Specifications, Pricing and Availability

When looking at the specs we see that the Patriot Inferno is a typical Team SandForce drive with performance numbers that could have been claimed for many different drives on the market. With some products this might be a bad thing, but since we are talking about the world's best 100 to 128GB SSD, the point is a bit mute. The specs sheet tells us that Patriot has the capacity versions of the Inferno already announced, 100GB and 200GB. My Patriot rep has stated to me that this will soon include extended capacity versions, so look for 120 and 240GB to be added soon.

If you read the story about the OCZ extended drives then you know that companies are starting to roll out extended SandForce models and soon we may see end users given the ability to flash their drive from the standard X00 to extended capacities. Some companies have already stated that they are not going to bother with the hassle, while others will put in the work to make the process easy for users. Patriot has told me that they are willing to offer users the ability to change their drives once the required software tools are built and tested. At this time we can't really comment on how easy this is going to be for any manufacturer since we haven't seen what is going to be required to make this happen.

When it comes to firmware updates it is impossible to tell how a company will perform in the future, but looking at records of previous products is a good indication of how well a company will do in the future. On this page we see that Patriot has released many firmware updates for their products. The area I am most versed in is Indilinx Barefoot and I see all of the major and minor releases available. From that it is pretty safe to say that Patriot has a good track record with keeping their products up to date.

We have already talked about the class leading five year warranty, but it is just one of the strong features Patriot has used to win me over with the Inferno. The price being the other and it is a good one. As it stands at the time of writing you can purchase the Patriot Inferno 100GB drive for 369.00 USD at Newegg. Newegg also stocks the 200GB drive and it is aggressively priced as well, shipping out the door for 679.00. An additional value for desktop users, Patriot also includes a 2.5" to 3.5" form factor drive bracket, making desktop installation painless.

Let's take a look at the Patriot Inferno and see that red case.