[section_title title=Patriot Memory Hellfire M.2 480GB NVMe SSD Drive, Software and Thermal Overview]
Barely larger than a stick of gum, the M.2 form factor SSD (formerly Next Generation Form Factor) is currently the belle of the ball when it comes to fast desktop and notebook storage, providing significantly faster performance compared to SATA/mSATA while consuming less power. Not to be left out of the game, US based flash storage and memory manufacturer Patriot Memory has been tweaking their Hellfire M.2 and has been teasing it since CES earlier in 2016 as an interesting alternative to the current crop of M.2 drives. The Hellfire M.2 is a PCI-E x4 SSD that replaces Patriot’s own Ignite M.2 that was hampered in performance by the limits of SATA III standards.
Patriot’s Hellfire M.2 is available in 240GB and 480GB capacities and is available as a stand-alone M.2 drive. Patriot will also be releasing a version bundled with a PCIe add-in-card later on for users who do not have an M.2 on-board slot on their system. Patriot’s NVMe solution uses a Phison PS5007-E7 controller which has a recently upgraded firmware to version 2.1, bringing it to levels competitively at the sweet spot in relation to existing NVMe* drives from Samsung, OCZ and Intel.
*NVMe is a host-controller interface designed from the ground up for optimal non-volatile memory storage performance compared to legacy AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) devices, having reduced IO overhead, lower latency and more.
[sc:sponsor sponsor=”PATRIOT” product_link=”https://patriotmemory.com/product/hellfire-m-2-solid-state-drives/” product_name=”Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD” product_price_link=”http://amzn.to/2giUrwT” product_price=”$279.99 (480GB), $159.99 (240GB)” ]
The Patriot Hellfire M.2 is packed similar to Patriot’s USB drives, having a cardboard backed blister pack, although the plastic container can be re-used to store the Hellfire M.2 when not in use. The back of the packaging shows a 3-year warranty on this 480GB model.
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Capacity 240GB / 480GB Form Factor M.2 2280 NAND Flash MLC Controller Phison E7 Dimensions (L x W x H) 3.8 x 80 x 22mm Interface PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVME 1.2 DRAM Cache 256MB DDR3L (240GB version), 512MB DDR3L (480GB version) Performance(Max) ATTO: Sequential Read & Write Transfer:
240GB: Up to 3000MB/s Read | Up to 2300MB/s Write
480GB: Up to 3000MB/s Read | Up to 2400MB/s Write
CDM: Sequential Read & Write Transfer:
240GB: Up to 2740MB/s Read | Up to 1090MB/s Write
480GB: Up to 2550MB/s Read | Up to 1260MB/s Write
4K Aligned Random Read
240GB: 170K
480GB: 170K
4K Aligned Random Write
240GB: 185K IOPs
480GB: 210K IOPs Operating temperature 0~70°C OS Support Windows 8.1/10 Natively, Windows 7/8.0 Requires Driver Shock resistance 1500G/0.5ms MTBF 2,500,000 hours Warranty 3 years
The 480GB Patriot Hellfire is a 2280 M.2 meaning it is 80mm long, which is common for its size currently and should fit in most motherboards. While not all motherboards support 110mm long 2210 M.2’s, almost all of the current generation Intel motherboards support 80mm drives.
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The entire front of the Patriot Hellfire M.2 is covered with the warranty sticker (underneath are two NAND ICs). On most motherboards however, the M.2 is keyed in a position that this sticker will be facing downward.
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On the other side, the Phison PS5007-E7 controller is visible as well as the 128GB Toshiba 15nm MLC and the Nanya 512MB DRAM cache. The 240GB version has half that cache at 256MB. The Phison PS5007-E7 features end-to-end data path protection, SmartECC RAID data protection, P-fail protection with additional SmartFlush technology, Advanced read disturb management with SmartRefresh technology, and advanced global wear-leveling. This 480GB version has a stated 230TB total-bytes written while the 240GB version has 115 TBW.
Unlike other NVMe controllers from Samsung, Phison does not have their own drivers in Windows, so the default Microsoft NVMe drivers are utilized in this review.
Patriot PCIe Toolbox Software
Patriot has an PCIe SSD Toolbox software free for download for monitoring, updating firmware and secure erasing a Patriot PCIe SSD. The drive summary page shows a graphical overview of the drive capacity, firmware version, serial number, power-on time, and features. A full S.M.A.R.T. read out page is also available for a more detailed overview of the current state of the Hellfire drive.
