Patriot joins budget Sandforce SSD club

Inferno range now in 60GB, 120GB and 240GB flavours

After spotting that most of us can't afford to splash out the best part of half a grand on a few gigabytes of storage space, memory maker Patriot has expanded its range of Inferno solid state drives to include a cheap and cheerful 60GB drive. 

Based on a Sandforce SF-1222 controller and multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory, the new drive is capable of achieving the same read and write speeds as its bigger brothers. 

As with other Sandforce-based SSDs, this means the new 60GB drive has a maximum sequential read speed of 285MB/sec, and can perform sequential writes at 275MB/sec. According to Patriot, it can also perform small 4KB file-writes at 24,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second). 

Patriot's Inferno range previously came in just 100GB and 200GB flavours, but the new 60GB drive is also accompanied by another pair of Sandforce-based SSDs, coming in 120GB and 240GB capacities. 

As with Corsair's similar line of Force drives, Patriot's Inferno units will come equipped with a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch adaptor bracket, so you won't have any trouble fitting one into a standard desktop PC case. 

Patriot's Les Henry, said the new 60GB drive meant that "enthusiasts can enjoy the blistering performance of the Inferno SSD at a more affordable price point making it ideal as a boot drive in a high-performance system." 

All the new drives support TRIM to ensure consistent performance after heavy use in Windows 7, and they also come with a standard 3Gb/sec SATA interface and three-year warranty. There's no word on pricing yet, but competing 60GB, 120GB and 240GB SSDs currently go for around £137, £257 and £507 respectively.