| Patriot Supersonic Magnum Flash Drive |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Storage | |
| Written by Austin Downing | |
| Wednesday, 10 April 2013 | |
Patriot Supersonic Magnum Flash Drive Review
Manufacturer: Patriot Memory LLC. Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Patriot. With the advent of affordable solid state drives and the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface, we have seen a drastic increase in the size and speed of flash drives. Patriot is one of the companies leading the way on both speed and size with its Supersonic Magnum line, which we will be looking at today. The Supersonic Magnum flash drive is 256GB flash drive with a read speed of 250MB/s and a write speed of 160MB/s. In this review Benchmark Reviews will be verifying the speed of the Patriot Magnum Supersonic and compare it to two SATA-II SSD's. In previous years, the only way to carry over 16GB of data was to carry around a 2.5" or 3.5" external drive. These drives were prone to damage and when combined that with their larger size, I was always leery of using them for anything critical. Then the SSD revolution started and the sizes on flash drives increased dramatically over the course of 3 years but we were still limited to a mere 480Mbps of USB 2.0 making files transfers slow and time consuming. With the mass adoption of USB 3.0 though this problem became a thing of the past, which brings us to where we are now with the Patriot Supersonic Magnum 256GB flash drive which is rated for 250MB/s read and 160MB/s write speeds making it extremely useful for transferring large files.
Features
Test System
Storage Hardware Tested
Closer Look: Patriot Supersonic MagnumAlthough not something many people may care about on their flash drives, aesthetics are important and thankfully, Patriot played it pretty safe with the Supersonic Magnum while still maintaining a slick looking device.
The Patriot Supersonic Magnum is built from single piece of metal that the flash memory and controller is inserted into. This gives the Patriot Supersonic Magnum considerable strength and allows me to feel confident that the Supersonic Magnum can survive years of abuse.
The cap used for the top of the Supersonic Magnum is by far the weakest link when it comes the durability of Patriot Supersonic Magnum. The cap has no locking mechanism beyond simply popping into place on top of the Supersonic Magnum. This seems like it could present quite the problem for the Supersonic Magnum if it were to be used on keychain, as this loosely held on cap could easily fall off and be lost.
From the rear, you can see the rather tiny loop that a lanyard is supposed to go on. It would have been nice to see this made of metal also so that there is less risk of this snapping off over time. If a lanyard is not used this is where the cap can be placed when it is taken off for use.
From this angle, you can see how much wider the Patriot Supersonic Magnum is compared to the USB port, almost doubling its width. This is particularly important to remember when on a laptops where the confined spaces around the USB ports can cause problems if the Supersonic Magnum ends up blocking other ports that are needed. AS-SSD BenchmarkAlex Schepeljanski of Alex Intelligent Software develops the free AS SSD Benchmark utility for testing storage devices. The AS SSD Benchmark tests sequential read and write speeds, input/output operational performance, and response times. Because this software receives frequent updates, Benchmark Reviews recommends that you compare results only within the same version family. From our very first test it is apparent that Patriot focused its energies on making this eight channel controller in the Supersonic Magnum as fast as possible during sequential operations. The Patriot Supersonic Magnum reached an astounding 281MB/s in our sequential read and 148MB/s the sequential write test. These numbers are extremely impressive for a flash drive especially since many modern mechanical drives still cannot break 200MB/s in sequential tests. Less impressive are 4K random read speeds of 6.05MB/s and an abysmal write speed of 0.52MB/s proving that Patriot Supersonic Magnum is still not replacement for a dedicated SATAIII SSD.
In the graph below I compare two SATA 2.0 SSD's, the Corsair Reactor 60GB and the Patriot Inferno 60GB to the Patriot Supersonic Magnum. The Magnum handily beats the two SATAII competitors with 22% better performance than Reactor 60GB provides in sequential reads and 43% more throughput in writes. Things get a bit dicey when we start looking our 4K random reads and writes. The Inferno SSD with its Sandforce based controller demolishes the Magnum in 4K reads and writes providing around 100x the performance. Generally reads and writes to a flash drives are not highly random so for typical use this should not pose a problem, but if the user plans on running applications or booting operating systems off of Magnum they could see some performance issues.
In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests transfer rates using ATTO Disk Benchmark. ATTO Disk BenchmarkThe ATTO Disk Benchmark program is free, and offers a comprehensive set of test variables to work with. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface transfer rates at various intervals for a user-specified length and then reports read and write speeds for these spot-tests. There are some minor improvements made to the 2.46 version of the program that allow for test lengths up to 2GB, but all of our benchmarks are conducted with 256MB total length. ATTO Disk Benchmark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested. Please consider the results displayed by this benchmark to be basic bandwidth speed performance indicators.
The Patriot Supersonic Magnum loses the substantial lead it had held in AS-SSD when benchmarked in ATTO where the compressible sequential data lets the Inferno catch up to or even pass the Magnum. Still 297MB/s is nothing to be scoffed at especially for a drive with a official rating of only 250MB/s. When it comes to write speeds the Magnum is not quite able to make its advertised speed and is quite handily beaten by our 60GB Inferno SSD.
