Patriot Memory has recently released a new SSD line-up, the Extreme Performance Warp series. Since the most important characteristic of any SSD is its low power consumption, the company focused on this feature for its Warp series as well, and claims to have brought to the market a product that uses from 280 milliamperes to 330mA. That is a lot less power than a spinning platters drive would require even when idle.

Even though power consumption is an important factor, especially for mobile PCs, choosing an SSD over a HDD does not come down only to this feature. The performance of the product is as important as its energy efficiency. Patriot's new Warp drive is capable of delivering read speeds of around 175MB/sec, while the write speed settles down around 100MB/sec. Compared to other SSDs, the drive does not prove to be the fastest, yet it is close to the top.

As any statement must be backed up by facts and numbers, the guys from Computerworld took a 128MB Warp and did a little testing around. The results showed a power efficient drive and also a speedy one. In terms of power consumption, a HDD like the Velociraptor would need 675mA for read and 675mA for write, while consuming 425mA when idle and 70mA in standby. Since the new Patriot drive uses a maximum of 330mA, it’s easy to see the difference.

The performance test unveiled the fact the Warp is able to load Windows Vista with a minimum of drivers in about 1.1 minutes, while requiring 1.5 minutes to load the OS with a full set of drivers. For the “light” Vista, this SSD is faster than an Intel X25-M drive or a Ridata 64GB Ultra-S Plus, yet it falls between them when the “full” version is loaded. Even so, the speed Warp can deliver is impressive enough.

Moving forward, the guys from Computerworld tested its read/write capabilities by moving a 4,661 test data block (8.05GB) from and to the drive. Copying data from the drive took about 4.4 minutes, while writing it to the drive lasted 5.8 minutes. These results place the performance of the drive under that of Intel's X25-M, but keep it above Ridata's 64GB Ultra-S Plus.

Patriot Memory's 128GB Warp SSD may not offer a great storage capacity, yet it undoubtedly delivers a great deal of performance. Although the company hasn't set any retail price for the drive, its cost is expected to range from $440 to $500. For some, this price range seems too high compared to that of a spinning platters drive, yet it’s good enough for an SSD. And, as the solid state drives move fast towards the mainstream level, they are expected to have better exposure on the market in the near future.