Patriot Memory Viper VPN100 PCIe 1TB M.2 SSD Review

Storage/SSD by stefan @ 2019-11-10

The VPN100 NVMe drive from Patriot offers good overall performance, the numbers fluctuating depending how much the drive is filled and how much SLC cache is left from the TLC packages. In ATTO we got quite close to the rated speeds, with the drive blank but also filled over 50% with data, while the included heatsink keeps the overall assembly temperatures at bay, in order to avoid throttling or shorten the product life. Speaking of the drive endurance, the 1TB model comes with 1665 TBW, and also comes with a 3-year warranty!

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Packaging, A Closer Look

Patriot Memory does have an interesting NVMe 1.3 M.2 SSD available for purchase, under the Viper Gaming brand, which is available with capacities of 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB, in order to cover all market needs. Its name is VPN100, is cooled by a large aluminum heatsink, while the TBW is set at 1665TB for the 1TB model.

 

The drive is shipped inside a very compact, premium-looking enclosure with a small magnet, that allows the user to look at the drive housing without the need of unsealing the box:

 

 

 

The manufacturer does also highlight the rated read/write speeds and provides a product description as well:

 

 

 

The back side of the box does show some additional technical information, in multiple languages:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging layer, we will get to see the drive sitting secure inside a transparent plastic mold:

 

 

 

The large heatsink of the drive was built in order to benefit from the airflow inside the computer case, while the Viper logo is present in the middle; under the aluminum housing we do have a Phison PS5012-E12 controller with eight channels, two 256GB Toshiba TLC NAND packages and a 512MB SK Hynix DDR4 DRAM cache IC:

 

 

 

The back side is covered by stickers and contains the rest of two Toshiba 256GB TLC NAND packages, along with another 512MB of DDR4 caching, for a total of 1GB; Patriot does also note here the product serial number, storage capacity of the drive but also the internal code name:

 

 

 

Here are some lateral views of the massive heatsink as well:

 

 

 

 

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