 times more than Polos, the heck is wrong with you?Arbie - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
"Hellfire" - for a disk drive? If I buy this, I'd be promoting stupid naming. There's a point in such things where the prospective customer is simply being insulted. Hard to define, but "I know it when I see it".Murloc - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
Everybody has a naming scheme. What's wrong with copying names already used by weapons, for a company named patriot?Hellfire sounds stupid but other missile names aren't much better, or they're boring.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
Well, have a nap and then FIRE ZE MISSILES!!!