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The Viper VP4300 Lite is a reasonable budget drive but the QLC at 4TB leaves us with some concerns. It’s a worthwhile secondary drive when priced right, but the competition already leverages the same controller and capacity with TLC NAND.
Reasons to buy
+
Single-sided 4TB SSD
+
Low pricing at all capacities
+
Runs very cool and efficient
Reasons to avoid
-
4TB model uses QLC flash
-
Similar price to competing 4TB TLC drives
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The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite just about has it all, on paper, taking on the best SSDs. It offers up to 4TB of single-sided goodness capable of over 7 GB/s of performance, and it's inexpensive on top of all that. It matches its rival and our best budget SSD, the Teamgroup MP44, on almost all marks, and promises to run just as efficiently and cooler if anything. All that sounds great, but there's one big caveat: The 4TB Viper VP4300 Lite uses QLC flash, albeit the newest available on the market.
This is reminiscent of the HP FX700, a drive that pleasantly surprised us. Unlike the FX700, the VP4300 Lite 4TB is actually readily available on Amazon for $234 and it’s pretty compelling. It launched with TLC flash, like its competitors the Addlink A93 and Lexar NM790, but our review sample arrived with QLC NAND instead. The drive holds its own where it matters and does so with excellent efficiency and low heat output. That makes it a winner for laptops, HTPCs, the PS5, some portable gaming systems like the Asus ROG Ally X, and as a secondary or gaming drive for desktop PCs. But the switch from the original TLC to QLC NAND still disappoints.
Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite Specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Product
500GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
Pricing
$46.99
$64.99
$109.99
$239.99
Form Factor
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol
x4 PCIe 4.0 | NVMe 2.0
x4 PCIe 4.0 | NVMe 2.0
x4 PCIe 4.0 | NVMe 2.0
x4 PCIe 4.0 | NVMe 2.0
Controller
Maxio MAP1602
Maxio MAP1602
Maxio MAP1602
Maxio MAP1602
DRAM
No (HMB)
No (HMB)
No (HMB)
No (HMB)
Flash Memory
232-Layer YMTC TLC
232-Layer YMTC TLC
232-Layer YMTC TLC
232-Layer YMTC QLC
Sequential Read
7,000 MB/s
7,400 MB/s
7,400 MB/s
7,400 MB/s
Sequential Write
4,000 MB/s
6,400 MB/s
6,400 MB/s
6,000 MB/s
Random Read
1000K IOPs
1000K IOPs
1000K IOPs
900K IOPS
Random Write
700K IOPS
700K IOPS
700K IOPS
700K IOPS
Security
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Endurance (TBW)
400TB
800TB
1,600TB
2,000TB
Part Number
VP4300L500GM28H
VP4300L1TBM28H
VP4300L2TBM28H
VP4300L4TBM28H
Warranty
5-Year
5-Year
5-Year
5-Year
The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite, from here on out known as the VP4300 Lite, is available at 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. At the moment these are going for $46.99, $64.99, $109.99, and $239.99. Assuming the non-4TB SKUs are still TLC-based, this pricing is pretty good. It would probably be the best value for all three of the lower capacities, beating out the Teamgroup MP44, its primary budget rival.
However, at 4TB with QLC flash, the VP4300 Lite doesn’t edge out the MP44 and the Lexar NM790 is close enough to make it the better pick. Those two competitors are likely still TLC-based as both manufacturers have models with the same controller but with QLC flash — the Teamgroup MP44Q and the Lexar NQ790, respectively. We've seen similar concerns with previous SSDs, where companies switch from TLC to QLC NAND without changing the model name. It's a terrible practice as it muddies the waters and potential buyers can't know for certain which drive they're getting.
The VP4300 Lite is rated for up to 7,400 / 6,400 MB/s for sequential reads and writes and up to 1,000K / 700K random read and write IOPS. The 4TB model takes a small hit to write performance in both categories, an expected side effect of using QLC flash. Patriot might have left open the door to this possibility at launch, given the NM790 and Addlink A93 are rated higher.
The drive comes with a five-year warranty and 800TB of writes per TB capacity, except for the 4TB SKU that has 2,000 TBW (500TB per TB of capacity). This also points to Patriot leaving open the door to a flash switch as the NM790, MP44, and A93 are all warrantied for 3,000TB at this capacity.
Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite Software and Accessories
Patriot doesn’t have much in the way of software downloads for this drive. It does have a product sheet and a PS5 compatibility list, but neither of these are particularly useful. Firmware updates are available for the 1TB and 2TB models and fix temperature sensor readings. Drives sold today should have updated firmware for the most part, though, and the 500GB and 4TB SKUs do not require this fix.
The VP4300 Lite has a basic heat spreading label and a sticker on the back with drive information. This drive is single-sided, which potentially makes it a better choice than double-sided SSDs for use in laptops and the PS5. It can be easier to cool a drive like this and we do recommend a heatsink if you can manage it, in the PS5 or a desktop computer, as the controller is known to act as a hotspot. That said, as we address in the Power Consumption and Temperature section on the next page, this drive runs surprisingly cool, in part due to its use of QLC flash.
We’re familiar with this layout — an SSD controller, four NAND packages to keep the drive single-sided, power management circuitry, and no external DRAM. As mentioned previously, the controller can get a little hot in operation due to its small size and the lack of a metal-based IHS. It’s not likely to overheat but spreading the heat to the NAND packages would probably be a win-win scenario.