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Secure erase can be performed directly on Windows 10, as long as the Hellfire M.2 is not being used an OS disk at the time the software is launched.
This sample shipped with version 2.0 of the Phison firmware but this can be upgraded to the latest 2.1 version, which improves performance significantly. After updating, the drive must be power cycled (system shut down, not just quick restart) first before it can be used again. Once booted, it should show that it is running E7FM02.1 firmware in the summary page.
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Temperature and Throttling
Before running the benchmark, let’s do a quick check on thermal performance while under load in Crystal DiskMark, utilizing onboard sensors and a thermal camera:
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The NAND IC hits 62.9C while the Phison controller hits 75.5C. The product sheet for the Patriot Hellfire states an operating temperature of 0-70C so this is obviously beyond that. Let’s see what the sensors via AIDA64 say under load in CrystalDisk Mark:
Now let us put a fan on top of it and see what the temperatures and the performance is like:
There is quite a bit of throttling in there and there is not even a video card close by that radiates heat since I am using integrated Intel graphics. When temperatures are kept within the stated operating temperature, the performance is significantly better. Although to be fair, the stated CDM speeds on the product sheet for the 480GB version only states 2550MB/s read and 1260 MB/s write, so the throttled numbers are not too far off from claimed performance. Also, this was on the 75% drive with the operating system on it. Still, performance loss due to throttling is unfortunate so if at all possible get some active cooling in that area. The fan used to actively cool the Hellfire M.2 in this test is not a high-RPM fan at all but a Noctua NF-P12 PWM fan set to at only 800 RPM. Inside a laptop or a compact system with nary an airflow, a performance hit is expected.
For the rest of the review, the Patriot Hellfire M.2 will be benchmarked with this active fan cooling it.
[section_title title=Testing Methdology and System Benchmarks]
Special thanks to Jon Coulter, Storage Editor of TweakTown for his help and whose SSD optimization guide I have utilized in real life use and in this review as well. I highly suggest checking out his articles over at Tweaktown.
Test SSD was connected via Intel SATA with Intel RST iaStorA 15.2.0.1020 drivers installed. C-states and EIST disabled for the Intel Core i7-6700K CPU and Windows power saving set to high-performance. Secure Erase is performed before each set with Parted Magic. Hibernation is disabled.
Write cache enabled, Buffer Flushing is disabled (essential for NVMe drives). If experiencing write speed problems after writing/copying a large batch of files in Windows 10, I highly suggest updating to the latest version which fixes these issues.
TRIM check is performed with TrimChek 0.7:
The system is left to idle for 15 minutes after each run. Benchmarks are provided “as-is” in screenshot form for full transparency. As with the rest of our reviews, performance behaviour is the goal instead of simply direct comparisons. All the benchmarks here are easily reproducible and requires no special hardware that cannot be purchased by the public.
To simulate typical consumer drive performance, the operating system was loaded on the test drive and is filled to 75% capacity which will be compared with the fresh out of box/secure erased performance. This is our first NVMe drive review so there are no competitor comparison benchmarks yet. Spoiler alert, it is faster than SATA SSDs. So much so that I won’t insult your intelligence by having a graph comparing the two. However, the out of the box performance will be compared to a used drive filled up to 75% capacity to see how it performs when actually filled.
Here is the content breakdown for that drive in addition to the Windows 10 OS install:
Microsoft Office 2016 Suite
Steam Installation folder with 8 games
2988 CR2 files (Canon RAW photo files)
210 PSD file (Photoshop Document)
This is an actual productivity set I use to create a review, hence the combination of files to simulate how it would perform had I used it on my system as the main drive.
