Patriot Viper VPN100 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen 3.1 x4 M.2 SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 93%

The Bottom Line

Priced similar to value SSDs, but with a ton of performance under the hood, Patriot's Viper VPN100 is one of the best values in NVMe.

Introduction & Drive Details

We are always on the lookout for SSDs that present what we feel is a great value proposition for enthusiasts. What we have on the bench today is a drive that has been around for a while - Patriot's VPN100. The VPN100 when it first came on the scene was marketed as a leading-edge performance oriented SSD, and it cost a pretty penny if you wanted to own one.

Fast forward to today, and Patriot's VPN100 is still considered among the fastest consumer NVMe SSDs on the market, but now it is much more affordable. In fact, this beast of a storage device has become a down-right bargain, priced similarly to value-oriented SSDs that cannot come close to serving up the kind performance that the VPN100 delivers.

On the bench today we have a 1TB Patriot VNP100 that delivers sequential performance of 3,480 MB/s read and up to 3,250 MB/s write as measured by our CrystalDiskMark testing. The drive is a quality piece that features an attractive and functional integrated heat sink, a blazing fast Phison PS5012-E12 8-channel NVMe controller and 64-Layer Toshiba BiCS3 flash. Additionally, the drive is rated for a whopping 1,665 terabytes written and the end-user gets a full 1TB of raw storage capacity. Let's take a closer look.

Drive Details

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The drive ships in Patriot's display type box. The drive can be viewed directly when the magnetic top is opened.

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SSD Toolbox

Patriot PCIe Toolbox

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The VPN100 is fully compatible with Patriot's SSD Toolbox. The Toolbox allows you to check the status of your SSD, upgrade firmware, and secure erase. Very functional and a nice value-add.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM & Anvils

CrystalDiskMark

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Even with the VPN100 running as our system disk and filled 50% with data, we can exceed Patriot's factory specifications of 3,450 MB/s sequential read and 3,000 MB/s sequential write. We also note the 4K random write of 276 MB/s as it is quite impressive.

Anvil's Storage Utilities

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When evaluating Anvil results, our focus is total read score. The VPN100 scores just below Samsung's EVO Plus which is quite impressive when you consider that the EVO Plus will cost you about $80 bucks more.

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We don't consider max IOPS to be an important performance metric, we are just showing what the drive is capable of in our test state. We are easily able to exceed Patriots factory spec of 700K random write. However, we are unable to reach 700K random read factory spec due to our test subject's 50% filled state.

Synthetic Benchmarks: AS SSD & ATTO

AS SSD

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Here again, we are most interested in total read score. This time Patriot's VPN100 outperforms Samsung's much more expensive EVO Plus by a good margin. This is nice to see coming from an SSD that is priced so attractively.

ATTO

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Focusing in on 128KB transfers we find the VPN100 beating a whole host of its competitors, and again nipping at the heels of Samsung's sequential champion, the EVO Plus. So far, we are seeing Patriots VPN100 delivering stiff competition for Samsung's 970 EVO Plus. This is significant when you consider the price difference between these competitors.

Real-World Testing: Game Loading & PCM8

Game Loading

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Focusing again on our EVO Plus / VPN100 rivalry, we find the EVO Plus just edging out the VPN100 when loading game levels. The VPN100 surprises us a bit here because it even manages to edge out the E16 powered Gen4 MP600.

PCMark 8

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As we've stated many times before, we consider PCMark 8 to be the most important test we run because it accurately represents real-world performance. We use the results of this testing to determine our performance ranking of SSDs. Based on our results, not only is Patriot's VPN100 1TB far less expensive than Samsung's EVO Plus 1TB, it straight-up performs better on our Zen 2 system.

Real-World Testing: Transfer Rates

Transfer Rates

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Our write transfer test is 100GB in size and composed of more than 62,000 files. It is a brutal test that can tax an SSD to its limits. This is one area where the EVO Plus has a clear advantage over the VPN100.

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When serving up read data, the VPN100 and the EVO Plus are once again running neck-in-neck without much discernable differentiation between one another.

Final Thoughts

Flash prices are dropping and when it comes to SSDs like Patriot's VPN100 1TB, they deserve another look. When first launched, the VPN100 1TB retailed for close to $200, now it is selling on Amazon for the low price of only $133. This puts the VPN100 in the price range of much lower performing value SSDs. Not only that, but when compared to some other low priced E12 powered SSDs out there, we like the VPN100 better because it gives you a full 1024GB raw capacity and it is one of the few that comes with an integrated M.2 heat sink at the 1TB capacity point.

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When we started testing the VPN100, we had no idea that we would come across a performance rivalry between it and Samsung's EVO Plus. As testing progressed, our results led us to the unforeseen conclusion that not only is Patriot's VPN100 1TB a better value than Samsung's EVO plus, it is also the better SSD of the two in terms of performance. As we see it, the only place where the EVO Plus has an advantage over the VPN100 is length of warranty. However, this is easy for us to overlook when we consider the elephant in the room; you will pay a whopping 65% more for an EVO plus.

Priced like a value SSD while at the same time delivering top of the line performance is why Patriot's Viper VPN100 is TweakTown approved and highly recommended.

Pros

• Price
• Full Capacity
• Workload Performance

Cons

• 3-Year Warranty
• Sustained Write Performance