Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD Review: The Ultra-Budget Upgrade Your Old PC Craves?

We’ve all been there. That once-zippy laptop or trusty desktop tower now takes an eternity to boot up. Opening a web browser feels like a test of patience, and the constant whirring and clicking of the old mechanical hard drive is a sad reminder of its age. I remember wrestling with an old family laptop, a machine relegated to the closet because it had become agonizingly slow. Every click was met with a delay, every application launch a coffee-break opportunity. This digital molasses doesn’t just waste time; it kills productivity and turns simple tasks into frustrating chores. The temptation is to throw the whole machine out, but often, the processor and RAM are still perfectly capable. The real villain, the bottleneck holding everything back, is that spinning platter of ancient technology: the Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

What to Consider Before Buying a Solid State Drive

A Solid State Drive is more than just a storage device; it’s a key solution for breathing new life into aging computers and the foundational component for a snappy, responsive new build. Unlike traditional HDDs that use a mechanical arm to read data from a spinning disk, SSDs use flash memory, similar to a USB drive, but vastly faster and more durable. This fundamental difference eliminates the physical seek times that cripple HDD performance. The main benefits are dramatic: boot times can shrink from minutes to mere seconds, applications launch almost instantly, and the entire system feels more fluid and responsive. For anyone struggling with a sluggish PC, an SSD is arguably the single most impactful upgrade you can make.

The ideal customer for a budget SSD like this is someone facing the exact problem described above: you have an older but still functional laptop or desktop with a mechanical hard drive. You use it for web browsing, email, word processing, and light multitasking. You’re not a professional video editor or a hardcore gamer demanding the absolute pinnacle of performance; you simply want your machine to be fast and usable again without spending a fortune. Conversely, this type of drive might not be suitable for those who perform heavy, sustained data transfers, run complex simulations, or work with massive 4K video files. These power users would benefit more from a higher-end NVMe SSD with a DRAM cache to handle the intense, continuous workload without performance degradation.

Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:

• Dimensions & Space: The Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD uses the standard 2.5-inch form factor, which is the same size as a typical laptop HDD. Its slim 7mm profile ensures it will fit in virtually any laptop or desktop PC drive bay. For ultra-slim notebooks or modern motherboards, you might consider an M.2 form factor, but for upgrading older machines, the 2.5-inch SATA drive is the universal standard.
• Capacity/Performance: Capacity is your first major decision. 120GB is enough for a Windows or macOS installation plus a handful of essential applications, making it an ideal “boot drive.” Performance is defined by read/write speeds, but also by the presence of a DRAM cache. DRAM-less SSDs, like this one, are cheaper but can slow down during long, continuous write operations. For light use, this is rarely an issue, but it’s a critical distinction from more expensive models.
• Materials & Durability: SSDs have no moving parts, making them inherently more durable and resistant to shock and vibration than HDDs. The casing is typically lightweight plastic or thin metal, designed more for protection and heat dissipation than ruggedness. The critical component is the NAND flash memory inside; its lifespan is measured in Terabytes Written (TBW). While manufacturers don’t always publish this for budget drives, features like wear-leveling are included to extend the drive’s life significantly.
• Ease of Use & Maintenance: Installation is straightforward: you connect a SATA power and a SATA data cable. The most involved part is migrating your operating system, which can be done with free cloning software. Once installed, SSDs are maintenance-free. They don’t require defragmentation like HDDs, and modern operating systems handle TRIM commands automatically to maintain optimal performance over time.

Keeping these factors in mind, the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD stands out in several areas, particularly for its target audience. You can explore its detailed specifications and current pricing here.

While the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD is an excellent choice for a budget-focused upgrade, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:

First Impressions: Spartan and Purpose-Built

Unboxing the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD is a no-frills affair, and that’s exactly what we expect at this price point. The packaging is simple, containing just the drive itself encased in a protective plastic shell. There are no included SATA cables, screws, or 3.5-inch adapter brackets, so you’ll need to ensure you have those on hand if you’re installing it in a desktop. The drive itself is incredibly lightweight, tipping the scales at a mere 10 grams according to the specs. The black plastic casing feels basic but solid enough, with a simple branded sticker on top. It’s not designed to win beauty contests inside a tempered-glass PC case, but to get the job done efficiently and affordably. Its 7mm height makes it universally compatible with laptops that have upgradeable 2.5-inch drive bays, sliding in perfectly where the old HDD used to be. The initial impression is one of pure utility; every penny of the cost has gone into the flash memory and controller, not into flashy accessories or premium materials, which is the right priority for a product like this.