Another 75% set was used to simulate a Windows 10 OS+ Plex media server content, the breakdown is as follows:
Processor Intel Core i7-6700K Motherboard MSI Z170A MPOWER Gaming Titanium CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-D15S Memory 2x8GB HyperX Savage 2666MHz DDR4 Video Card Integrated Intel HD Graphics Drive OCZ Vertex 4 (Secondary-Fresh out of box)
Patriot Hellfire M.2 2280 480GB NVMe SSD 2.1 Firmware
Case DimasTech Mini v1 Power Supply Corsair HX850W Operating System Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (14393)
Crystal Disk Mark benchmark at 1GB test size:
Seq Q32T1: Sequential (Block Size=128KiB) Read/Write with multi Queues & Threads
4K Q32T1: Random 4KiB Read/Write with multi Queues & Threads
Seq: Sequential (Block Size=1MiB) Read/Write with single Thread
4K: Random 4KiB Read Write with single Queue & Thread
AS SSD uses incompressible data for benchmarking and can measure read/write performance in MB/s or in iops. AS SSD also has a Copy Benchmark which simulates ISO, Game and program performance, providing both speed and access time results.
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Fresh-out-of-theBox – AS SSD Compression Benchmark
Win10 OS+Videos 75% full – AS SSD Compression Benchmark
Win10 OS+Work+Games 75% full – AS SSD Compression Benchmark
Unlike AS SSD, ATTO disk benchmark is a 32-bit compressible data benchmark that measures read and write speeds across various file transfer sizes from 512B to 64MB to show SSD behaviour.
Anvil Storage Utilities is a comprehensive storage testing program that provides plenty of information and option for each test. For this review, 100% incompressible, 46% incompressible (simulating Applications) and 0-fill compression data were used to observe behaviour across.
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Fresh-out-of-the-Box – 100% Incompressible
Win10 OS+Work+Games 75% full – 100% Incompressible
Win10 OS+Videos 75% full – 100% Incompressible
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Fresh-out-of-the-Box – 46% Applications
Win10 OS+Videos 75% full – 46% Applications
Win10 OS+Work+Games 75% full – 46% Applications
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Fresh-out-of-the-Box – 0-Fill
Win10 OS+Videos 75% full – 0-Fill
Win10 OS+Work+Games 75% full – 0-Fill
PCMark 7 and 8 from Futuremark is a semi-synthetic testing suite that has a specialized Storage testing performance feature. It simulates storage performance while playing games, running productivity and creative programs and generates a total score based on how long each test took and the storage device behaviour during its run.
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PCMark 8 – Fresh-out-of-the-box
PCMark 8 Benchmark – Win 10 OS + Videos – 75% Used
PCMark 8 Benchmark – Win 10 OS + Work + Games – 75% Used
While it is always exciting to see new technology, it is even more satisfying once it gets to that price point that is within reach for many users. NVMe as it stands is no longer an exotic drive solution limited to the few as prices have reached affordability. There is also an increasing number of options, even just those utilizing a Phison controller alone so the competition is driving the price further down for the consumers. The Patriot Memory Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD itself is a very solid option with impressive speeds out of the box and retains fast speeds functionally when loaded as an OS drive. This used to be a luxury available only to enterprise users but now those looking to ditch their SATA SSD main drive for something quite a bit faster have something to look forward to.
Patriot Memory thankfully, has always been very good when it comes to pricing and affordability. At the time of this article the 480GB Patriot Hellfire M.2 is available for only $229 (regular price $279.99) while the 240GB version is available for only $129. The only other M.2 NVMe drive that is priced lower is Intel’s new 600p, but that is because that TLC drive’s performance quite awful in comparison to a Phison E7 + 15nm Toshiba MLC drive like the Patriot Hellfire. It also outperforms Kingston’s Predator M.2 AHCI SSD previously reviewed here by quite a bit at an even lower price.
As with most current M.2 SSDs, there is however an issue of performance throttling. In the test, there were no sources of significant heat close to the drive other than the PCH chipset and still, it reached high temperatures beyond stated operating levels. When installed on a motherboard with the slot closer to the CPU socket and close to a video card that radiates heat, these temperatures are going to affect the performance further. To be fair to Patriot, even after the temperatures were close or beyond the 70C threshold, the benchmark numbers were close to the stated on-paper specifications. Still, users would like more performance if they can, especially if it requires something as simple as extra cooling. Cases with a fan blowing nearby, even passively on the side or beside the HDD cage will benefit any M.2 drives installed on the motherboard significantly.
[sc name=”must_have_award” ]
Patriot Memory Hellfire M.2 480GB NVMe SSD Review Barely larger than a stick of gum, the M.2 form factor SSD (formerly Next Generation Form Factor) is currently the belle of the ball when it comes to fast desktop and notebook storage, providing significantly faster performance compared to SATA/mSATA while consuming less power.