Patriot Inferno 120GB questions pre-purchase

Bane · 11 Nov 2010 at 00:05

Some questions to anyone with the Inferno 120GB bought from "this week only" stock.

Patriot don't offer firmware updates, but on their forum dated April 2010 the mass production firmware was 3.2.0. Is this installed with current stock, or a newer number?

From Patriot FAQ they list this:
Does the Inferno SSD provide the disk activity LED signal on pin 11 of the drives power connector?
No, the Inferno does not have this feature.

Can anyone confirm no HDD activity light during usage? Got to admit that has knocked my interest if it's still true.

And finally, anyone who has sent a SSD back to American for RMA wish to state shipping method and cost.

Fanatic · 11 Nov 2010 at 00:47

Pay £10 more and get the Vertex 2E Bigfoot?

Bane · 11 Nov 2010 at 10:36

Yeah, I'm wondering if the Inferno is a false economy now. But I wouldn't want a 3.5" unit as it will be going in laptop when upgrade.

DragonQ · 11 Nov 2010 at 11:12

You can pay £15 more than the Patriot costs for a 2.5" Vertex 2E 120GB if you want. E-mail me for details if you're interested.

Subliminal Aura · 13 Nov 2010 at 10:10

Bane said:
Yeah, I'm wondering if the Inferno is a false economy now. But I wouldn't want a 3.5" unit as it will be going in laptop when upgrade.

Yes but how much will next gen SSDs cost ?

I'm thinking 120gb for £155 sounds like great value.

mrtckane · 15 Nov 2010 at 14:22

any reason why the bigfoot is better than this?

same controller etc..

Subliminal Aura · 15 Nov 2010 at 14:36

mrtckane said:
any reason why the bigfoot is better than this?

same controller etc..

If it is indeed the same sandforce controller - can you flash the patriot with the bigfoot firmware

mrtckane · 15 Nov 2010 at 16:04

Subliminal Aura said:
If it is indeed the same sandforce controller - can you flash the patriot with the bigfoot firmware

the controller isn't identical.

the bigfoot's got a sandforce sf1200
whereas the inferno's is an sf1222

i'm just trying to find out people's experiences of this disk as i'm ordering on wednesday and i'd like to know if the patriot is "bad economy" or not.

Subliminal Aura · 15 Nov 2010 at 19:39

Thought as much.

If we know what to flash the inferno with then it's a definite buy for me

Subliminal Aura · 15 Nov 2010 at 19:51

This is worth a thorough read.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1312/1/

Solid-State Drives Using The Sandforce SF-1222 Controller:

A-DATA S599 Series
Corsair Force Series
Mushkin Callisto Series
OCZ Agility 2 Series
OCZ Vertex 2 Series
OWC Mercury
Patriot Inferno Series

So if you can hddhack the Patriot into being a vertex 2 then I see no reason why you can't flash the OCZ firmware over it.

Too much effort ? Spend 20 squid and but a real Vertex

mrtckane · 15 Nov 2010 at 20:38

Subliminal Aura said:
This is worth a thorough read.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1312/1/

Solid-State Drives Using The Sandforce SF-1222 Controller:

A-DATA S599 Series
Corsair Force Series
Mushkin Callisto Series
OCZ Agility 2 Series
OCZ Vertex 2 Series
OWC Mercury
Patriot Inferno Series

So if you can hddhack the Patriot into being a vertex 2 then I see no reason why you can't flash the OCZ firmware over it.

Too much effort ? Spend 20 squid and but a real Vertex

bigfoot it is then. thanks.

Subliminal Aura · 15 Nov 2010 at 20:46

mrtckane said:
bigfoot it is then. thanks.

Oh yeah - Hadn't spotted that it's only 9 quid more.

Yeah better safe than sorry I suppose.

mrtckane · 15 Nov 2010 at 23:40

yeah, was just wondering if the patriot was any good, don't really mind about FW updates as once i've got windows installed it'll be back to my normal 6 monthly cyclic reinstalls, none of this ragging it out for a firmware update once a fortnight..

gonna go with the bigfoot, plenty of information on the ground about that.

as you said, better safe than stuck with a crap ssd.

Zarf · 16 Nov 2010 at 00:31

mrtckane said:
yeah, was just wondering if the patriot was any good, don't really mind about FW updates as once i've got windows installed it'll be back to my normal 6 monthly cyclic reinstalls, none of this ragging it out for a firmware update once a fortnight..

gonna go with the bigfoot, plenty of information on the ground about that.

as you said, better safe than stuck with a crap ssd.

One of the nice things with SSD's is you no longer need to do regular reinstalls - even filled up with crap they stay blisteringly fast. My setup has tons of gadgets and a row of taskbar services a thousand pixels wide, and yet it's still perfectly usable within 15 seconds of the windows logo at boot.