Deep Dive: Performance, Pitfalls, and Price

A spec sheet only tells part of the story. To truly understand the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD, we installed it in a five-year-old Dell Inspiron laptop that had become almost unusable. This is the drive’s natural habitat, and its performance must be judged within that context. We cloned the existing Windows 10 installation, a process that, while not part of the drive’s function, is the first hurdle for any upgrader. Once completed, we began our evaluation, focusing on the real-world impact and the technical trade-offs made to achieve its rock-bottom price.

The Upgrade Experience: From Slug to Sprinter

The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Before the upgrade, the laptop took a staggering 2 minutes and 45 seconds to boot to a usable desktop. After installing the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD, that time plummeted to just 28 seconds. This is the “wow” factor that sells SSDs, and this drive delivers it in spades. It’s not just about boot times; the entire system felt reborn. Opening Chrome, loading Microsoft Word, and even just navigating the file explorer was instantaneous. The frustrating lag and constant hard drive churning were completely gone, replaced by a quiet, snappy responsiveness. This aligns perfectly with the experiences of many users who praise the drive for “reviving an old laptop” or being “perfect for refurbishing old laptops.” It proves that for general computing tasks, the processor is rarely the bottleneck—it’s almost always the storage. Physical installation was a breeze due to its standard size and lightweight build. For anyone hesitating to upgrade an old machine, this drive represents the lowest-cost, highest-impact improvement possible. It single-handedly turns an e-waste candidate into a perfectly capable machine for school, work, or daily browsing.

Real-World Performance: The DRAM-less Dilemma

This is where an expert eye is needed. The Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD is a DRAM-less drive. In simple terms, it lacks a dedicated stick of fast RAM to map where data is stored. Instead, it uses a small portion of the main flash memory (an SLC cache) to accelerate initial writes and a tiny bit of your system’s RAM. For everyday tasks—launching an app, saving a document, browsing the web—this works beautifully. The drive feels incredibly fast, with burst read and write speeds that can, as some users noted, approach the limits of the SATA III interface. Our own benchmark tests with CrystalDiskMark showed sequential read speeds hovering around 440 MB/s and writes around 315 MB/s, which, while not hitting the absolute maximum advertised speeds, is still a stratospheric leap from an HDD’s 80-100 MB/s.

However, the compromises of the DRAM-less design become apparent under heavy, sustained workloads. This was confirmed in our testing and echoed by more technical user reviews. When we tried to transfer a large 20GB video file to the drive, we saw the issue firsthand. The first 10-12GB transferred at a respectable speed, but once the SLC cache was exhausted, the write speed plummeted dramatically, dropping to HDD-like levels of around 50-60 MB/s. As one user aptly put it, the drive is “easily choked with multiple apps launching and Windows Update running” and can perform “almost like a hard drive when stressed.” This is the critical trade-off. For its intended purpose—an OS boot drive in a light-use machine—you will rarely, if ever, encounter this slowdown. But if you plan to use it for video editing, recording gameplay, or frequently moving massive files, you will hit this performance wall. It’s a fantastic choice for a game storage drive where you write once and read many times, but not for a primary drive in a power user’s workstation. If you understand this limitation, the value proposition is immense, and for those seeking to revitalize an older computer, this drive offers an unbeatable entry point.

Longevity and Reliability: The Quality Control Lottery

Perhaps the most significant concern with any ultra-budget component is its long-term reliability. Patriot Memory equips the Burst Elite with modern SSD features like static and dynamic wear-leveling and bad block management, all designed to maximize the lifespan of the NAND flash cells. In our testing period, which involved multiple OS installations, stress tests, and daily use over several weeks, our review unit performed without a single hiccup. It ran cool, quiet, and consistently.

However, we cannot ignore the chorus of user feedback that points to potential quality control issues. We saw numerous reports of drives being dead on arrival (DOA), failing to be recognized in the BIOS of multiple computers, or dying unexpectedly after just a few months of use. One user detailed a frustrating experience with a drive failing in an iMac after four months, followed by a difficult warranty process. Another was “extremely disappointed” with a DOA unit, calling it an “unreliable product and waste of money.” While it’s important to remember that dissatisfied customers are often the most vocal, the number of such reports suggests that the failure rate may be higher than that of premium brands. This is the gamble of the ultra-budget market. You are paying a very low price, and part of that saving comes from less rigorous quality control. For a mission-critical workstation, we would hesitate to recommend it. But for a secondary PC, a low-stakes revival project, or a non-essential game drive, the low cost of entry might be worth the small risk.

