Patriot Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD Review

[Guest]

Patriot brings the first M.2 Phison PS5007-E7 SSD to market with its new Hellfire products. The SSDs usher in a new era for NVMe-based products with a low price point that might sway users to move beyond SATA.

Patriot Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD Review : Read more

 

[Ergosum]

Prices are so stubbornly high for PCIe storage! Is it an issue of not wanting to kill the SATA3 golden goose? Given the enclosure requirements of a SATA drive, you'd think that production costs would be significantly lower.

Changing the subject a little, I've been very surprised at the dearth of reviews on the Intel 600p (at the time of this posting there is only one, from pcper). I hope we can get this review, and maybe an update to the best for your money article for storage. Thanks!

 

[joex444]

> The Hellfire M.2 480GB matches the Samsung 950 Pro 512GB at queue depth 2 and then runs away from all but the Intel SSD 750 400GB in sequential mixed workloads with 80-percent reads.

Intel -> OCZ, since it's the green line not the black one. Or the chart is incorrect.

 

[Brian_R170]

"The Hellfire M.2 joins the Intel 600p as a new wave of low-cost NVMe SSDs make their way to market."

The "low-cost" 512GB Hellfire M.2 MSRP is $319.99 compared to the "expensivie" 512GB Samsung 950 Pro MSRP of $349. Is an 8.6% difference in MSRP really considered some other low-cost tier or is this comment purely based on wishful thinking that the device will have a $270 price some time in the future?

The Intel 600p doesn't seem like any type of performance king, but at least there's a significant cost savings compared to a $318 street price of the 950 Pro. I bought the 512GB for $190 the day it came out and I saw it today on Newegg marketplace for $174.

 

[razor512]

It is pretty much price gouging, as the production cost for these NVMe devices is lower than that of SATA.

 

[CRamseyer]

Let me give you guys a few updates. First let's cover Hellfire. Patriot gets a new firmware around the 16th. The firmware takes this series up to 2.1. We tested with 2.0. I've seen the numbers from 2.1 and it looks really good. We are going to save the Hellfire 240GB for the update and retest the 480GB drive in this review. YOu may ask why we didn't do that to start with. The answer is we didn't know when we started the review or scheduled it.

The Intel 600p is in our lab. We have both the 256GB and 512GB. I'm finished with testing and the review will be on the site before the end of the month.

Prior to the Intel going live we will publish the Samsung PM961 as a preview of the 960 EVO. Samsung brings so much to the table that we really need to see what the 960 EVO will lay down before judging any of the other low-cost NVMe products.

Back to the Hellfire and pricing. MSRPs are made to be broken! There is no way the Hellfire can sustain it's current pricing with the Intel 600p and 960 EVO that may come next month.

Look for a 512GB class NVMe showdown early next week with all of the drives you want to see compared.

 

[josejones]

SATA is obsolete now - get it off my new Z270 motherboard as I don't want to keep paying for old obsolete crap I don't want and will never use. SATA is now like VGA and that took like 10 years to get rid of.

Also, NVMe 1.2 is bottom of the barrel - we want nothing less than NVMe 1.4.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Prices are so stubbornly high for PCIe storage! Is it an issue of not wanting to kill the SATA3 golden goose? Given the enclosure requirements of a SATA drive, you'd think that production costs would be significantly lower.

Good point. SATA is the moneymaker, volume is higher. The latest Trendfocus report pegs SATA at 78 percent of the client SSD market.

 

[CRamseyer]

It is also a declining 78%. We all know SATA will not go away anytime soon, though.

 

[ozonefree]

I hate and loath the name "Hellfire." That's an air-to-ground missile used to blow things up. Better they should have named it the Titantic or Charge of the Light Brigade...

 

[CRamseyer]

That was a perfect setup comment to rub Paul.

The Army just announced a change to the Hellfire name. It is now called a Note 7.

 

[Game256]

Hi Chris, thanks for the review. Do you have any information when Samsung 960 PRO/EVO will be announced/released? Or any related information about it including approximate price?

I am planning to buy Samsung SM961 and think whether it's worth to wait for Samsung 960. There is some unconfirmed reports that it may be released even in September.

 

[CRamseyer]

Samsung has not released any information about the 960 EVO / Pro in any official or under-the-table manner. We plan to publish performance data on the PM961 early next week but other than those numbers, you know as much as I do. Media have been summoned to South Korea later this month and we expect to learn more then. In years past we've received samples before, during and after the annual Samsung SSD Summit but I don't have anything right now.

 

[HERETIC-1]

Seems Phison is the new OCZ-
"We will use consumers as crash test dummies"

 

[Tanyac]

SATA isn't dead here, as much as we would like it to be. With an exchange rate of 0.70 to USD, $319.99 becomes $457.13, Approaching the $1 per gigabyte value. Then add on the extra for the price gouging and other bits and pieces and I'd guess we will be looking at over $500 AUD for a 480gb drive. SATA is slow and outdated, but it only costs 6.3 cents per gigabyte, or 4.2 cents USD, if not less.

