Patriot Releases Cheap P300 M.2 PCIe SSDs: Two Products, Same Name
by Anton Shilov on February 18, 2020 3:30 PM EST
Patriot has launched its new family of entry-level NVMe SSDs with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface designed for budget PCs. Patriot’s P300 drives come in capacities ranging from 128 GB all the way to 2 TB, but there is a catch. Although all the SSDs carry the same P300 name, they will use different controllers.
For the US market, Patriot offers P300 SSDs on blue PCBs based on the Phison PS5013-E13T controller, whereas for other markets the company rolled out P300 drives on black PCBs powered by the Silicon Motion SM2263XT chip. It is noteworthy that earlier this year the company implied at a meeting that Phison-powered drives might also show up on non-US markets. Patriot did not disclose what type of memory it plans to use with the drives, but what we often see is Phison controllers paired with Toshiba’s BiCS 3D TLC NAND, while SMI silicon is accompanied by Intel’s 3D TLC memory. Meanwhile, we do not known whether there is a plan to use the cheapest 3D TLC NAND memory available at a given time with either controller to reduce costs, but it is a possibility.
Performance-wise, Patriot promises that SSDs featuring different controllers will demonstrate similar speed and endurance, though it is clear that there will be some variability between models for the US and other markets. In particular, Patriot says that drives feature up to 2,100 MB/s sequential read speed, up to 1,650 MB/s sequential write speed, up to 290K random read IOPS, as well as up to 260K random write IOPS.
While performance numbers look pretty solid for entry-level products (at least when compared to Patriot’s previous-generation Scorch SSDs), their endurance is not that impressive as the company only rates them for about 0.28 DWPD (drive writes per day) over a three-year period. Consumer workloads are not write-intensive and certainly low-end products will not be used by content creators.
| Patriot's PM300 Entry-Level SSD Specifications | ||||||
| Capacity | 128 GB | 256 GB | 512 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | |
| Versions | Blue | USA | ||||
| Black | Rest of the World | |||||
| Model Number | Blue | P300P128GM28US | P300P256GM28US | P300P512GM28US | P300P1TBM28US | P300P2TB |
| Black | P300P128GM28 | P300P256GM28 | P300P512GM28 | P300P1TBM28 | - | |
| Controller | Blue | Phison PS5013-E13T | ||||
| Black | Silicon Motion SM2263XT | |||||
| NAND Flash | 3D TLC NAND from Intel or Toshiba | |||||
| Form-Factor, Interface | M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 | |||||
| Sequential Read | Blue | 1600 MB/s | 1700 MB/s | 1700 MB/s | 2100 MB/s | 2100 MB/s |
| Black | - | |||||
| Sequential Write | Blue | 600 MB/s | 1100 MB/s | 1100 MB/s | 1650 MB/s | 1650 MB/s |
| Black | 1200 MB/s | - | ||||
| Random Read IOPS | 290K | 290K | ||||
| Random Write IOPS | 150K | 260K | ||||
| Pseudo-SLC Caching | Supported | |||||
| DRAM Buffer | No | |||||
| TCG Opal Encryption | ? | |||||
| Power Consumption | Idle | 0.37 W | Blue: 0.37 W Black: 0.38 W |
0.38 W | ||
| Full | 2.07 W | Blue: 2.07 W Black: 2.38 W |
2.38 W | |||
| Warranty | 3 years | |||||
| MTBF | ? | |||||
| TBW | 40 TB | 80 TB | 160 TB | 320 TB | 640 TB | |
| DWPD | 0.28 DWPD | |||||
| Additional Information | Link | |||||
| MSRP | ? | $64.99 | $104.99 | $164.99 | ? | |
UPDATE 3/13: Patriot has informed us that TBW rating for the 2 TB model is 640 TB, not 320 TB as its documents stated previously.
Initially, Patriot will offer 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB versions of its P300 SSDs. The entry-level 256 GB model carries a $64.99 MSRP, the highest-capacity 1 TB SKU is priced at $164.99, whereas the mid-range 512 GB variant sits between them at $104.99.
Patriot is not the only vendor to release SSDs with different controllers and memory under the same name. Team Group introduced its MP33 drives with the same Phison and SMI controllers back in October. Using different controllers and memory from numerous suppliers within one lineup of SSDs allows the maker to offer the most aggressive prices for all configurations, but the real-world performance of actual products will differ. The latter means difficult qualification process for PC makers as well as uncertainty among end-users.
Related Reading:
- Patriot Launches P200 SSDs with Maxio and Silicon Motion Controllers: From $31.99
- Biostar Launches M700 SSDs: Entry-Level PCIe SSDs
- Mushkin’s Helix-L SSDs Available: Pushing the Price of 3D TLC
- Team Group Unveils MP33 SSDs: Entry-Level PCIe Drives
Source: Patriot
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Koenig168 - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
The "cheap" in the title of the article might lead less savvy readers to think that these are actually cheap. For the kind of advertised performance numbers, the street price has to be way below MSRP before these SSDs are competitive, let alone cheap.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
"Patriot Releases Cheap P300"Marketing. Create the high, medium and low range to allow the top level to command an artificially silly price. Why do we fall for this rubbish? Isn't it time to start saving resources?
romrunning - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
For me, I immediately thought of "cheap" in the title as "low in quality" - so, spot on!Yeah, the MSRP is higher than expected; I'm sure they'll lower it once they start getting feedback (or lack of sales).
romrunning - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
Well, maybe not completely "low in quality" - I guess in this case, they were meeting their "target" market for this particular product. Low in cost, but they also saddled it with lower performance specs as well. MSRP is still a joke, though.PeachNCream - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
"Consumer workloads are not write-intensive and certainly low-end products will not be used by content creators."That's rather presumptuous of you. Since the term "content creator" is rather poorly defined to being with and you, as a journalist, have no idea who will ultimately purchase one of these SSDs, you're going out something of a limb. What's AT doing these days by telling me I'll love something or assuming a certain vague category of people have certain usage models for solid state media?
Stick to reporting the facts and stow away the opinions please.
romrunning - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
I used to think the term "content creator" referred more to video editors/creators, which were ones who could work with both numerous and large-in-size video files. Thus they were ones would could use & justify the cost for more performant products. However, I agree with you that the term is becoming more malleable and less strict in defining the group. More people claim the title w/o necessarily having the high performance needs.That being the case, I don't take it that personal if someone uses it in the way I used to think of it.
ballsystemlord - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
Actually, we do need more endurance, not less.FastCarsLike - Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - link
These are indeed DOA, low endurance QLC or C-tier TLC, DRAM-less, 3 year warranty, PCI 3.0 nvme, without a significant price cut, they're at best a 660p drive, at worst... A possible contender for Kingstons ol bait & switch tactics from yester year. All I gotta say is "Next"! :)otonieru - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
real market price is only at $120 for 1TB and $68 for 512GB model. So, yeah, it's budget alrite.