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Hot Award

Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD

By Justin Robinson
11:40 Aug 26, 2009 | 7 Comments
Tags: Patriot | Torqx | 128GB | SSD | hotaward | review
Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD
 
90
---
Verdict:
A little expensive, but a great choice.

The most thoughtful inclusion with an SSD ever!

SSDs are the latest and greatest thing in storage, simply for the speed and reliability benefits that they bring to the scene. There's been one major drawback to them since release however - apart from a few prototypes at Computex, the vast majority of them come in the 2.5in form factor, just the same as laptop drives. This doesn't cause headaches when you're using one in a lappy, but when you want the same performance in a desktop system you run into problems when you go to install it - and realise that there's an extra inch missing from one of the sides!

Until now no SSD vendor has thought to really do anything about this, and while a select few Coolermaster and SilverStone cases offer a 2.5in mount now, most people have to do it dodgy or buy their own adapter. Patriot has finally stepped in an inclusion that goes with an SSD better than hydrogen goes with oxygen - they've chucked in a 2.5in to 3.5in adapter inside the box! Such a simple inclusion, but it saves all the fuss and added expense later on.

The drive itself is pretty fast too, with an average read of 214.3MB/s, an access of 0.1ms and a burst of 237.6MB/s. Copying the Crysis install gave an average of 172MB/s write, but strangely when copying the Program Files folder it would only hit 70MB/s. It seemed to have trouble with lots of small files at once, but otherwise was nice and speedy. It didn't heat up at all under load, and like most SSDs didn't make any perceptible noise.

One of the biggest downsides of SSDs are the cost - this one weighs in at almost $5 per gigabyte, and of that only 119GB is usable when formatted. Still, for a fast and large drive with included bracket you can't go past the Torqx.

 
Product Info
Specs:
128GB (119 formatted); 2.5in form factor with included 2.5-3.5in adapter; SATA 3Gb/s
Supplier:
Price when reviewed:
AUD$620
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This article appeared in the August, 2009 issue of Atomic.

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7 Comments
nesquick
Aug 26, 2009 1:36 PM
Some case manufacturers now are adding small 2.5" mounts for SSD's to which is good to see although I would just tape it behind the mobo tray.
strifus
Aug 26, 2009 4:31 PM
You could even glue/tape a few of them in one slot nesquick :P
smadge1
Aug 26, 2009 5:07 PM
cable ties, lots of cable ties.
Jeruselem
Aug 26, 2009 5:35 PM
Still a bit pricey, costs more than some ASUS EEEs.
Tezlin
Aug 26, 2009 7:19 PM
But EEE's suck.
tunksy
Aug 26, 2009 7:23 PM
could just make them into 3.5" form factor?
meniac
Aug 28, 2009 6:05 PM
"could just make them into 3.5" form factor?"

Try and get that in your laptop :p
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Issue: 133 | February, 2012

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