Verdict and Conclusion

Honestly, this drive blew me away. While it is not the fastest when it comes to huge files it is amazingly fast in small reads/ writes that come in handy on a daily use operating system install.

Sadly I did not test the drive before installing an operating system so benchmarkers are out of luck as far as testing for PCmark.

All of this time I have avoided getting an SSD due to them being too expensive and not reliable enough, but at this moment I would have to say get an SSD if you have not yet.

The price per gigabyte is low enough where it makes a very good option to speed up your operating system.

One of the nice things is that everything FEELS faster with the SSD installed. Programs loading up instantly on my windows install was very nice. Programs that are installed to another drive even loaded up faster than on my previous 10K rpm drive.

While the Pyro is not the cheapest, or the fastest drive out there I have to say it is a very good balance between bang for the buck and flat out performance.

You can never go wrong with a drive that will give you 500mb/s reads/writes depending on what you are doing, and reliability is very good to boot.

Just for kicks I slapped the Pyro into my little Asus netbook and I have to say I was impressed with how much faster it ran even  limited to a SATA II interface. A fast SSD such as the Pyro is a perfect way to jump start a slowing netbook or laptop.

Heck, it will even supercharge that top of the line desktop you have since for most people the limiting factor is the speed of your hard drive. The Pyro all but removes that issue and allows you to run everything at full speed.

Pricing is not too bad, around $200 without any sort of discount for the 120GB version. WIth a bit of luck, and looking around they can be found for around $150-160 which is a great deal for an awesome drive like this. In my opinion the 120GB version is a great compromise between being too expensive and large (240GB) and being too small (60GB) for anything other than the OS and a couple basic programs.

Do keep in mind though that the drive does slow down the more you fill it, so keeping it mostly empty will make things run the fastest.

Pros:

• Super fast with small files
• Not too expensive
• Good 3-year warranty

Cons:

• Not the cheapest drive out there
• Could be a bit faster when it comes to large files

Overall, I would say that if you do not currently have an SSD the Pyro 120GB is an excellent choice to get your feet wet. It is a huge boost in performance compared to a mechanical hard drive, yet does not break the bank unless you want to get the largest capacity available.

SCORE

9.3/10

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