 

[Flying-Q]

SATA is obsolete now - get it off my new Z270 motherboard as I don't want to keep paying for old obsolete crap I don't want and will never use. SATA is now like VGA and that took like 10 years to get rid of.

Also, NVMe 1.2 is bottom of the barrel - we want nothing less than NVMe 1.4.

SATA is most definitely not dead. You sound like you are 'I-will-only-have-the-latest-cutting-edge-kit-in-the-machine-I-built-today-to-replace-the-one-I-built-yesterday' kind of builder. The vast majority of machines built today do not fit that ethos, as they are meant to last several years.

I remember an number of years ago ASUS released a premium motherboard that was hyped as having no legacy connectors, called the IT7, it had only USB for peripherals and even did away with the PS/2 connector. They forgot that the BIOS in those days did not default to USB keyboards which were hard to come by then and and were expensive. Also, with a lack of floppy connector and USB sticks being fairly rare and expensive, there was no way to load RAID drivers for the OS install. It was a disaster of a board and I heard nothing but complaints about it. So much for dispensing with legacy.

 

[Ergosum]

That was a perfect setup comment to rub Paul.

The Army just announced a change to the Hellfire name. It is now called a Note 7.

Not bad

 

[Zaxx420]

"Users can enjoy the high performance on battery power while running to find a wall outlet. "

lmao...brutal man...but hey, if the shoe fits...

 

[josejones]

You guys work for SATA or something?

LOL, yea VGA got pretty cheap too. It appears there are some SATA lovers out there clinging to old obsolete, outdated and super slow technology that is capped at super slow speeds with an ACHI interface that will never ever get beyond 600MB/s ..... but it's cheap - hell yea it's cheap - because it's so slow and on its way out. We only need it because its cheap right now and until more NVMe products are available. SATA, like VA, had its time and now it's over. Deal with it. Stop trying to hold everybody else back with your preferred super slow soon to be obsolete SATA that has been a huge bottleneck keeping HD's and storage super slow for years. Pure genius material.

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/content/6/4/6468_18_defining_nvme_hands_on_testing_with_the_1_6tb_intel_p3700_ssd.png


And now we have NVlink for GPU's, which is even much faster than PCI. So, you go ahead and cling to SATA all you want.

 

[Karadjgne]

Considering the vast majority of budget builds (which is also the majority of pc sales) only contain a hdd and cheap ssd, use lga1155 - lga1150 platforms etc, its hard to justify spending ½ the budget on a single NVMe that won't fit without adapters and is choked by slower communications. Just because some have demanded cutting edge and outgrown standard tech, doesn't make it dead to the world. Sata will be around for a good long while yet, so get over the hate.

 

[firefoxx04]

Those crying about high prices seem to not understand how the production process, R&D, etc works. There are a crap ton of costs they need to cover other than the manufacturing cost.

If manufacturing overhead was the only cost of producing a product, Iphones would be $100 (and that would be 'premium' pricing). Go take an entry level accounting course and learn about costs.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

It's worth noting that the real promise (and goal) of NVMe is commoditization. That was mission #1, from Day 1. The standardized interface drastically reduces the cost of R&D. In the past, all PCIe SSDs required custom drivers, etc., which requires much more upfront cost just to get the drive up to speed. Also, it complicates software support, as all software has to be a custom design.

There is a bit of truth to both statements, but NVMe is overpriced because there are too few suppliers. Thus a premium is "justified." Also, a dearth of 3D TLC products is part of the issue, but that is being addressed quickly. I expect client NVMe pricing to drop very quickly over the next few months. Don't kid yourself and expect SATA-like pricing, but the floor will drop out from underneath pricing once the current NAND shortage is alleviated and more 3D TLC NAND is pumping out of other non-Samsung fabs.

The commoditization subject also ties into another comment above, which inquires if a 8.65 percent price differential qualifies as a lower price tier. Answer: Yes, in a commoditized market, it does, but we aren't quite there yet for NVMe.

 

[Tanyac]

Those crying about high prices seem to not understand how the production process, R&D, etc works. There are a crap ton of costs they need to cover other than the manufacturing cost.

Harsh.

My comment about pricing related to the uplift due to exchange rates, GST and other "non-manufacturing" costs. In an economy that's poorer the the US, the high prices are unjustified.

 

[Marcus52]

Those crying about high prices seem to not understand how the production process, R&D, etc works. There are a crap ton of costs they need to cover other than the manufacturing cost.

If manufacturing overhead was the only cost of producing a product, Iphones would be $100 (and that would be 'premium' pricing). Go take an entry level accounting course and learn about costs.

Take a lesson in actual manufacturing costs of electronics before you open your mouth about someone else's lack of accounting skills.

I more or less agree with the first part of what you said, many people don't understand that things cost more than the price of the parts, but saying an the "overhead" of an iPhone is less than $100 makes no sense even from an accounting viewpoint. I don't think you know what the term means.

 

[CRamseyer]

Easy guys. Let's also not compare SSDs to complicated products like cellphones.