What Other Users Are Saying

Synthesizing feedback from across the web paints a very clear picture of the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD. The overwhelming majority of positive sentiment comes from users who fit the ideal profile: they are upgrading an old, slow machine and are blown away by the performance leap. Phrases like “nice n fast,” “perfect for refurbishing old laptops,” and “out-perform spinning disk any day of the week” are common. One user who put them in nine different machines for refurbishment reported they all “functioned correctly” and were in “perfect condition.” Another successfully revived a 2007 MacBook, praising its fit and “great value.”

On the other side of the coin, the negative feedback is sharply focused on two areas: performance under stress and reliability. The more technically-minded users quickly identify its DRAM-less architecture as the cause for performance drops on large file transfers. The most critical reviews, however, center on reliability. We found several users who received drives that were DOA or failed within months. One detailed their frustration, stating, “Save yourself the headache and avoid this model.” This feedback is crucial as it highlights the primary risk: while you will likely receive a perfectly functional drive that delivers incredible value, there appears to be a non-trivial chance of receiving a faulty unit.

How Does the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD Compare to the Alternatives?

The Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD operates in a fiercely competitive market. While it carves out a niche at the absolute bottom of the price scale, it’s essential to see what you get by spending a bit more or looking at different technologies.

1. addlink A95 Elite 2TB Gaming SSD with Heatsink

Comparing the Patriot Burst Elite to the addlink A95 is like comparing a go-kart to a Formula 1 car. The addlink A95 is a PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 drive, a completely different class of storage. With speeds up to 7,400 MB/s, it’s more than ten times faster than the SATA-limited Patriot drive. It’s designed for hardcore gamers, content creators, and professionals who need the absolute fastest storage for their modern PCs or for expanding PlayStation 5 storage. It also comes with a hefty heatsink and a much higher price tag. This isn’t a competitor; it’s an aspirational upgrade. If your motherboard supports it and your budget allows, the addlink A95 offers a level of performance the Patriot can’t even dream of. But for reviving an old SATA-based laptop, it’s complete overkill and physically incompatible.

2. ORICO 1TB SATA SSD Internal Solid State Drive

The ORICO Y20 is a much more direct competitor, operating within the same 2.5-inch SATA III interface. The primary difference here is capacity and potentially a slightly different controller/NAND configuration. With 1TB of storage, the ORICO drive is aimed at users who want to replace their old HDD entirely without juggling a small boot drive and a secondary storage drive. It’s a great option for users who have a sizable game library or media collection and want everything on one fast drive. While its advertised read speed of 500MB/s is slightly higher than what we tested on the Patriot, the real-world feel for booting and light tasks will be very similar. Someone would choose the ORICO over the Patriot primarily for its massive capacity advantage, making it a one-stop upgrade solution.

3. SP Silicon Power 1TB A55 SSD

The Silicon Power A55 is another strong contender in the budget SATA SSD space and is very similar to the ORICO drive. It also offers a large 1TB capacity and utilizes an SLC Cache to boost performance, a technique common in DRAM-less drives like the Patriot. The A55 has built a reputation for being a reliable, value-oriented drive for system upgrades and bulk solid-state storage. The choice between the Patriot Burst Elite and the SP A55 comes down to capacity needs and price. If you only need a small, inexpensive drive to serve as an OS boot drive to speed up an old PC, the 120GB Patriot is unbeatable on price. If you need a larger, single-drive solution to hold your OS, programs, and files, the 1TB SP A55 offers fantastic value for bulk storage.

Our Final Verdict: A Flawed but Fantastic Budget Champion

After extensive testing and analysis, our verdict on the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD is clear: it is a purpose-built tool that excels at its one specific job. That job is to provide the cheapest possible ticket to the world of solid-state speed for owners of aging, HDD-based computers. In that role, it is an astonishing success. The performance uplift it provides to a slow machine is transformative, making an old computer feel new again for the price of a takeaway dinner.

However, this victory comes with significant caveats. Its DRAM-less architecture means it is not suitable for power users or heavy workloads, and the reports of reliability issues are a genuine concern that cannot be overlooked. We recommend it, but with a condition: buy it for a low-stakes project. Use it to revive a family member’s old laptop, build a light-duty office PC, or as a secondary drive for your game library. For these uses, its incredible price point makes the small reliability risk worthwhile. If you’ve decided the Patriot Memory Burst Elite 120GB SSD is the right fit for your budget and needs, you can check its current price and purchase it here.