The PatriotMemory 128GB Warp v2 SSD drive comes with an attractive retail price and twice the capacity of the fastest SSD on the planet, the Intel X25m. The drive has the typical dimensions of the 2.5" form factor, a very low weight and of course it has no moving parts, making it ideal for laptop and office use for HTPC systems.

Looking at the performance numbers, the reading part is pretty good at almost ~140MB/sec, while writing is much lower at ~55MB/sec. The writing graphs from various benchmarking software showed a non-liner performance, throughout the complete data area. Several drops in the writing transfer graph have an affect in the total average writing speed.

On the other hand, we were disappointed with the IOMeter results. Here, the PatriotMemory 128GB Warp v2 SSD drive stands no chance competing on performance against a typical 10,000RPM HDD HDD or even a 7,200RPM drive we tested, especially at the average/maximum response time. This shows that the the Patriot Memory SSD drive pauses under heavy load (read/write) causing the "shutter" effect.

However we have to admit that our daily experience with the PatriotMemory 128GB Warp v2 drive was much better than what the IOMeter numbers showed. We replaced our HDD drive with the Warp SSD and worked our everyday tasks like surfing on the web, listening to music or running Win RAR tasks. The SSD drive worked just fine and the so called "shutter" appeared only now and then. Not as bad as we initially thought..

In addition, we liked the fact that there is no noise coming out of the PC. We would like to have such a drive installed in our HTPC system and make it virtually noiseless, or even installed in our laptop for less consumption/heat/noise. After all, the Warp v2 would cost you just $259 and is also backed by a two-year manufacturer warranty. The Intel X25m is still considered as the fastest SSD around but it would cost you the double and you will still have half the capacity the PatriotMemory drive offers.