Taking a look at the controller, we have the Maxio MAP1602, in this case the MAP1602A-F3C U. This is a variation of the base MAP1602 that can be NVMe 2.0 compliant — not a big deal for a consumer SSD — and also handle 4TB of flash. Normally, the controller is made to handle up to four dies for each of its four channels, for a total of sixteen, and with dense 1Tb dies that gets it to 2TB. Allowing for eight dies a channel pushes the limit to 4TB, and with the Lexar NM790 and Addlink A93 we’ve seen that put to good use.
The VP4300 Lite then deviates from those SSDs by using QLC rather than TLC flash. This makes it closer to the HP FX700, which we deemed a halfway decent drive. YMTC’s 232-Layer QLC flash is relatively fast and very efficient. This makes it ideal for larger-capacity drives sold at a discount — great especially for a secondary or game drive. We’ve covered this flash before in the linked FX700 review, but the main point is that it uses a four-plane design — unlike the six- or hexa-plane design of the 1Tb/die TLC flash — which suggests optimizations for general performance over raw density or throughput.
That said, drives will vary not only in the flash used but also the controller. Given the performance specifications of the VP4300 Lite, a side-grade controller like the Phison E27T is a possible substitution. This is more likely to be the case at lower capacities, that is 2TB and below. If so, the drive might move from the launch YMTC 232-Layer TLC flash to Kioxia’s 162-Layer BiCS6 TLC flash, which is comparable in practice. Performance would be similar to the Corsair MP600 Elite, Inland TN470, Sabrent’s new Rocket 4, or in M.2 2230 form factor the Corsair MP600 Mini revision. This would not be a bad change in comparison to the launch hardware and should not be considered a downgrade.
100,000
10,000
3,000
1,000
Program/erase cycles per cell. Samsung pro ssds were at the sweet spot. Cost a little more but with 2 bit MLC they had endurance way beyond any realistic needs.
TLC is tolerable, as the most common implementation it has been proven to work.
QLC is an abomination half the life of TLC, not that much cheaper I wouldn’t touch with a long stick.
100,000
10,000
3,000
1,000
Program/erase cycles per cell. Samsung pro ssds were at the sweet spot. Cost a little more but with 2 bit MLC they had endurance way beyond any realistic needs.
TLC is tolerable, as the most common implementation it has been proven to work.
QLC is an abomination half the life of TLC, not that much cheaper I wouldn’t touch with a long stick.
"Half the life of TLC" may be correct (one third the endurance, if we're being precise), but in reality most people aren't writing all that much data to their drives. I have a 2TB SSD from mid-2015. So, it's now nine years old and I've used it basically that whole time, reading and writing various data files to it on a regular basis. (I put videos on it and then erase them when I'm done watching.)
Do you know how much data I've written to the drive in nine years? According to SMART: 162TB. Entertainingly, the drive is only rated for 300 TBW (different era, different NAND, different wear leveling algorithms), but I'm barely over half that right now.
And I'm sure I'll stop using the drive in the coming years because it is getting to be somewhat sluggish. It's fine for doing 1Gb Ethernet transfers, but not so great if I'm copying a big file from it. Nine years is a LONG time for PC hardware these days, especially storage.
I'm not saying I love QLC, mind you, but the endurance is the least of my worries. There are certainly people that are using their storage in such a way that the writes will be much higher than what I do, but if that's the case they already know they need something with higher endurance. I'm at the point now where the chance of a drive failing due to writing too much data is far lower than the chance that the drive fails from some other hardware error. My power on hours for the 2TB drive is currently 57,145... that means the SSD has been powered on for 6.5 years (out of about 9 years total — this is my main PC that I almost never put to sleep).
There was an experiment in about 2016/17, basically how much can be written to a drive..
Techreport conducted it
“We have lots of data to write to this initial batch of drives, so it’s time to stop talking and start testing. We’ve outlined our plans, configured our test rigs, and taken our initial SMART readings. Let the onslaught of writes begin! We’ll see you in 22TB.
Update: The 22TB results are in. So far, so good.
Update: After 200TB, we’re starting to see the first signs of weakness.
Update: The drives have passed the 300TB mark, and we’ve added an unpowered retention test to see how well they retain data when unplugged.
Update: Our subjects have crossed the half-petabyte threshold, and they’re still going strong.
Update: All is well after 600TB of writes—and after a longer-term data retention test.
Update: We’ve now written one petabyte of data, and half the drives are dead.
Update: The SSDs are now up to 1.5PB—or two of them are, anyway. The last 500TB claimed another victim.
Update: The experiment has reached two freaking petabytes of writes. Amazingly, our remaining survivors are still standing.
Update: They’re all dead! Read the experiment’s final chapter right here.”
SSDs can be incredibly resilient .. I just don’t trust QLC.
100,000
10,000
3,000
1,000
Program/erase cycles per cell. Samsung pro ssds were at the sweet spot. Cost a little more but with 2 bit MLC they had endurance way beyond any realistic needs.
TLC is tolerable, as the most common implementation it has been proven to work.
QLC is an abomination half the life of TLC, not that much cheaper I wouldn’t touch with a long stick.
I'm still using an Intel 660p purchased in 2018 with no issues at all. That drive has been written to and erased quite a bit. Username checks out.
I’m still using a 2015 Samsung 850 pro. It runs out of warranty next year.
LOL, what's funny is that the 2TB drive I referenced is also an 850 Pro... I just totally forgot that it had a 10-year warranty, which is sort of silly. Sure, it's fast enough as far as SATA drives go, but it pales in comparison to even a modest PCIe 3.0 M.2 drive. Most of the time, it just sits around as a data drive where all of my downloads end up.
