Packaging and Closer Look
Patriot’s packaging is simple. The features are printed on the box and there’s a window where you can see the SSD itself. Inside the box, you get the Ignite SSD and a manual.
Here’s the top and bottom view of the SSD. The enclosure is only 7mm and is painted in a stealthy black color.
The Patriot Ignite’s aluminum enclosure doesn’t have any screws. Both pieces of the enclosure just clip and lock.
Opening the Ignite reveals a small PCB. I was quite surprise to see the size of its PCB. It’s (probably) 60% smaller compared to other SSD’s we have reviewed before.
At the center of the PCB, you can see the Phison PS311-S10 controller. There’s also a NANYA DDR3 memory (256MB) for its cache, and finally there are four MLC NAND chips that makes the 240GB capacity. Patriot said these are “qualified NAND chips”, but I’m not quite sure who manufactured these chips. Patriot is probably trying to keep the cost at bay by using cheaper NAND flash chips.
Update: Again, Patriot Memory is using TOSHIBA 15NM MLC NAND for their Ignite SSD series.
Now, let’s put this SSD into our test system and see how it performs on the next page.