In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests transfer rates using ATTO Disk Benchmark. CrystalDiskMark 3.0 TestsCrystalDiskMark 3.0 is a file transfer and operational bandwidth benchmark tool from Crystal Dew World that offers performance transfer speed results using sequential, 512KB random, and 4KB random samples. For our test results chart below, the 4KB 32-Queue Depth read and write performance was measured using a 1000MB space. CrystalDiskMark requires that an active partition be set on the drive being tested, and all drives are formatted with NTFS on the Intel P67 chipset configured to use AHCI-mode. Benchmark Reviews uses CrystalDiskMark to illustrate operational IOPS performance with multiple threads. In addition to our other tests, this benchmark allows us to determine operational bandwidth under heavy load. CrystalDiskMark uses compressed data in its benchmark tests, so sequential file transfer speeds appear lower compared to those tested with other tools using uncompressed data. This section concentrates on operational IOPS performance using compressed data.
When we move back to incompressible data once again the Patriot Supersonic Magnum takes the lead with a 296.5MB/s read speed and a 143MB/s write speed. Again, the random read and write speeds are abysmal, unable to break the 2MB/s for either reads or writes.
In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests transfer rates using AIDA64 Disk Benchmark. AIDA64 Disk BenchmarkMany enthusiasts are familiar with the FinalWire AIDA64 benchmark suite, but very few are aware of the Disk Benchmark tool available inside the program. The AIDA64 Disk Benchmark performs linear read and write bandwidth tests on each drive, and can be configured to use file chunk sizes up to 1MB (which speeds up testing and minimizes jitter in the waveform). Because of the full sector-by-sector nature of linear testing, Benchmark Reviews endorses this method for testing SSD products, as detailed in our Solid State Drive Benchmark Performance Testing article. However, Hard Disk Drive products suffer a lower average bandwidth as the capacity draws linear read/write speed down into the inner-portion of the disk platter. AIDA64 Disk Benchmark does not require a partition to be present for testing, so all of our benchmarks are completed prior to drive formatting.
Our linear test shows great performance across the board with no drops in performance, showing an average speed of 290.3MB/s, which is 40MB/s faster than advertised. This makes copying large files off the Patriot Supersonic Magnum painless.
When it comes to writes performance, once again we see very flat performance except for a blip at the very beginning of the test. With a 149.7MB /s write speed, the Patriot Supersonic Magnum performs within 10MB/s of the advertised speed and once again provides extremely quick performance for a flash drive.
Once again, we see the Supersonic Magnum wipe the floor with the competition when it comes to linear transfer. The Patriot Supersonic Magnum outpaces the Inferno by 24MB/s in writes and nearly 90MB/s in our read test. Quite impressive for a drive that I can fit in my pocket. One last thing to remember is that these are all sequential speeds, the random speed is magnitudes slower. In this final section we will be looking at my final thoughts and our final product rating. Flash Drive Final ThoughtsThe Patriot Supersonic Magnum is a magnificent piece of kit, with its 300MB/s read and 150MB/s write speeds. These extremely impressive numbers make transferring data to and from the Supersonic Magnum painless even for very large file sizes. Where the Patriot Supersonic Magnum stumbles is its random performance, which ranges from uninspiring to atrocious depending on our benchmark. I can mostly forgive this since it is a flash drive but it would be nice to see future revisions bring up their random performance to least the levels of last generations SSD's.
Patriot Supersonic Magnum ConclusionWhen it comes to sequential performance, the Supersonic Magnum is nothing to be scoffed at. With sequential read performance approaching 300MB/s and sequential writes within spitting distance of 150MB/s the Supersonic Magnum can keep up with or even surpass the performance of last generation SSD's. Where the Supersonic Magnum flounders though is in its random read and write performance which was unable to break 2MB/s in any of our tests. When it comes to the appearance and construction of the Patriot Supersonic Magnum, I find myself impressed. The black and blue exterior looks great, while the metal construction gives the Supersonic Magnum some heft and helps give me faith that should I drop the Supersonic Magnum I need not worry about it no longer functioning. Should some problem arise, Patriot stands behind its product and provides a 5 years warranty ensuring that a user is well taken care of for years to come. When it comes large file transfers the Patriot Supersonic Magnum is superb but throw many small transfers at it and you see it choke. This makes the Patriot Supersonic Magnum unsuitable as a externally bootable drive for any lengthy period of time. It is a USB drive though and so the fact is functionally it does it job and it does it well. It safely moves data back and forth at high speed and is small enough to take almost anywhere. With an April 2013 price tag of $299 (Newegg|Amazon), the 256GB Patriot Supersonic Magnum (model PEF256GSMNUSB) costs a significant chunk of change. Patriot is asking $1.17 per GB for the Supersonic Magnum but this is for the most part right in line with all USB 3.0 flash drive offerings on the market right now. As it is the Supersonic Magnum is significantly faster than much of its competition which hovers around the 50-80MB/s range for read and writes without adding to much to its price. Because of its extremely high speed, large size, and fair price I gladly award the Patriot Supersonic Magnum 256GB flash drive Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer award! Pros:
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