Patriot SUPERSONIC RAGE PRIME 1 TB Review – Small USB stick with SSD qualities in writing OR reading

1 - Introduction, Technical Data and first Tests 2 - Read and Write Performance, Video Streams 3 - Workstation Benchmarks and Conclusion

Use as a real hard disk and combined read and write cycles

The disadvantage of synthetic tests is their one-sidedness. Either reading or writing, but what happens when there is “cross traffic”? This is exactly why the Patriot SUPERSONIC RAGE PRIME 1 TB is in the end just the perfect data stick, but not a real external drive in the conventional sense. The two following workstation tests again focus on read or write in the sum of all individual programs, but in normal workloads the collision between read and write operations can never be completely ruled out.

At this point, no more firmware tricks will help and you will have to pay for the rather simple construction principle. First, let’s look at the values achieved in predominant (but not exclusive) writing:

Especially with Handbrake, MCAT, 3dsm and Maya 2017 you can see the striking difference to the normal external NVMe SSD. If e.g. Handbrake would run completely in memory and not permanently access the same disk while writing, the differences would surely be much smaller. And then what happens when you read it? Almost exactly the same!

Summary and conclusion

In the meantime I have completed all tests, got a pretty good overview and also just got the price. Let’s summarize it like this: You get a super fast data storage device with a whopping 1 TB of storage space for about 167 Euros, which can then really live it up on USB 3.2. One-way operation like pure writing or reading is after all the main task of such a stick and exactly that works really fast.

All this is also not a fair-weather performance for the short moment, but the data rates remain mostly constant, even after excessive use and writing to the stick several times. What definitely doesn’t work is using it as a full-fledged external drive in a productive work environment. This will definitely go wrong, as the controller including firmware was not designed for this. However, as long as you only want to move large amounts of data safely in one direction or the other, this doesn’t bother you at all.

It is therefore a not entirely cheap, but really functional product, which in this interpretation is one of the fastest you can currently treat your pocket. What I would have liked, however, is another small protective case for the stick with an optional attachment to secure the little sprinter. At almost 170 euros, something like that should actually always be in there. Especially since it would add some visual interest to the rather colorless stick. From that point of view, the performance booster is alright. The price would have to drop to well below 150 Euros for a buy tip. As it is, however, it’s an expensive, albeit extremely fast, pleasure.